Mediaboss Marketing

Broker/owners seem to have a love/hate relationship with online internet leads. They often struggle with the feeling of obligation to deliver leads to their agents, and with the high cost to generate leads and the unfortunate management that glean little results.

The lack of success with internet leads is usually based on the real estate agents who should be responding to and nurturing those leads, but instead, complain that internet leads are bad. I assure you, they are not bad. There is no type of online inquiry from a human being looking at properties that is bad. The inquirer may not be ready to pull the trigger at that very moment or they may not have enough for a down payment at this time, but they arent bad. As long as there is intent, it is viable. There are many agents and teams that have wildly successful business models that include internet leads.

I had a front row seat to developing a process to manage internet leads at a corporate level in 2002. That was the year the company I was working for asked me to start up the internet lead management program. I didnt know anything about internet leads, or the online shopper, and I had never managed a call center. Zillow wasnt a thing yet, and there were not any brokers who had figured out how to effectively manage leads.

The consumer was starting to show interest in looking at properties online. Unfortunately, the agents were not showing the same interest in responding to those inquiries.

Fast forward to 14 years later. We had evolved the program to have nine full-time staff working seven days a week facilitating over 50,000 online leads a year in five states. We were earning over $4 million dollars in profit annually in the internet lead department from referral fees and millions more in company dollar retained in each company and paid out to agents in commissions.

I had a hard-working staff leading the program that was creative and unafraid to try new things. If something didnt work, we scrapped it and moved on to the next strategy to improve nurturing and conversion.

The consumer, agent and the lead aggregators have evolved dramatically since 2002. The pandemic has pushed even more consumers online to search for homes. Many have determined that living in a crowded metropolitan area or a small apartment may not be for them any longer.

Virtual tours are here to stay and may shorten the house hunting time by giving the shopper a more real viewing experience and allowing the process of elimination to be virtual, instead of in person, which saves the agent time.

There is a lot more data science, artificial intelligence and algorithms that factor in now, but some things havent changed. Many real estate agents still dont value online leads, so they dont engage the prospect long enough to achieve success. If the inquiry is made on a listing that is no longer available, then the listing agent will often ghost the prospect. Its not just about selling a listing, its about securing a new client. So many buyers being ignored. To have a successful online lead management program as a broker, there are some things that must take place.

Brokerages need to:

Contact people fast, really fastwithin 15 seconds of the inquiry.

Make sure your website is easy to use, engaging and informative so the prospect has a rewarding digital experience.

Seek out your team of eAgents who understand and will patiently court and build rapport with the online shopper for as long as it takes. Offer the listing inquiry to the listing agent, but if they dont accept the lead within the designated time period, route it to an eTeam agent for immediate response.

Have a highly trained staff (in a call center environment) that is tenacious and willing to try new things to move the needle on conversion. If you want to outsource it, make sure you have control on how your leads are managed, scrubbed and distributed.

Get some routing and lead management software, and a call center phone system that all seamlessly integrate.

Actively coach and observe, through management software, the eAgents interactions with theprospect.

When an agent marks a lead dead, dont let it die there. Have your call center reach out to the prospect and reassign it to an eTeam agent if its still viable,

Constantly monitor the performance, through reporting, of the eAgent team and make changes to remove team members who dont meet established metrics.

Dont get hung up on how long an agent has been in the business. Some of the best eAgents are newer to the business. Monitor leads seven days a week with extended service hours24/7 is even better.

Offer easy-to-use marketing tools and scripts for the agents to generate customizable drip campaigns and keep the dialogue and engagement moving forward.

Provide best practices to the eAgent team to share success stories and training tips Communicate with your eAgents regularly and provide report cards and acknowledge successes

Establish a decent SEO budget to ensure your company website shows up in searches

Make sure your website has your call center contact information on every page and a call to action button. Develop partnerships with outside aggregators whose only job is gathering online leads and distributing them out to brokers. Some are now working on referral fee-based models versus per-lead fees. Make your peace with them, they arent going away.

