I am not attempting to rewrite the thought on branding. The title is to get you thinking as a real estate agent (or any business) that before you sell your services as a professional in your area, you have to sell your website. And your website will be open to public opinion and branding. The fact is, we live in a whole new world that is constantly changing, and the old fashion school of thought concerning “branding” needs some serious upgrading when it comes to the initial approach. It is ultimately you, me and the rest of the populace that defines both the website and personal brand; who you are, what you do and how you are perceived. And remember this. Not necessarily just “you” as an agent, but your website, set of search tools, targeted information, etc.

This is a harsh thought though, especially if the tide can go in the wrong direction. So, it is important to understand that in the beginning stages of your marketing, you need to not only tell people who, what, where you are, but give them the resources to be able to come to this conclusion on their own.

This holds true for the real estate agents and brokers who are looking to establish a solid position in their communities as specialists in a type of “Property Niche”. And once again, not necessarily the agent, but the website(s).

An agent can have several highly targeted websites that serve different types of buyers. And if these sites serve up the exact information the potential buyers seek and answers their questions, you are establish some ground and establishing something I call Label Hooks. In this instance, positive. For every mental impression I create in my mind about your website, I am creating a mental “label” of you, your services, and expectations. If not positive, I am going elsewhere to search.

For example, if I were looking for a Golf Home in Destin, FL, searched for this in Google and found a site that gave me everything I needed about the golf courses, the country clubs, tournaments, etc., as well as detailed information about the real estate, I would be sold on the website. I would return when I was ready to go over options with my wife, I would email to friends and family, and so on.

The point is that you planted a “Label Hook” and scored valuable points with me. Eventually I will come to a conclusion of who you are and how I can benefit from your services.

So, to continue. All positive (hopefully not negative) “Label Hooks” gives me a more solid impression of you. I call this your Individual Brand with me. It is what I perceive you to be, how knowledgeable you are about the golf communities, and what I come to expect from you as a professional. Continue this service all the way through my purchase, and I am going to share my “Individual Brand” of you on-line via Facebook, chats, recommendations, and referrals.

So in conclusion, rather than selling yourself up front (just another agent), build equity by selling your property specialization, dedication to an area or type of community, etc. through your website. Offer the cleanest and easy-to-use search and save features. Ultimately, this is what buyers are seeking. That is why greater than 80% start their search on-line!

• trade name: a name given to a product or service
• a recognizable kind; “there’s a new brand of hero in the movies now”; “what make of car is that?”

In the definition above, brand is something external, something you can point to in the world and identify. Corporations have adopted branding to create unique identities for themselves. They have spent millions of dollars to manufacture perception around a logo or name. But the definition is changing…

Seth Godin defines a brand as the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.

In this day and age, a logo and a name is not enough. Successful branding is now about creating an experience, establishing a narrative, and cultivating a relationship of trust with a consumer that creates loyalty. To take your real estate business from the open house to the Internet, branding your real estate business is an essential step.

In regard to website design, this idea resonates with a previous article I wrote which stressed the need to design websites for users. Delivering a satisfactory user experience is not simply a good way to do business, it is also a foundation of branding.

This translates to the industry of real estate rather well. To set yourself apart as an agent or broker, don’t think the job is done because you have created a logo or successfully established a color scheme that is consistent among all of your marketing materials and website.

Successful branding goes deeper. It reaches to the core of the relationships you establish with your clients, the expectations you set for them, and the story you tell. Concentrate your branding effort on the experience you are providing to your clients and the rest will follow.

If you are brand new you may wonder why all the fuss. There is one main reason. As people begin to notice you they will want to know the person behind the name.

People will want to know if you are a real person. They will want to know who you really are, what you have done and what you know.

In short they want to know if they can trust you and you can help them.

The easiest way to begin to brand yourself online is to set up a profile, with a presentable picture and biography on various websites. You will go on to use many of these, adding content, etc., extensively in your internet marketing.

Website profiles and your content will then appear in the search engine results. When someone searches your name, they will immediately find your profiles and content.

Ten quick and easy ways to brand:

* Search engine profile: Google.com/profiles * Personal blog : WordPress.com or .org * Social media: Twitter.com and Facebook.com * Videos:YouTube.com * Squidoo.com * BetterNetworker.com * LinkedIn.com * Articles: GoArticles.com * Various free press release sites. * Various bookmarking sites for all content.

The possible ways are almost endless but this will help you begin to build your online presence. Your search engine profile will be visible online within a matter of minutes. Website profiles and your content will begin to appear and gradually increase your presence.

Content may be social media messages, blog posts, articles and videos. It only takes one of any of these and you are there.

Continually adding content to these sites will result in a massive “footprint” over time. Additionally, good content will be used by others and spread.

All of the above resources are free. This means free branding, free distribution of your content and free traffic to your blog or website.

One word of caution; what you do online, stays online, so be very careful! Stay positive and keep your quality high.

So now, there’s no reason to remain anonymous. You know how to brand yourself online, ten quick and easy ways.

