Real Estate Software & Technology  Newsletter

 This newsletter is provided especially for [[Contact:26]]

    
    August  2004          

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Welcome [[First Name:78]] to the August issue of the Ascendant Australia Real Estate Software and Technology Newsletter which provides you with information for real estate agents and property professionals with respect to IT changes and news.

 

This issue we are going to continue looking at a very hot topic - Google the famous search engine and focus on search engine optimisation. Also in this month's issue we will look in some more depth at some of the specific items that we saw in the USA and how agents are utilising cutting edge technology in practical ways which may be applied here.

 

Next month [[First Name:78]] we look at Tablet PC's and the Wireless Revolution for Real Estate Agents and property professionals which will be the next big thing - watch this space !

 

 

Google and Search Engines - Part 2 Rankings and Advertising

 

The vast majority of Internet users find Web sites using search engines. Some surveys suggest more than 80% of users look first to search engines when looking for a Web site and currently Google alone is around 80% of all searches on the Internet.

 

Most people now use Google as a white pages type search - why do you think Telstra or Sensis ( www.sensis.com.au ) have now released a new search engine with the yellow pages, white pages, justlisted.com.au, trading post etc all into ONE search engine ??

 

Real Estate Listing Sites

 

Now of course established real estate listing sites like, www.eac.com.au, www.realestate.com.au, www.domain.com.au, www.property.com.au etc all have a large element of brand recognition with consumers now and also conduct their own marketing. By placing your listings with these listing aggregators they save most agents the effort of making their listings visible to a wide audience. But that's not all there is to Web visibility especially when most listing sites only work on suburb locality and not style or the way people use common vernacular. Think about this - how do people find an agent or a property using the internet ? Its important to realise its not always the same for all people or for all properties.

 

Visibility in Google and other search engines

In our May 2004 newsletter we asked you to do a search in Google for your own area using your keywords and your own style of real estate e.g. " beachside Capricorn coast" or " real estate Bondi" as test to see if your site is showing on the Google page.

Now there are 2 ways results actually shown in Google when you type in some keywords such as above.

 

1. Free Results - these show on the left of the screen

2. Paid Ads - these show on the right hand panel and sometimes on the left at the top

 

Google shows results based on mainly 2 factors:

 

1. Page Rank - how important Google considers your site

2. Keyword frequency and placement within your site

 

The decision on how to rank a specific site is not made by a human. No one sits down at Google and says, hey, let’s make this site #1. It is all done by computer algorithms designed to evaluate many criteria. Search Engine Optimisation is all about studying how Google works to create a strategy to rank highly in it for your particular keywords.

 

There are books and web pages devoted simply to how to tweak results in Google and other engines as well as how to advertise - larger companies even employ on-line marketing people to run their Google campaigns for them. Many companies even can be made or broken by good or bad rankings in Google!

 

In next months issue we will cover some hints and tips that will help you have your web site listed higher in the major search engines and perhaps even some interesting uses for Google you never thought about before.

 

 

Strategic Technology Advice

 

Many clients are now utilising Ascendant to conduct reviews of their entire office technology systems with a focus on websites, sales databases, wireless phones, email marketing and client management and much more. We have conducted reviews on major IT projects for real estate agents and valuers across the country.

 

Ascendant offer individual one-off assistance or even an ongoing technology consulting program to allow clients to call when they need some help across the broad spectrum of real estate IT. So if you need some independent, tech savvy advice with a real estate flavour why not give us a call before you spend $1000's on what seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

 

Free PDF Creator - Save $100's !

Create PDF documents - for Free! Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world. Normally most people buy Adobe Acrobat to do this but there are actually many options to creating an Acrobat .pdf file and this little gem is FREE!

CutePDF Writer

Cute PDF Writer is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button! FREE for personal and commercial use! No watermarks! No Popup Web Ads!

 

  

 

In this months issue:

  • Google in Real Estate

  • Auto Updating Databases

  • Free PDF Creation Software

 

Search Engine Visibility   !

 

Is this your site is on Google ??

 

 

lonely and in the middle of nowhere ?

 

OR

 

would you prefer more visibility for your site like this this ?

 

 

Visible to passing traffic and seen by 1000's of people is better isn't it ?

 

Ascendant offer Search Engine Optimisation & Google Advertising services for real estate & property.

 

We have been assisting real estate clients with this for some time now and even pioneered the use of Google advertising for individual real estate agents to amazing affect.

 

If you want your web site to be visible to the right consumers at the right time you need some help to sort out how to appear higher in Google and all the search engines that manner - just having your site listed with domain and realestate.com.au is not enough if you want to be different and stand out and be seen !

 

We offer web site audits and can help advise you on the best strategy to increase your exposure and gain more attention. Give us a call on 0500 558 550 or email here to find out how.

 

 

 

 

Have your clients do your work !

 

 

Automatically create mail merge emails and allow your clients to update YOUR database.

 

 

 

Imagine what you can do :

  • Update Buyer Requirements

  • Conduct Surveys

  • Comply ANTI SPAM laws

  • Track RSVP's and much more

Agents in the USA are using this system to track client satisfaction, update needs and much more. Are you at the cutting edge like them ?

 

 

See Propel 2.0 for ACT in Action !

 

Real Estate Software designed, by a former agent and valuer, to save you the effort of changing ACT yourself ! Click here or above to see and hear our new demo and see how you can stand out by using Propel and ACT !