Scottsdale AZ Homes For Sale

Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category

Tired of feeling like you have to write navigational directions to get someone to see your work?

Wish you could link the words instead, like this?

Well, it’s easier than you think.  Here’s how to link (or hyperlink) words in 5 easy steps.

Step 1) Write the text.

Step 2) Select or “highlight” the words you want to be underlined, or “linked.”   This will become your “anchor text”, which I write about more later in this post.

Step 3) Click the Link button to pop open the “Insert/edit Link” window.  Most of the time, it looks like chain links.  And it usually only becomes “click-able”, or active, after you highlight words.

Step 4) Paste or type in the location of the “target page.”  This is also referred to as the “Link URL”, “URL”, or the “page address.”  (Generally, you can leave the other fields in that dialog set to their default.)

Step 5) Click “Insert” in the Insert/edit link dialog.  And you just made your first hyperlink!

Now isn’t that easy!! 

Bonus Tips

Bonus 1) What if you made a mistake and need to change the URL?  No problem.  The easy way is to highlight your text again, then click the Link button and change the URL (steps 2, 3, and 4).

Bonus 2a) What if you need to change your anchor text to fix a misspelled word?  Just move the cursor (that blinking thingy) where you need to, and start typing.

Bonus 2b) WARNING: This trick is AWESOME!  Let’s say you want to type at the end of the link to extend the anchor text.  The problem is that you can’t put the cursor at the end (outside of the link) and start typing because it won’t be linked.

Instead, put your cursor between the “r” and the “d” in “Card” and start typing.  Booyah!

A great example is if you wanted to change “Card” to “Cards”.  Before it was a PITA.  Now it’s easy!

Bonus 3) The technical aspects of a hyperlink.  This is almost always auto-generated for you, but it’s still very useful information.

1. Tag Elements (open, middle, close)
2. URL
3. Anchor Text

Bonus 4) Everyone wants to rank in 1st position on Google.  There’s millions of opinions on how to do this.  But the technique that literally everyone agrees on is that a link from my website to your website will improve your rank when someone searches on the words I use in my anchor text that points to your site.

Which leads me to this: Don’t ever ever EVER use “click here” as your anchor text.  It’s worthless.

How About a Link?

I know this subject is very, very basic.  But it’s something I had to figure out.  I’m betting I’m not alone.

So if you thought this article was useful, could you practice your new found skill and link to this article?

Thanks, Ashley

Here’s my new business card.  Isn’t it pretty!

Let me walk you through the process of how I designed my unique real estate business card.

Step 1) See What Else Is Out There

First thing I did was to google “business card ideas realtors”.  I browsed around several different sites to get a feel for design ideas and what information realtors were putting on their cards.

There were some templates I liked.  But for the most part, the cards seemed pretty bland and generic.  No thank you!

Step 2) Decide What You Want On The Card

After looking at several designs on several different sites, I knew I wanted to put:

1. A picture of me.
2. My contact info.
3. A catchy tag line.

I also knew that my business card is a very important marketing tool, so I wanted it to be differentiated from the blah templates I was seeing online.  I wanted “classy and fun.”  To me, that means:

1. Using a soft blend of blacks, grays, and whites instead of the typical bright, full color card with white background.
2. Using a black and white “fun” picture of myself instead of a color photo that looked stuffy and “professional.”
3. Blending/bleeding the picture smoothly into the design, instead of a sharp border.
4. Vertical alignment, instead of horizontal.
5. Using round corners and wavy-ish lines in the design.
6. “Minimalism”…*only* the information that was absolutely necessary for the card, instead of crowding the card with my address, etc.

Step 3) Draw a Prototype

I used a niffty prototype building software called Balsamiq to make this mock-up.

Step 4) Find a Printer (Download Their Template)

A friend of mine, Justin Youens, recommended using Overnight Prints since he had good success with them before.  They are good quality, quick turn-around, and cheap.  Perfect for me!

I decided to use Adobe Illustrator to design my real estate business cards.  I found this Adobe Illustrator design template on their site.  It looked like this:

Step 5) Create The Design (Or Outsource it!)

