All webmasters and site owners who have been trying to earn from their sites must be aware of a monster called Adsense.
Adsense has presented a new and easy opportunity to earn money from your site. Adsense virtually allows any person who has built a content site or a blog to earn money, just by placing some code on their web pages. Adsense has given the ability to the web masters to concentrate on their sites rather than wasting time on trying to figure out what advertisements to put on their sites.
There are many web masters who make living on Adsense, but there are also many web masters who spend lot of time on figuring out the magic trick to earn from Adsense. Making a good living from Adsense might seem difficult but it is definitely not impossible.
Just placing Adsense code on your site is not enough if you are looking at Adsense as your only source of income. You need to experiment a lot with Adsense formats, placement and choice of keywords.
Whatever topic your site deals with, you should take care to build page around a specific topic. This ensures that the Adsense ads placed on the page, are relevant and useful to the visitors wanting to know more on the topic, and these visitors will eventually end up clicking the Adsense ad.
You should take care when placing your Adsense ads. If you read through Google help on Adsense, you will find the heat maps suggesting the best locations for your adverts. It is a proven fact that, one place the visitors look first on the site is the top left position. Since this is the place that will have the visitor’s attention, it definitely helps to place your Adsense ads there.
You should also consider placing the Adsense ads on high traffic pages. You will be able to identify the most visited pages on your site by looking at the logs or even your Google Analytics account, which provides you page by page details of visitors.
Though the banner and skyscrapers adverts look pretty good on your site, you should try to avoid using those on your site. Such banners are usually ignored by the visitors. Do you recollect clicking on any banner on a site you visited recently?
You should also use the Adsense formats to make sure your Adsense ads blend with your web pages. Google provides you different palettes to try font colors, backgrounds and borders. There is no point in placing an ad on the page which does not blend with your site and will effectively not be clicked by any visitor.
Another important factor ignored by most of the webmasters is the Adsense preview tool. Google provides with an excellent tool to help you preview the ads that appear on your page. This tool allows you to see the sample ads and formats, preview colors on your page, check the destination of the ads and geo targeted locations to see what visitors in other countries will see.
Besides the above mentioned factors, it is also important to have a definite focus on what you want to achieve. No matter how busy you are, you should always spare some time to experiment with the Adsense ads to improve the CTR. Whatever experts say, just following the basics, is really the magic of making more from Adsense.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.
An advertising agency, either online or offline, is meant to make the products it serves notorious among its potential consumers. Advertising is defined as the science of positioning and creating brands and persuading consumers to buy them through messages in mass media. The shoes you wear, the cars you drive, the food you eat and the drinks you consume are all brands. Many even regard advertising as an art, because of its psychological implications.
Advertising is a creative and inclusive field unique in the business world. Advertising agencies are like stores of ideas, and if you want to work with smart, creative, fun people in a business that doesn’t take into consideration race and gender issues, there’s no business quite as satisfying.
At its most basic level advertising, like friendship, is a three-stage process consisting of awareness, trial and repeat. In the first stage, awareness, you hear about a brand. In the second stage, trial, you’re persuaded to buy it and try it. If you like it, you buy it again and again. You’re a repeat customer. Along the way, you find that you and the brand share the same values. You wouldn’t think about using anything else.
A brand is an image, a conception in consumers’ minds. Implicit within the image is a unique promise of value and trust that distinguishes it from its competitors. The job of an advertising agency is to use every tool at its disposal to clothe the brand with substance and endow it with personality and make it a trusted friend.
Consumers also buy things and services that reflect a brand reputation and fit with their own personal values and aspirations. They may develop an emotional relationship with a brand, buying it for the simple reason that they have always bought it, or because it reminds them of their childhood, or because it gives them a taste of the glamour they want in their life.
Good advertisers can tap into this well of emotion. It’s a maxim of advertising when products are similar, the advertising has to rely on the difference in the experience. Advertising attaches value to the product by creating the anticipation of a superior experience. (Just take a look, for instance, at some of the shampoo television ads, which strongly imply that women will be brought to the heights of ecstasy merely by shampooing their hair with the product.)
If the links between customer and brand are properly built, leveraged and translated into an emotionally involving and gratifying experience, an intensely loyal, committed customer will result. Virtually every business follows some variation of the 20/80 rule. Roughly, 20 percent of customers generate 80 percent of sales. Their lifetime value to the brand is significant. The best customers often become brand advocates and recruit new customers.