Have a strategic plan and someone at the helm that is motivated to achieve success.

I hear real estate agents talk about lead fatigue. The field is crowded with everyone fighting for the same leads, but ifyou have a solid plan, an easy-to-use website, excellent software and marketing, a strong lead management staff, and an enthusiastic and dedicated eTeam of agents, internet leads can be a very profitable business line for a brokerage and their agents.

Teresa R. Howe, founder of TRH Real Estate and Relocation Consulting, has a 30-year track record of developing and managing highly profitable programs and services for the real estate industry.For a free assessment of what services might be right for your company, contact Howe atteresa@teresahowe.com. For more information, please visitteresahowe.com.

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Brokers: There Is No Such Thing as a Bad Internet Lead - RisMedia.com

In April, the unemployment rate rose by more than 10%, with at least 26 million Americans out of work due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With more time spent at home to stop the spread of the virus, many people are turning to side hustles as a way to make more money in trying times.

Curious how you can earn some cash? Here are some areas where you can find lucrative work that you can do from home, according to experts from freelancer platforms Fiverr and Upwork.

These companies examined their database to see trends and popular gigs that are getting traction while people stay home amid Covid-19.Some of these jobs require special skills or expertise, while others can be done remotely with just a computer and internet connection.

When considering a side hustle, "think about your competitive strategy,"Nancy Van Brunt, director of freelancer and agency success at Upwork, tells CNBC Make It. In other words: What skills do you already have that could be marketable? "Really think about your services as a business," she says.

As more businesses transition online, they're looking to hire people who know how to build an online presence for a brand, a representative for Fiverr tells CNBC Make It.

The side hustles

There are lots of ways you can do this, for example, you can earn anywhere from $75 to $1,045 writing an online article, or $135 to $995 optimizing existing content for SEO, according to Fiverr, which looked at a sampling of what users are earning now in their more than 300 categories.

(Pricing depends how long the project will take to complete and level of expertise, and both Fiverr and Upwork take a percentage of earnings.)

Building a website, which entails writing code for WordPress, can earn you $395 to $4,095, according to Fiverr.

Video editors can charge between $100 and $3,200 to edit everything from social media videos to event footage.

And managing social media accounts for a brand,which includes strategizing, writing and creating posts for platforms like Twitter and YouTube,can earn you $25 an hour on average, according to Upwork.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a 50% increase in registration volume across many categories on Upwork, including technology-related jobs, according to data from the end of March and April.Specifically, there's a demand for web, mobile and software development,says Upwork's Van Brunt.

The side hustles

Mobile app development is one of the highest-paying side hustles on Fiverr, withprojects costing between $300 and $3,000, but this requires knowledge of software engineering and coding.

Graphic designers who focus on UI, or user interface (which basically means designing the way users interact with a product like an app or website via the buttons they click or the text entry fields that use, etc.), can earn $185 to $6,300 on app projects.

Quality assurance testing, which is essentially testing that a piece ofsoftwareor an application does what it says, can earn you $36 an hour on average, per ZipRecruiter. (QA testers typically have a computer science background and knowledge of testing software likeSelenium.)

More consumers are looking for productive ways to spend their time in lockdown, according to Fiverr. If you have internet connection and a computer, you can earn money teaching a variety of skills you already have.

The side hustles

Fiverr introduced new service categories between March 20 and April 3 to cater to people stuck at home during the pandemic, such as crafting, cooking, music, language and fitness lessons. People charge from $5 a class to $100 depending upon how involved the lesson is, and their own experience.

For example, home chefs sell recipes and remote cooking tutorials starting at $5, and as high as $100.

Personal trainers offer virtual training sessions or classes from $15 to $75.

While the pandemic crisis has put many people out of work, clients and freelancers on Upworkare seeing a demand for projects that are specifically related to Covid-19, according to Van Brunt. "There's opportunity to really make an impact by helping companies looking for help on these immediate and urgent needs," she says.

