Yesterday I had to call ValueWeb to help out a client who needed his domain name pointed to a different server. During my over half an hour on hold (starting out as caller number 44 - the horror!) I was reminded of how important it is to choose a reliable company for domain names and hosting. Here are the companies I use:
Buying Domain Names
Godaddy is where I buy all my domain names. It’s easy to search for them, and at around $10 per year per domain name it’s a good deal. More importantly,they make it easy for you to manage your own domains.
(Yesterday I was calling ValueWeb because we were not able to change the domain settings ourselves, and the request we submitted 4 days previously had not been carried out. This cost me an additional 45 minutes on the phone.) If the domain name had been held by GoDaddy I could have done it myself in about 2 minutes.
Tip: You can often find discount codes for GoDaddy by simply Googling ‘GoDaddy coupon codes’, or if you just click on the graphic above you should get a domain name for $7.49.
Real Estate Website Hosting
I’ve tried a number of different companies, and I really like Hostgator. They’re big, reliable, they have good pricing, and their technical support has always been able to help me without being snarky.
One of the main reasons I choose them? They have phone support! Many hosting companies these days only allow you to submit support tickets by email or online chat. If you’re shopping around for website hosting as a real estate agent, I HIGHLY recommend you go with a service that allows you to also call in, like Hostgator. Unless you’re in the top 5% to 7% of techie agents, you’ll end up wanting this option.
(For the record, I have one website hosted with GoDaddy and have never had a problem with them either.)
Tip: When you’re setting up hosting you’re usually asked if you want Windows or Linux hosting. Linux is usually a good default choice unless you know for sure your site runs on ASP.
And… Hostgator often runs a special via a coupon code shown on their home page.
Looking for a nice way to reconnect with your real estate clients? At this morning’s office meeting I heard from some agents who are popping by their clients’ homes to say hello and drop off a Hot/Cold thermal bag as a gift. These bags keep items hot or cold for up to 3 hours, and are great for summer get-togethers and picnics.
Personally I’d be pleased if someone dropped one of these off on my doorstep - I don’t have any, and they look really handy. You can currently get Hot/Cold thermal bags for just $2.38 each ($119 per case of 50) at the American Bag Company.
If you’ve been in real estate any length of time you know what a pain it can be to have to change the dimensions of a large batch of listing photos so that they’re the right size to use online.
Shrink-O-Matic is a free program that you can download to your computer and use to re-size multiple photos at one time simply by setting a maximum height and width.
Here’s a short video explaining where to get Shrink-O-Matic and how to use it.
Think you need to spend a lot to market yourself effectively online? Think again!
This video shows how one smart agent, Yuno Marioni, is using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Biznik and Active Rain to create a strong online presence. (Without a fancy website, and virtually for free!)
Here’s a short video showing how to search for FHA-approved condominium complexes on the HUD list, with some tips that will help you pull up the correct search results.
The number of U.S. Twitter users more than doubled in March 2009, jumping to 9.3 million users. What’s really interesting is this demographic tidbit reported by the internet measurement firm comScore in the Puget Sound Business Journal:
“…45- to 54-year-olds are the most likely to use the service at 36 percent above the average. They are followed by 25- to 34-year-olds, who are 30 percent more likely.”
In other words, these are your past and current clients, and their first time buyer aged children.
If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s a micro-blogging service that lets you instantly create a free page and post short blurbs of 140 characters or less. This makes it easy to quickly share a link or fact, without having to compose an entire article (like this one.)
Bottom line? Twitter can work well for business because it’s highly functional. Don’t get distracted by the people who feel the need to Tweet every time their dog sneezes, there are plenty of others using it to share useful information about real estate.
Tip: If you often feel like sharing a quick bit of information with your clients but you’re intimidated by the time and energy it takes to blog, you might be surprised - Twitter could be right up your alley.
Just a reminder that if you have condominium buyer clients using FHA financing, the condo building will need to be FHA-approved in order for the loan to go through.
I found a good recent post on how to prevent your Wordpress blog from being hackedover on the Velvet Blues blog. It’s worth taking a look, and/or passing the info on to your web designer if they’re managing a Wordpress blog for you.
Just a note, for the table prefix rename I like a Wordpress plugin by SEO Eggheads that is really easy to use, called, well, the Table Prefix Rename Plugin.
Well I’m happy to say after my outraged post about Google Street Views that it really IS a joke, as was kindly pointed out to me by Kim Brown on Active Rain. Phew!
I could just delete the post, but since I’m always making a big deal about double-checking sources to make sure information is correct before you publish it I’ll just leave it up as a reminder to myself and anyone else to actually do that.
Oops - this WAS a joke, fortunately, as graciously pointed out by the nice people on Active Rain. I left it up as a reminder to always double-check info before you publish!
This morning I ended up on the Diverse Solutions dsListingExpress website and saw something that seriously made me think I was reading a joke - except apparently it’s for real.
Diverse Solutions was explaining how for their new dsListingExpress service they’ve been working with Google on providing Google Street View and Google Interior Views. Here’s how they describe Google Interior View:
They (Google) have been “cataloging photos of property interior views from various sources and associating them with a particular parcel.”
Fine. So far I’m assuming that the interior photos come from previous listings of the properties.
“In some locations they have started to employ companies to discreetly take photos of the interiors without disturbing the occupants.”
Say what? Is it possible that Google, or one of their henchmen, might actually take photos of the interior of my home while I live there, without my knowledge?
Can you see why I thought this was a joke?
Try this:
When you Google “Google Street View” (in quotation marks) you get over 5 million search results.
When you Google “Google Interior View” you currently get 2 (yes, just two) search results. Same for “Google Interior Views”, although they’re different results.
So either no one knows about this yet, or it’s a joke. Please tell me it’s a joke.
Your thoughts? Am I missing something here, or is this as intensely creepy as I think it is?
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I’ve tried a number of different companies, and I really like Hostgator. They’re big, reliable, they have good pricing, and their technical support has always been able to help me without being snarky.