Direct advertising and agencies information
Advertising agencies.
http://www.advertisingagencydirect.com
More advertising tips and advice
Advertising resources.
http://www.advertisinginspace.com
Before writing the sales copy for your next product, you will have to write a series of ads for the promotion of that product. For example, you might want to promote a new information guide for people who just purchased the Windows Vista software. Here are the main points to consider when you sit down to write ads for your new campaign:
Product Selling Points
1. Write a list of 5 product benefits.
2. Explain in your own words the advantage of owning the product.
3. Write down why your product is different or better than your competition’s product.
4. Write down what need your product will satisfy for the user.
5. List your call to action. Describe exactly why the customer should buy your product now.
Putting It All Together
The reason for listing the answers to numbers 1-4 above is to establish a Unique Selling Position (USP). The USP is the basis for the body of your ad and will determine if you capture the interest of your prospects. Think of your product’s USP as what makes it different and better than your competitor’s product.
Point number 5 is your call to action. This is the line of your ad that will get people to take action and investigate further. This line should clearly tell your prospect what you want them to do next. You will get a higher response rate on your ads if you do this in every ad.
Use This Formula To Write A Good Selling Ad
1. Grab their attention with a hot headline!
2. Keep their interest with a line or two about your USP.
If you are using a short ad format, like Google Adwords, you are limited to a headline and 2 lines of ad description. In a standard ezine ad, you will have more room to make a longer ad. A good rule of thumb is to keep the advertisement simple in nature no matter how much room is allowed for your ad. The eyes of the people on the Internet scan an ad in mere seconds. You never want to clutter the space in your ad with unnecessary words.
3. Build the prospect’s desire to know more about your product. Use one line to tell them why they should own the product. Use one of campaign points 2, 3, or 4 mentioned in the Product Selling Points.
4. On the last line of the ad use a strong call to action.
This formula is taught in business colleges as the AIDA method of ad writing. To sum up the parts of the AIDA formula, you first you get the prospect’s Attention with a good headline, then develop their Interest in the product, next you give them a reason to Desire the product and then ask them to take a specific Action that leads to the sale.
With practice you can write advertisements that lead to a very high response rate. This will help stretch your advertising budget and increase your ROI. With this simple system in your hands you can now create ads that will bring you the most business for the least cost.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business.
One of the easiest ways of having a home business online, is through affiliate marketing. There are several companies with an online presence that are constantly looking for ways to get their name out and advertising can be effective as well as expensive. Companies are willing to spend money on advertising and are even more willing to spend that money on advertising that has proven to work. An advertisement in traditional sources such as newspaper, radio, television and on the internet can be expensive.
It is a cost that the advertiser hopes to recoup through increased sales of their merchandise or services. They are going to pay for the advertising space regardless of the return, even if they realize no sales from that ad. The only one benefiting from this process is the advertising venue. With affiliate marketing, you are telling them that you will place their ad on your website and only charge them if they make a sale.
The company designs the ad, you place it on your website and if a customer clicks on the ad and buys from them, you get paid the previously agreed upon commission. The company has an increase in sales, you get paid a commission for posting their ad. Everyone wins with affiliate marketing. However, how do you get people to your website? Many might ask why they should go through your site to get to another company when the only difference is in you getting the commission.
Marketing your website is the first step and today efforts are moving towards internet blogs to get people interested in what you or others have to say. A blog can attract visitors with the same interests as you and need a place in which to voice their opinion. Placing affiliate ads on your blog can increase awareness of those websites and if they pertain to information on your blog, can turn some of your visitors into customers.
There are several sites online which are basically portals to what they call shopping malls. A site that is nothing more than affiliate advertising where customers visit and can find what they are looking for, all under one roof, so to speak. Web surfers will take the time to seek out what they are looking for but there are many that prefer one place in which to find all their favorite stores.
In order to make serious money from affiliate marketing you have two choices. One is to become affiliated with very successful companies, which offer a high commission structure, or be come affiliated with several companies. Depending on the type of website and the amount of traffic you receive, will determine in which direction you should go in order to maximize your potential.