If you’re lucky, you have a whopping 8 seconds to make your first impression online stick. That’s not 8 minutes mind you, that’s seconds and only if you are lucky. Because you’re website is under the gun to perform, your site needs to already have the elements in place that will persuade a visitor to stay. The following are some tips to help make that happen while looking sharp in the process.

Feature A Professional Eye-Catching Home Page Design

Of course, the best way to make a good first impression is to look like a professional. Your web site’s home page should be top notch and feature current design techniques that are popular and en vogue. Limited use of animation is a great idea to catch a visitor’s eyeballs. I say limited for a reason. It’s very easy to overdo animation on a page. There is no exact formula to help you decide on how much animation to use. Whatever your final editorial decision, be sure that the animation only serves to accent the page or create a more interactive experience.

Too much animation can actually hurt your business. An all flash animated page, while good looking, is unreadable by the search engines and can radically limit the depth to which your web site is indexed for search engine searches, that’s assuming the site gets crawled at all. Too much animation can also cause slower page load times which eat into the precious 20 seconds of time available to hook that visitor. Don’t assume that anyone has the patience to wait for a long page load time just because the design looks good.

Currently, flash animation is the most popular among website designers. CSS, Javascript and Dynamic HTML are also methods of employing animation to serve your home page needs. All of the previously mentioned methods have the potential to really enhance the visitor experience of your home page when used in moderation. When these elements are working properly on a page, they not only attract a visitor’s attention, but they also encourage them to explore further.

Websites have become a marketing staple now for the real estate industry. This is good for realtors because it gives them the opportunity to benefit from the massive amounts of prospects that flock to the Internet on a daily basis. However, the website can also present a challenge for realtors because their competition can be stiff. Every edge you can gain is a feather in your cap, and a prospect’s experience starts with a strong home page.

Be sure to use a professional company or consultant for your website design and hosting. Just because your nephew knows how to surf the Internet better than you do, and does more with his computer than check email, doesn’t make him an Internet professional. This also goes for your neighbor or friend who dabbles in web design. Trust your site design to a company that has a proven track record of serving realtors just like yourself. If you fail to do this, your site will not only look unprofessional, but it will also lack many of the key strategic content elements needed to make it a rousing success for your real estate business.

To really set yourself apart, your web site’s home page should be a reflection of your unique way of doing business. If you have an established brand that you have been using in your offline marketing, then that branding should be integrated into your online marketing as well. If you don’t already have an established brand, then your web site is the perfect place to start one.

A brand is largely understood to be a distinctive product, service or concept that sets you apart from your competition. As a realtor, your product is your service so it would benefit you to really identify how your service is different and establish a branded solution on that basis. Develop a strategy for expressing this difference in service that includes choosing distinct colors and features for your business.

The ultimate goal is to create a synergy between your offline and online marketing. Ideally, a prospect’s marketing experience should be consistent and similar, whether they are viewing an open house flyer or your home page. If successful, your branding will not only raise awareness about your real estate services and make them more recognizable, but it will also make your prospects more comfortable and trust you enough to take the next step.

Give Visitors What They Want, Quickly and Easily

Navigation is a crucial element of web design. You can have the most beautiful home page in the world, but if your visitors can’t find what they want and figure out where to go, then your 8 seconds of opportunity to hook them will be for naught. Being a realtor, the most important service or feature you can provide on your website is the property search. We will go into more detail on what makes a good property search in a later lesson. Let it be enough for our purposes in this lesson to know that the property search is the primary reason visitors will be taking the time to seek you out.

Knowing that bit of information obviously makes it key for you to feature the property search prominently on your home page. There are marketing studies like Eyetrack III that clearly reveal how people read. In a previous eyetracking study by Eyetrack, it was learned that the hot zones for visitor eyeballs are clearly locked into the top left portion of a web page. The diagram to the right is a rough summary of the Eyetrack results. The diagram is based on an ordinary web page’s viewable space broken up into three zones of importance for a visitor viewing the screen. Priority 1 is interpreted to be the most important content with zones 2 and 3 following suit.

If the top left portion of the page is where your clients are looking, then you need to feature the services they want in that spot. Additionally, any other special features or services you offer should find a home in that portion of your home page as well.

So now you know where to place the key features of your home page. You also need to make the other important services and features that you offer easily accessible to your clients. That means that other services, like a free home evaluation form, need to be available on the home page navigation. Don’t bury these items deep in your site hoping a visitor will find them. These services should be plainly visible and accessible. That means they shouldn’t be more than two clicks away from a visitor if you want them to be effective.

Let’s review the major points of what we just discussed above:

• First impressions are everything and this is never more true than in the online world
• Make sure your home page design is impressive enough to get your visitors’ attention and make you look like a pro
• Brand your website to reflect your unique way of doing business
• Give visitors what they want as quickly and easily as possible
• Put what visitors want in the hot zones of your home page where they will be looking for them

You keep the five main points above in mind when crafting your website design and your visitors will thank you with added business and positive word of mouth.

Keep a sharp eye out for the next lesson. In that lesson, we will get more technical and talk about the most important element of any real estate website.