Whatever you're selling on the Web - if you want to sell more... You need to use the right words! Images don't sell. Graphics don't sell - Your words sell! I give this web copywriting resources a big thumbs up:

http://myws.sitesell.com/WealthNetwork.html

Provide Value To Generate Warm Leads And New Listings:

http://realestate.sitesell.com/WealthNetwork.html

Well... in my opinion, being a geek and broker owner of Advantage Partners (now independent brokerage)... you can neer advertise any listing too much.. you can just do it incorrectly.. the content and value to the reader/exposure you are creating needs to be worth it - and wanted... all the places you jsut mentioned are where one might expect to see the information you are providing - so it is worth it.

How much time did it take you to input all that? How long does it take to put it into the MLS? The question you should be asking yourself is "what is my time worth?"

I've been known to run $500 to list ads - see my pathetic http://www.500tolist.com website for details - but the thing is - it works for me and for those sellers that do not want to list at all, but will pay sites like forsalebyowner.com or others $40 to $300 fairly easily, not realizing that those sites only spend money advertising to other sellers - not to the buy population... well at least not proportionally.. so what good does it do to advertis on a site like that... Sellers come to you and me for the MLS... everything else is just bonus... We should, and I firmly believe this, each agent should input his or her own listings into the MLS - and then stop... if you do not have a staff member helping you with the web and tracking leads - you are probablky doing it yourself - which is a much better use of your time... if you advertise one listing to the hilt but spend all your time on that and not on prospecting and followup - you will sell that one listing

(provided it is priced right) and then you will be flat on your face with nothing going on...

Advertise everywhere you can - keep adding places and resources as a benefit to listing with you - but YOU do not do it yourself... hire someone... Most realty assitants get paid next to nothing and now with the world of the internet you can hire "Virtual Assistants" - yeah for pennies... be careful of Mr. Internet and some of the folks out there that started as being "helpful tipsters" as most of them have realized that they can get paid for some of this.. and have setup services that may or may not be the best... just do your research before hiring a virtual assistant or a real live human to sit in your office...

Can you imagine, even at $500 for a listing, we still manage to be able to employ several agents and staff... Our agents and I do the job of the licensed person - we prospect and we sell.. we try real hard not to spend too much time creating marketing pieces and sending out listings to every corner of the earth... we have hourly and per-listing fee people do that... people who are probably a lot faster than you or I...

Hey, jut my opinion - and a well tested one - but if you spend more than a couple hours putting in a listing, you probably spent too much of YOUR time... I have had agents tell me - "but there's nothing else for me to do... " "I can save money by doing it myself" but if there was nothing else to do - then you should be sitting down going back to basics and figuring out a marketing and business plan for yourself - YES an agent business plan... and then DOING IT.. to save say $20-40 per listing (7.50 to 10.00 per hour assistant inputting data to point2 or wherever) and not focusing on driving more business to you and to your company - is not a good use of your time... especially in bigger markets where your hour could COST you several thousand dollar in future income.

I will eventually take my $500 to list nationwide - do you think I will do all the listing services myself? No chance. I hired a full time programmer, setup a graphics design company to keep him and my graphics designer busy when I didnt need them for my own projects - and now I have 2 companies making me money... and have access to top talent to teach and train my $7.50 to $10.00 crew that keeps our listings updated... We are working on other projects that help our community like a community website, and free wireless internet service... We are even looking at radio and tv licenses that might be available here soon...

my feeling - use your time to build your business, not your listing's exposure. Hire someone to do it - yes you need to do it a couple of times to know what your staff members are doing and to help direct them and keep them on task - but look at what a few extra hours a day can do for your business building efforts... for me - it ment starting more and more of my ideas... a webhost (gozippy.com) a domain name registration company (because I got tired of seeing the realtor "partner" companies and past franchise partners ripping us agents off! They charged $35 to several hundred dollars a year for a simple domain) I asked myself WHY so I started Zippynames.com and sell domains for $7 or so.. then I started Zippy WiFi and Zippy Networks. I went independent this year and am branding my own company now. We are able to pay ridiculous splits - upto 95% without the junk fees because of all the tie-ins we have created... why pay oerpriced web guys that demo a dorky site at a trade show? Just hire your own developers and start another company to keep them busy.. (well that is a bit harder than it sounds - and you have to be a geek like me that turned into a realtor as an investor)...