Obinna Heche. Los Angeles - California
Delivering the best home based business ideas and
opportunities so you can work at home successfully..
http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365
Imagine you were an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. On a clear day you look to the earth below at the exact moment your celestial home zips over Manhattan. As you gaze down at the New York City borough, you are stunned by what you see: an enormous sign covering about 75 percent of the landmass of the borough reading “Come Home Soon! We Miss You.”
This out of this world scenario is exactly what would happen if it were magically possible to position the viewable area of all the flat panel displays produced in 2006 next to each other over the landmass of Manhattan. Incredibly, that translates into 16.8 square miles!
The figure, part of the DisplaySearch’s Q4′06 issue of its “Quarterly Worldwide FPD Report,” underscores how dominant flat panel displays are becoming. According to DisplaySearch, the number of flat panel displays shipped was expected to rise 6 percent to 3.4 billion. (Remember, there are a lot of laptops, cell phones and other handheld devices that use LCD flat panel displays.)
The report estimates that flat panel TVs accounted for 33 percent of all televisions sold in 2006. In this country, with the government mandate forcing set makers to include DTV tuners in their sets kicking in next month and the introduction of legislation in Congress mandating retailers, broadcasters, and cable and satellite operators take steps to educate consumers about the impending analog switchoff, the demand for flat panel TVs is only likely to accelerate further -especially given the falling price of these flat panel sets.
In 2006, consumers got more display for their dollar, especially when it came to LCD sets. The price of a square meter of LCD display fell 32 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2006, according to the report. Not surprisingly, the amount of LCD viewing area shipped grew 54 percent in the same period. That helped to propel LCD to the lion’s share of the flat panel display market, accounting for nearly 86 percent of all flat panel viewing area shipped, said DisplaySearch.
Plasmas accounted for 8.5 percent of total flat panel display area in the third quarter ‘06. Year over year, total plasma display area shipped grew 56 percent as of Q3 ‘06.
The implications of the DisplaySearch statistics for those wishing to use flat panels to meet their digital signage display requirements are significant. For marketing departments needing to justify the expense of digital signage systems, falling prices should make the task a bit easier.
More importantly from a strategic point of view, the rapid acceptance of flat panel displays by consumers means marketing messages played back on digital signage networks don’t look out of the ordinary. They fit into the video mainstream. To consumers, they look just like television, and after all in today’s world isn’t TV the arbiter of reality?
The downside to the growing presence of flat panel sets in the homes of Americans is that the displays are becoming ever more familiar. Some of the mystique may soon begin to wear off. However, successful digital signage network operators, like their TV counterparts, know that ultimately content is king. As long as digital signage content compels its audience to stop, watch and take a desired action no amount of flat panel familiarity can stand in the way.
Ultimately, it is compelling content on these increasingly ubiquitous flat panels that will help marketers and advertisers using digital signage to influence the public to take the actions they desire. Resulting sales should be out-of-this world.
David Little is a digital signage authority with 20 years of experience helping professionals use technology to expand their marketing messages with alternative media. Visit http://www.keywesttechnology.com and find how you can expand your marketing horizons. For further insight, download my free white paper Why Digital Signage Works.
A new trend in digital signage is emerging that combines the strength of digital signs with the interactivity of digital kiosks. For many areas, such as retail shops, the sum of the two holds greater potential for marketers than either of the individual parts.
Known in some circles as hybrid digital signs and by others as interactive digital signage, these combo systems can capture the attention of those nearby by playing back compelling linear content -for example an enticing commercial or news feed- and immediately switching to an interactive mode when triggered by an external input, such as the touch of a viewer, the mere presence of a passerby or even environmental conditions.
Like a standalone digital sign, a hybrid system allows communicators to playback a pre-built sequence of elements, including video files, graphics, text, animation and live television. Those staples of digital signage are the makings of an effective message that entices interaction with the very flat panel on which the content plays.
Once viewers touch the panel or step within its proximity, the hybrid sign automatically interrupts linear content playback and displays a digital kiosk-like interface that lets a shopper touch hot spots on the screen, launching a pre-built interactive branching presentation. Navigating through the presentation, shoppers can find the information they want like product recommendations, pricing and availability.
Depending upon the level of sophistication needed, such hybrid interactive presentations can link to company’s servers, pulling information needed for the presentation and collecting information about the consumer that can be stored on the server.
