Out-sourcing the little things: Worth it?

Should you really be paying somebody to blog for you? How about posting your ads to local classifieds websites? If you have read any of the previous blog posts, I'm sure that you realize this is basically what we at EZ Posting offer to you as real estate agents. Now, let me make the case for why you should out source little things like posting and blogging.
We all know that finances are tight, particularly for folks that work in the real estate industry, and especially those who are in the Arizona real estate market. But this market is a weeding-out time; when the smoke clears we will be left with only the very best agents, title companies, mortgage brokers, wholesalers, and investors. Essentially this recession will cause the cream to rise to the top.
How will you differentiate yourself? Will you cut back on marketing and shrink your online presence? The best won't. The best will grab bigger market shares, close more deals, and generally out-work the rest of the competition. Will some of it depend on luck? Sure. But like Gary Player once put it: "The harder you work, the luckier you get".
So you know that you want to keep improving your online marketability through a blog or more ads on sites like Craigslist, but you know that doing that will take some time. The question is: How much do you pay yourself? Let's look at an example to see what I mean.
Suppose you want to start blogging. You'll make one original blog post a week about anything related to Arizona real estate. You have to figure out how much time it takes you to completethat post. This means you have to decide on a topic, probably related to something you read recently online or in a paper. So you have maybe 5-10 minutes invested in your post before you ever type anything up. Then you have to write down your thoughts on that topic. Depending on how much you like to write (and how fast you type), that ends up being between 20-30 minutes for the writing. Then you need to log onto your blog, post it, and make sure everything looks pretty; maybe 5 minutes? So your total invested time for that blog post is is anywhere from a half hour to 45 minutes. Not too bad right?
Well what if you could have used that time for your "more important" work instead? At EZ Posting we offer blog packages as low as $5.50 per blog. So now it becomes a simple cost equation. Would you pay yourself $8-$10 dollars an hour? If you would, then keep on using your time to write blogs and post ads for yourself because its worth it to you. If you want to free up your time while improving your online presence, think about contacting us!

Summarizing the "Making a Great Craigslist Ad" Series

Let's go for a recap of our mini-series; a "Sparknotes" version, if you will, of what we've been going over for the last few posts.

1. Frequent Posting: make sure that you are posting and reposting your ads frequently every few days to ensure that your posts will be near the top of searches. Something EZ Posting can do for you!
   
2. Relevant Information: Be sure to make your ad specific. Include price, number of bedrooms, and locatoin so viewers can find your house when they want a specific set of attributes in a property.
   
3. Subtlety of Keywords: be sure to include keywords in your posts, but don't do it in big list all at once! Incorporate the words into parts of your post; it makes you look more professional and gets you results.
   
4. Use Good Pictures: Make sure that you use quality pictures. We talked about how to put those nice large photos into your ads, be sure to do it!
   
5. No Picture Spamming: To go along with using those nice pictures, be sure to give your viewers a reason to contact you. If you barrage people with photos and information, they'll never give you a call and you lose your chance to communicate with potential clients.
   

We at EZ Posting try to improve the ways that you get noticed on Craigslist and Backpage all the time so if you have any thoughts or questions, please contact us at ezposting@gmail.com or visit our website at http://www.ezposting.net/

Making a Great Craigslist Ad (Part 3)

Now that we have covered some of the keys to good content, lets discuss more about making a great looking Craigslist ad. There are several ways to make your ad much more enticing to your viewers while not being over the top in your ad. Real Estate agents in particular are always looking for ways to improve their ad and get better pictures into their post. At EZ Posting we have a few rules that we like to follow to improve our ads and get better results. Rule #1: Good pictures = happier viewers.
First off, a lot of people wonder how some Craigslist ads have HUGE high definition photos that take up the whole screen while their own posts are limited to those low quality, four corner pics seen in most craigslist ad. It took me a long time to figure it out, but now that I know, it's really quite simple.

1. Create a Photobucket account and upload the photos that you want to post in Craigslist
   
2. After you have made your account and uploaded pics, copy the HTML code of one of your images
   
3. Paste that HTML code into the BODY OF YOUR CRAIGSLIST AD. Don't try and paste it into the image section, it won't do anything.
   
4. Repeat the HTML copy/paste process for the rest of your images.
   

You should write the description of whatever you are trying to sell first, then paste the HTML code below that. By pasting this text into the body of your post, Craigslist will "read" the text and convert it into the nice large image that you uploaded to Photobucket. Now you know!
The second rule for a good Craigslist image applies to the amount of pictures that you put in your ad. So, rule #2: Don't "Picture-Spam" your viewers. We want to give our viewers a reason to actually come see the property right? You want to put enough pictures in your ad to make it relevant and informative to your viewer, but you also don't want to overload them with information or visual images. Give them a reason to call you!

At EZ Posting we use a great looking template that shows up as a nice advertisment on Craigslist and a gives you a high-quality professional look. To get more info on our service go to http://www.ezposting.net/!

Making a Great Craigslist Ad (Part 2)

Now that we have discussed some of the keys to making your ads more visible on Craigslist (frequency of posting and relevancy of information) we should talk a little bit more about what kind of keywords you should be using in your postsd. These are the kind of rules that we at EZ Posting follow when creating and posting ads.

First of all, what is the purpose of keywords? Generally we like to add keywords into Craigslist posts because of the way Craigslist's search engine works. If you want more info on how it performs searches, please refer back to Part 1 of this series. What are good types of keywords to use in an ad? Things that identify your property, like location features. Make sure you have any nearby freeways, highways, major streets or landmarks listed somewhere in your ad. Also, to get your ad to show up on different searches, you can include some words that may or may not be applicable to your property. Using these keywords will broaden the ways that your post may be seen. However, it is important to recognize that there is a good way and a bad way to put these kind of keywords in your ad.

A tasteless way of doing it is to place a list of keywords at the end of your property description. Don't do it. For example, if you are advertising a 3/2 house with a large backyard in Gilbert, don't put a list of words at the end of your property description like (pool, sport court, tempe, mesa, apache junction...etc.) It looks unprofessional, as if you're getting paid by the number of times someone clicks on your post. This type of "keyword overload" is extremely popular with spammers, and you DON"T want your ads being associated with spammers.

There is a way to get that same list of words worked into your ad in a clean and professional way. Take the example of the 3/2 in Gilbert. Instead of a plain list, you can work the keywords into your ad in appealing way. "Large backyard gives opportunity for adding a sport court or pool. House is near Tempe border and is close to US 60 for easy access to both Apache Junction and Mesa". See how that gives your reader a better feel for the property and gives you the same keywords in your post? Subtlety of kewords is the newest addition to our list of keys in the "Good Craigslist Ad" series. In the next blog we will be talking more about the image that your ad projects and how to improve it!