anyhow... when the mind is free to invent - you will see your business grow dramatically by focusing on the efforts that will truly benefit you - and in a round about way - it will be better service to your customers as well as you will have a system in place, and a person to take care of the ads while you take care of your customers and your business...

how much internet advertising is too muc - plain and simple for me - when it takes away from your family time, business development time, prospecting time, educational or spiritual time - it's too much for YOU, but that't not to say that it IS too much... you just need to keep adding more to the list of internet ads, but let someone else do it for you...

yeah taking your hands off is hard for a lot of agents... just trust me and do it.. your production levels will go through the roof!

1: Make a list of the places you advertise online and elsewhere right now...

2: Rank that list - Use criteria like, sites that get the most exposure for the cost (if free, just exposure/ potential for people to see your listing)... remember just people seeing it means nothing. People who see your ad need to be the people who will most likely visit your website to get more details and be someone looking to buy in your area... (or sell)... if you focus your efforts on huge sites that have no local draw - chances are you will not get a lot of return for the time spent on that ad...)... Rank the list from most important to put the listing on to least important... WRITE IT DOWN!!!

3:  Give the list to your assistant - tell him/her it is theur job to ensure each listing is updated to the top 10 places (or top 5) but then when they have free time, after entering all those places for all your listings, they can go back and enter into the rest... DO NOT FORGET ABOUT YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY WEBSITES.. often ads there are free and local traffic is always the best in my opinion!

4: go list another property... repeat

Do not forget to keep up with trends and actually watch your staff putting in data to the various sites from time to time - so you know what changes are made and how much time it takes... as well, watch for additional locations to advertise your listings and services online - add it to your list above and place the new location in that ranking somewhere - do not forget to update it and revise it monthly - after checking all your web stats, and reviewing all the calls that came in from your efforts - I do hope you all are tracking each caller and website visitor to see where they got your number of how they found your website... its just too easy to do...

focus YOUR efforts and your staff efforts on the places that result in more business or buyers to look at your listings... but make sure to have staff busy entering all the time.. if they are done - you have not done your job - keeping them busy by having more listings - so you better get back to work and prospect a little!

-Eric

Broker, Advantage Partners, LLC

Wichita, KS

When it comes to the web, IMHO, there can never be too much.  Get your listings out there anywhere and everywhere you can.  There is a lot of free posting available and the more you are seen, the more likely you will be to become known as the expert in your area.  With close to 90% of buyers starting online, find them where ever they are!!  In 2005, I started asking buyers where they found me and my listing, well, lets say I wasted a whole lot of money on print back then.  Find your best print source, stick with one or two to target area sellers and invest the rest on line.  Let the web work for you!

Happy selling!

Eric, that is a VERY informative post, and I wish you would post it 'stand alone' so it will be more easily locatable.

A lot of times I see great comments and if I don't capture and file it, I go nuts trying to remember which thread it was on.

Eric that was great!!!

Barb:  

I list my properties everywhere I can.  Mls & FMLS just isn't enough these days.  Also wording is so important.  Listing a property at an unrealistic price .... well you know...it is a waste of your time and the seller's.  

I have been very impressed by your posts.  You are a very intelligent woman.  I seriously doubt you are doing anything wrong.  You seem to make all the right moves.

[Gloria sez to Barb: I have been very impressed by your posts.]

ME TOO.

Wow, Eric. I agree with Candice--Stand Alone! Barb, good question. I sometimes wonder if so much duplication is wise.

the part that bugs me is Point 2 does what I want.  the broker comes along and does what I do and now the mls get into the act and I'm paying 3 times for the same syndication which now has the brokers name and not the agent ok

duplication on the money spent!:(

I question if I can do what the broker is doing why pay him.

I think the gap between broker and agent is narrowing due to the internet.  Are large brokerages going to be a thing of the past?

What do you think?  I'm not so sure the "name" is important anymore.

I had someone looking for their old homestead that the family use to own.  They knew who the listing broker was (local guy in bus for years)

Yet they couldn't find him.  they found me!