For instance, a hybrid system at an automotive retailer could send an inquiry to the store’s server to access a database of recommended filters and oil viscosity specified by each car manufacturer. Matching information the customer entered about his car with the recommendations in the database, the system could check inventory for the right products, retrieve availability and pricing and present the information to the shopper standing at the hybrid sign.
Prior to offering that information, the system could ask the shopper to enter his name and address and to grant permission to be notified of future specials. With that data saved on the server, the retailer’s marketing department can automatically send out coupons for oil and filters when next estimated time for an oil change rolls around.
What enticed the shopper to touch the screen in the first place? Perhaps it was a video playing back in linear digital signage mode of a favorite racecar driver discussing why it’s important to stay current on oil changes.
On the front end of customer interaction, the hybrid system cast a wide net, cycling through a playlist of content designed to sell oil, followed by tires, then batteries, air filters -the list goes on an on. Each linear segment is backed up by an interactive kiosk component that’s triggered when a shopper’s curiosity is piqued by one of these linear presentations and touches the screen. On the back end, the system uses data that’s collected to stay in touch with shoppers once they leave the store, offering special incentives to have them return. In essence, hybrid digital signage can help to extend the marketing reach of a retailer well beyond arm’s length from the display panel and into the homes of shoppers who are willing to interact.
Interactivity doesn’t haven’t to begin with a human touch either. Imagine a hybrid digital signage system in a ski shop at the base of mountain. Skiers donning their boots and gloves might see a digital sign in passing as it plays back linear content; however, their attention might be focused when temperature, wind and solar sensors at the top of the mountain report conditions and trigger specific presentations. Lots of sun could call up reminders about needing sun screen. Heavy snow might trigger another presentation that makes them think twice about leaving the store before having the right gloves or goggles.
The possibilities for interactive, hybrid digital signage are only as limited as the imagination of creative marketers. To be sure, this aspect of the digital signage market is in its infancy. However, with the recent availability of the hardware and software needed to bring together the separate worlds of kiosks and digital signage, hybrid systems will certainly play an important roll in the unfolding digital signage market.
David Little is a digital signage authority with 20 years of experience helping professionals use technology to expand their marketing messages with alternative media. Visit http://www.keywesttechnology.com and find how you can expand your marketing horizons. For further insight, download my free white paper Why Digital Signage Works.
Marketing is an important aspect of any business. Home based businesses are no exception. Here are a few tips on promoting your business.
1. Personalize your business cards with a company logo. Be sure to include email addresses and website URL on the front.
2. If you sell a product, carry several samples with you. Attach a business card to the front. You’ll be prepared the next time someone asks you “What do you do for a living?”. Hand them a sample along with your contact information so they know how to get more.
3.Collect email addresses from everyone. Contact information can be as good as money in the bank.
4. Start a monthly newsletter filled with updates and special promotions for your products and services. Snail mail it and email it out to every address in your database.
5. Learn to write good copy. If you don’t have time to educate yourself, hire an exceptional copy writer to assist you. Good copy makes a difference between booming business and lost sales.
6.Request testimonials from experts in your line of work, then use them to promote your business.
7.Publish your business in every available marketing directory in your area.
8. Word of mouth can make or break a business. Talk up your business when in public and enlist friends and family members to do the same.
9. If you don’t have one already, get a website. Keep it low key, professional, easy to navigate and full of quality content. Don’t overuse graphics and flashy plug ins that slow down the time it takes for your page to load. Spend some time creating a catchy headline or slogan for your business. Now would be the time to use the copy writer again. List your web site with directories like Google , Yahoo and Inktomi. Make sure you read the webmaster’s guidelines and ensure that your website conforms to the search engines terms of service.
10. Get the word out about your business online by joining discussion forums related to your area of business. Post links back to your website and exchange links with other businesses that complement your service. Avoid associating your site with fly-by-night or shady businesses. Only allow your links to be posted on high quality, reputable sites. Only post links on your site to businesses or websites that you have researched thoroughly. This can improve your page ranking and help you move up on the search engine results page.
11.Purchase advertising. While this is more expensive, it gains attention. There are many different options for advertising including online, print, radio, and television. Pick the one that best targets your audience.
Don’t rely solely on one marketing initiative. It takes a campaign to successfully promote your business. Remember PR, marketing and advertising are important business expenses that translated into money in the bank.
