dsNews – Weekly Marketing News, Resources, & Tutorials (N. 01)

Posted on January 20, 2012

I’d like to introduce a new weekly column where we share our favorite marketing and technology related articles, resources and other useful tidbits from the past week to help you market your real estate business.

Most of these tips I find myself while scouring the web for things I think you’ll find useful. I’ll hi-light the best-of-the-best at the end of the week.

If you’d like to submit an article for inclusion, drop me a Tweet. Otherwise, let’s dig in shall we…

P. S. Follow @DiverseSolution on Twitter to grab these links (and more) every week.

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Meta Description Magic: Think Less about SEO & More About Click-Throughs

Though meta-descriptions aren’t considered a ranking factor by Google, they’re still an integral part of SEO because they affect your click-through rate.

The meta-description is what will show up in search engine results below your page title and will tell site visitors in plain english, what your website is about. This post gives you the low-down on how all of that works.

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The 2012 Guide to Google Webmaster Tools – Analytics Integration, +1 Metrics, and More

Most people know they should be using Analytics to track/measure progress. The problem is, most people don’t know how to set it up or what to look for. This post changes that by giving you a step-by-step guide on how to set up Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics for your website. But not only that, it also gives you specific examples on what kind of data to look for, what it means, and how that impacts your business in search.

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Why Every Marketer Now Needs a Google+ Strategy

I remember when people were talking about how “it’s too early for Google+” and all I can say is, who’s laughing now? 

Google+ and “Search Plus Your World” is really changing the game. This video from Rand Fishkin does a phenomenal job of breaking things down in easy to understand terms.

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21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

Want to build a highly visible and highly profitable blog? Create high quality content, consistently.

That’s great advice, sure. But it’s also overly simplistic.

Here’s a great post that outlines some practical steps for increasing your blog traffic that go beyond just writing quality content. (Try implementing even just a handful of these and you’re sure to see results).

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Using Google+ Hangouts to Get More Exposure for Your Google+ Business Page

This post offers some excellent suggestions for how to use Google+ Hangouts to build your profile and audience. It’s no doubt marketers need to start thinking of ways to get creative with Google+, and well, this post’s got you covered.

What I’d love to see is some solid examples of Real Estate Agents using Google+ to build their profile this way. So far, the only company I can think of that’s using “hangouts” at all is the Corcoran Group.

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5 Reasons To Enable Your Facebook “Subscribe” Option

Social Media Marketing Leader Mari Smith offers some compelling reasons for making your Facebook Profile public and enabling the “subscribe” feature on your Facebook Timeline. She’s up to a whopping 106,000 subscribers and averaging 1,000+ new subscribers per day.

Now if only we could average 1,000+ email subscribers per day, then we’re talkin’!

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Free Facebook Cards from Moo.com (for a limited time)

I haven’t ordered any of these myself. Partly because I’m not even sure what to use as my timeline cover photo (I must have switched it 10 times by now). Still, they’re free and they’re pretty darn sweet. Perfect cards to hand out at your next networking event.

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Advice from America’s “Top Real Estate Photographer”

Let’s face it, how often do you see a property listing photo and think to yourself, “eww, did they really publish that?”

Stop taking bad photos, and learn to take better one’s with these tips from Dave Rezendes of Honolulu. Personally, I don’t know who this guy is, but he has the honor of being voted “Top Real Estate Photographer” of the year by the Photography for Real Estate (PFRE) organization (so I’m guessing he really knows what he’s talking about).

What did you miss this week on the Diverse Solutions blog?

That’s it from me. Watcha got for me, internet?