From here, I turned it over to my boyfriend, Patrick, to do the actual the design.  If you don’t know how to use Adobe Illustrator, it can be very daunting.  I know it sure was for me.

There are quite a few good online tutorials for Illustrator.  But if you’re not feeling it and you just want to get the card done, I recommend launching a design project on 99designs.com, where you post the details of what you’re looking for (walk through Steps 1 – 4 and you’ll have exactly what you need) and graphic designers post back numerous completed designs.

You pick the winner — and you only pay the winner.  It’s a brilliant idea and a wonderful resource!

Step 6) Order the Cards + Coupon!

When I placed the order for my cards, I purchased 500 with round corners on premium cardstock for $44.95.  I also bought 25 magnents for $12.95.

Justin reminded me to google overnight print coupons, and I found a code for 10% off.  Sweet!

Shipping and Handling cost $15.99, so the total came to $68.10.  Seems like a good deal to me.  (Btw, the business cards print overnight, but the magnets take 3 days…so I’m still waiting!)

Bonus Tip 1) Tagline

Patrick and I talked about the tagline a lot.  “Fluffy” taglines like “Service with a smile”, or “Because finding your dream home shouldn’t have to be so hard”, or “Home is where the heart is” are completely ineffective.  They say nothing and are completely glossed over.

“Specializing in North Scottsdale real estate” on the other hand is concrete.  It says, “Hello world, this is what I do and where I do it.”

But I’m literally brand new to real estate.  And even though I was a mortgage broker for 6 years and I know that business inside and out, there’s not much of a claim I can make for real estate…yet. 

So we thought, why not use hyperbole and humor?

After all, I love love love to make people laugh!

And any client that chooses me for a listing or purchase is going to have a damn good time, guaranteed.  Thus, the new tagline.

Bonus 2) Tagline Usability Testing

You may have noticed that the prototype had “…since 1938″, but the final had “…since 1838.”  After showing a couple of friends the 1938 version, I noticed most people were skipping right over that.  I figured it’s because most “…since X” statements are 1900s era.  So I cranked it up a notch and changed it to 1838.

This caught people’s eye much better.

Bonus 3) Particle Conflict

A classy looking real estate business with hyperbole in the tag line is sure to make prospects do a double-take.  It creates cognitive dissonance.  And that’s a good thing!  This concept is also referred to as “Particle Conflict.”

Bonus 4) Call To Action

I struggled with whether or not include the “buying ~ selling ~ renting” line.  But I felt like it created a subtle call to action.  And any form of advertising that doesn’t include a call to action is worthless.

Bonus 5) Double-Check With Someone Who Knows

I almost went to print and would have completely forgotten the Federal Fair Housing logo.  Oops!!  Thankfully, I called my broker, Pro-Formance Realty Concepts, and talked to Rudy who reminded me.  Shew!

Always remember to double-check with someone who knows before you go to print. 

Coming Soon

My first post was How To Buy A Domain Name.

The next topics on my mind are:

1. How To Creatively Re-Introduce Yourself To Your Friends and Family List
2. How To Connect ARMLS To Your Website
3. How To Design a Real Estate Wordpress Template (or at least choose a better one…this one is so bleh!)
4. How To Create an Email List using Mailchimp
5. Many more…

Useful Resources

1. Picnik – A really cool, easy to use online photo editing software.
2. Balsamiq – Easy to use prototyping tool
3. OvernightPrints.com
4. Colorcards.com – Ugly real estate business card templates.
5. Zazzle.com – Actually, they do have some pretty snazzy real estate business card templates.

I’m really excited right now!  I just purchased a domain name from BuyDomains.com for $1500.  This domain was listed for $2088, but I called them and negotiated a better price.  Woot!

The reason I purchased this domain is because I want to have a high natural ranking for the keywords “scottsdale az homes for sale”, which should yield quite a bit of traffic once I start getting inbound links.  How did I know?  I plugged in that phrase to Google’s AdWords KeyWord Research Tool (requires a free Google account to use) and it says there are 74,000 searches a month!

Lots of things left to do on my new website though…

1. Write my bio
2. Connect to my MLS account
3. Find a new Wordpress Theme (this one is bleh)
4. Upload some pictures…
5. GET SOME LISTINGS!!