Jennifer Lavoie is a home-based business coach. Using Robert Kiyosaki’s teaching, she helping others to build passive income businesses and retire early and free. http://www.retirefree.ws
So what’s the magic formula for making your money multiply in print advertising? For small and medium sized businesses, print advertising feels much like going to Las Vegas and putting money down on the table. And often times, the owner gets burned.
Well, the problem centers on the way you’re going about it. The first step is a realization of what’s going on around you. I suggest that you pull out a phone book and open it up to an area of specialization that is not yours (this will give you a less emotional, more objective perspective). There are typically a minimum of 15-20 competitors in any niche. Next, I suggest putting yourself in the position of a consumer
trying to determine who they should spend their time calling.
As you can plainly see, everyone follows a pretty set formula (which they basically copied from each other). And that is…”here’s our logo, here’s what we do, please decide you want our services and call so we can close the sale”. There’s little that really differentiates one vendor from another. And so, the truth of the matter is that a number of the vendors you’re looking at don’t get good lead traffic from their yellow page ads. And it’s for this reason that you can shine in print advertising.
What would happen if you were to approach it differently and more elegantly for your prospect. What if, instead of ‘let me sell to you right out of the gate’, you would offer them some information they could use. What if you were to give of yourself before the transaction and assisted them immediately? The answer is that the consumer would bust down the door looking for you.
For example, let’s say that you’re a roofing contractor. You could put an ad in the yellow pages that shows the logo, says, “We’re Johnson Roofers.. we specialize in repairs, maintenance, replacement, and planning. Here’s a phone number for our representative. Please go ahead and call.” What if, instead, you were to immediately report called “5 Mistakes to Avoid When Selecting a Roofing Contractor” or “Transform Your House into a Dream Home - 5 Roofing Options to Suit any Budget”?
This technique is called permission marketing where you’re offering information up front in order to get information from them which will enable you to continue to market to them (remember, it takes about 7, 8 and 9 times for them to have contact with you before they’re ready to buy). The technique is applicable for all forms of advertising…newspaper ads, internet ads, direct mailers, etc.
The truth of the matter is that people don’t want to be sold to…the want to buy. And when you approach them in a non-intrusive, friendly, information-sharing way, they will respond positively. Now a lot of owners are frightened using this approach because it’s “unorthodox”. Yes, I suppose it is if you consider “orthodox” to mean ineffective. My suggestion is to use this technique and at least see what it yield.
Scott Campbell owns Impact Marketing, Inc out of Atlanta, GA. He installs a marketing system, called the “Ultimate Marketing System”, into small businesses and practices in the Atlanta, GA area.
Learn more about Impact Marketing and its solutions here at http://www.impactyourcompany.com.
If you want to use music for your website, in multimedia or traditional media productions you need to know about music licensing. Website designers, video makers, TV show producers and all other creative artists are constantly looking for music in their productions.
It’s important to understand what copyright means, how it applies to music, and how you can obtain the rights to use music for your production. Terms such as “royalty-free music” and “synchronization licensing” get tossed around loosely, and this adds to the confusion. Hopefully this mini-tutorial will shed some light on this.
A Tale Of Two Copyrights: Composition And Master
Copyright is intellectual property. If you own the copyright to something, it means, quite simply, that you have the right to decide who can make a copy. Copyright is the right to copy. Obviously it’s more complex than that but we’ll keep it basic for now.
In terms of music, the key thing to understand is that each recording of music actually includes two distinct copyrights:
1. The copyright in the song itself, or the musical composition, or simply the Composition. This means the rights in the words and music of a song, and is often referred to as the ‘Publishing’ rights. Think of an old-school songwriter sitting at a piano, writing music and lyrics to a song. That song exists before it is recorded. Often musicians (especially in electronic music and hip hop) have a hard time grasping this distinction because they write music while they are producing it - sitting at their computer. Copyright is formed when you write a song, by virtue of the fact that it is new and original and takes a graphic form, such as writing down the lyrics or doing a demo. The copyright in this Composition is owned by whoever wrote it.
2. The copyright in a sound recording, also known as the Master. The Master is a Recording of a Composition. The copyright to the Master is owned by whoever produced it. Often this is a record company. To illustrate this, think of a famous song such as “Georgia on my Mind”. Each record company that produces a version of that song owns their own recording (the Master), but the fundamental rights to the composition remain with the original composer, who owns the Composition - the copyright of the song itself.
Synchronization And Master Use Licenses
Normally, since there are two copyrights involved, two licenses need to be issued to make use of a recorded song:
1. Synchronization License: gives you the right to ’synchronize’ the Composition with images or voice-over in your production.
2. Master Use License: this is exactly the same rights as the synchronization license, except it applies to the Master, the actual recorded interpretation of the musical composition.
Since the composer usually owns the Composition and the record company owns the Master, two different negotiations often have to take place, with two different contracts, for a song to be used in a Production. This can lead to complicated and time-consuming negotiations.
If a single company owns or controls the rights to both the Master and the Composition, this is called a One-Stop-Shop. This means that the company can sign both the Synchronization license and the Master Use license, which is less complicated and more attractive from the point of view of a website designer, an audio-visual show producer - or anyone who needs production music.
Most royalty free music libraries are such One-Stop-Shops since they control both the Master and the Compositions of the music on their website. Purchasing royalty free music means that once you have paid the one-time fee, you can use that music as many times as you want for as long as you want without ever having to pay additional money to the licensor.
It does not matter if one visitor or 100,000 visitors come to your website; or if the music is used for 3 months or 3 years - the purchase fee is exactly the same. If a piece of royalty-free music is purchased for use on a TV show, there is only the one-time fee, it doesn’t matter if the show is presented 5 times or 1,000 times. The TV show producer will never have to pay any additional fee for the music. This saves time and considerable expense.
Royalty free music does not mean however that anyone gives up their copyrights or their rights to administer a song. For instance, if you purchase a music license for a film project which goes on TV, the composer can still collect public performance royalties for the TV performance since these are paid by the broadcaster,and not by you the producer. The music may be offered on a royalty free basis but is not copyright free. The music composer and the publisher remain the copyright owners.
We hope this short article helps you understand the basics of music licensing.
Gilles Arbour is one of the partners at www.premiumbeat.com a Royalty Free Music Library. Premium quality affordable production music - 100% Copyright Clear. Music downloads instantly available. Easy simple music licensing.
The Real Estate Market in Europe is changing. This change is driven by two forces outside of the Real Estate industry. The strength of these forces are so strong however, that their impact on the Real Estate Industry is unavoidable. These two forces are technology and consumer pressure. More precisely, the Internet and consumer protection through regulation.
The aim of this report is to consider these two forces and how they affect the way real estate agents conduct business today and how in the future, agents can adjust their working practice to benefit from the changing face of the market.
2.The Internet
i. What Influence it has on the market
Most people have some experience of the internet. Surfing the web now competes with television in terms of number of hours spent each day.
As it applies to a Real Estate business the internet is starting to become more and more important. A website is seen almost as a necessity today, although for reasons I will explain, the effectiveness of over 95% of individual company websites as a means of attracting clients is negligible or completely non-existent. Most traffic these websites receive comes via another form of advertising, be it newspapers, business cards or as a point of reference after initial contact has already been made with a potential client. This said, it is expected that within 5 years, 80% of all property transactions will be initiated through contact via the internet.
ii. Search Engines
How do we find something on the internet? We use a search engine. Whether it is Google, Yahoo, MSN or one of the smaller companies, these digital directories account for over 90% of direct access to websites on the internet by the public.
Type in some ‘keywords or phrases’ and a list will appear of related websites.
When you consider that over 98% of people searching for a topic will not look past the first five pages of results,( typically the top 50 websites), then the importance of your website appearing in these first 5 pages is apparent.
To complicate things further, the ‘keywords or phrases’ used by the public to look for a topic is also as important. If this begins to sound confusing it is further complicated when you begin to examine the criteria used by the search engines to rank your website in your directory. This is not done by hand but by computer programs called web crawlers and the mathematical formulae used, differs substantially from one search engine to another. Suffice to say, this is not a part time hobby for a real estate agent. It is a billion dollar/Euro industry for full time computer professionals.
iii. Individual Company Websites
I mentioned earlier that individual company websites were ineffectual when it came to attracting potential clients. Why is this?
The answer is simple.
They do not appear in the top 50 rankings on search engines. Most are not ranked at all by Google. Those that do get ranked are either not large enough, do not have enough content or are simply not written in code that search engines can read for them to be effective.
The top pages on the search engines are dominated by advertising sites. Designed by computer professional for the sole purpose of generating advertising revenue from agents looking for exposure on the internet.(More about these sites later)
iv. Keywords & Searches
An agent told me recently that his website was 13th ranked on Yahoo for the keywords ‘Property Spain Javea’
For an individual company website this may seem like quite an achievement after all that I have said before.
However, when you discover that this keyword search is used only 2.1 times each day, things begin to look less rosy. Add also the fact that the top twenty keyword search terms for people looking for property on the Costa Blanca, yielded in excess of 2500 searches daily and I think I have made my point.
v. Advertising Websites
So why do these sites dominate the internet search engines?
1. Design
2. Size and content.
3. SEO,(Search Engine optimization).
An individual company website cannot match these sites on all counts and this is why they dominate the top rankings on the search engines. Of course, agents may advertise. The average cost is around 2000 Euros a year. As a portion of an agent’s budget this may not seem excessive. However, the proliferation of these sites combined with their ability to act solely as digital billboards still limits their effectiveness as a tool in creating clients and revenue.
Conclusions
In the next five years, to be successful in the Real Estate industry, internet presence will play a vital role. To reach the top of search engine rankings so as to gain maximum exposure to the potential client base will take more than any one individual company website can deliver.
Is the answer, as has been the case up until now, the advertising website?
No.
The reasons will become clearer after examining the second force affecting change.
4.Consumer Protection & E.U. Regulation
There is a growing call for regulation of the Real Estate Industry from the one group large enough to instigate change. The General Public.
In the UK, the Office of Fair Trading’s commercial arm WHICH is running a hard hitting campaign for tougher regulation. (see http://www.which.net/moveit/index.html.)
In Brussels, the first steps are being taken to lay the groundwork for European-wide reform with the final stages of ratification of Directives to harmonize Contract Law across the European Union.
Anyone working in the industry realizes that change is inevitable. The public who buy and sell Real Estate want accountability and access to means of compensation when they have proof of wrongdoing.
5. The Problems
i. Conflict of Interest
‘A situation when someone has competing professional or personal obligations or financial interest that would make it difficult to fulfill his duties fairly’
Lawyers, Public Official as well as many other professions abide by it. At the very least, it is disclosed to all parties and only when all parties agree to proceed, is it acceptable.
When an agent acts for a vendor and vendee in a property transaction, he has a direct conflict of interest. It is called dual agency and carries restrictions on an agent in his duties and representation to clients, IF, they agree to allow a transaction to proceed under its terms. (This does not occur in European Real Estate practice)
It is undoubtedly the single, most important issue that needs to be addressed in the Real Estate industry before respect is gained by the public for Real Estate Agents as a professional body.
ii. Education & Registration
All professional bodies dealing in transactions with the public of a financial nature need two things.
Registration - The need to identify the party in case of a dispute
Education - The need of the public, that the party that they choose to act for them is qualified to do so.
These two needs are usually covered by some form of legislative regulation.
Once again, the Real Estate industry fails to meet these needs.
6. Conclusions
Some form of regulation is coming. It will probably come in the form of an EU Directive once contract law across the EU has finally been harmonized.
In any event, the main market of clients for Spanish coastal property; the UK, is already being driven towards greater regulation, by those very clients that you are hoping to be attracted to buy in Spain.
They will be increasingly attracted to use those agents that they feel come closest to meeting their need for financial & professional security.
7. The Ideal Solution
In the years ahead, to stay successful in the Real Estate Industry you will need to meet certain criteria.
Technology awareness. You will need an internet presence amongst the top ranked websites on the major search engines.
Paying advertisers to achieve this for you however will not be enough. One dimensional advertising will leave you the same as the rest of the market.
You will also need to show professional competence. Satisfying the clients needs of a professional agent will set you above those who choose the easy path and wait until Government Legislation forces them to change. This may not happen for five years. The need for it by the client, is NOW.
Oh, you will also need to be good at your Job… selling Real Estate!!
Neil Ebsworth is co-founder of AMLAspain.com, a Spanish property MLSportal for the Real Estate industry in Spain.