The side hustles

Van Brunt has seen job listings on Upwork for graphic designers who can create new signage for hospitals, software developers who can build apps that track Covid-19 cases,for example.

Graphic design projects like this creating displays, logos or marketing materials cansell for $100 to $3,000 on Fiverr.

To find work that relates to Covid-19, Upwork has added a "Covid-19 Job Feed" for users who are registered with the site and looking for Covid-19 jobs.You may alsowant to search for keywords like, "healthcare industry" or "online educational services," according to Upwork.

Check out: The best credit cards of 2020 could earn you over $1,000 in 5 years

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The most in-demand side hustles you can do from home, according to Fiverr and Upwork - CNBC

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Over the years, link building strategies have evolved and matured.

Long gone are the days of link farms and link exchanges.

Today, link building is about earning links through outreach and high-quality content and less about spammy techniques that try to trick search engines.

Still, link building (or link earning, if you prefer) remains an effective strategy for increasing organic reach and getting discovered.

However, it can also be leveraged to drive traffic as well.

Yet, many brands and marketers still struggle to implement a successful link building strategy.

A decade ago, link building was easy. You tossed a few bucks at a link farming company or set up dozens of your own sites and interlinked them. A few hundred dollars or a few hours of work and your site was rolling in top ranks.

Those were the days, right?

Wrong.

The problem was that link building was too easy.

If link building were still easy, then everyone would be doing it. (And everyone used to.)

Link building today is hard.

But with the right tools and knowledge, you can be one of the few utilizing it to its full potential.

Below youll find 50 different types of links you should be earning for your business or clients, as well as strategies for acquiring them.

Keep in mind, there is no easy way to build links and not every link type will make sense for every type of business. But I am certain you will find at least a few new link strategies to implement.

Since this is a long list, I am unable to go into great detail for each type of link, so whenever possible I have offered additional resources where you can learn more about the specific strategy.

The strategies below are a mix of options for driving ranking and driving traffic.

In general, social, forum-style, and certain PR links dont have direct impact on organic rankings but are great for driving referral traffic.

While .edu links are not inherently more powerful, .edu sites do tend to have high domain authority, making these links valuable.

To earn .edu links, you can allow guest posts from students (ideally those studying your industry) and encourage them to share the post with teachers/classmates.

Consider offering students a discount or ask about an alumni directory at your alma mater.

Much like .edu, .gov sites tend toward high domain authority.

To earn .gov links, focus on how you can help veterans of the armed services.

Offer discounts, training, or scholarships and reach out to your local VA or SBA and notify them of your program.

These carry the same benefits as .gov and .edu links, but are easier to get.

Try sponsoring a charity program, offer your services/products pro bono, or volunteer.

Editorial links happen naturally when you publish high-quality, engaging content.

Build a diverse content marketing plan for the best chance of earning these.

The best way to get links from the press (e.g., newspapers, magazines, radio, TV) is by creating a resource or study that journalists will cite.

You can also use HARO to answer reporters questions, but it can be time-consuming to sort through the twice-daily emails.

This is a good in-depth post about media link building.

Internal links are some of the easiest to build.

If you use WordPress, I recommend a related post plugin to find more internal linking opportunities on your own site.

Complementary businesses have a similar target audience but dont directly compete with you.

To earn links try offering to exchange guest posts, write a review of their product/service, or co-build a marketing campaign.

If you can get competitors to link to you, you know you are doing something right.

Consider creating a job board or do some in-depth, original research thats so valuable they cant help but link to it.

The value of these links lies in the audience, which are people who are highly involved in your industry.

Search for top niche forums in your industry and start engaging.

Offer value first, then share links when it makes sense.

If you dont already have your site added to all your social profiles, go do that now.

A simple step, but it sometimes gets overlooked, particularly because there are just so many social platforms.

Check:

And any others where you maintain a presence.

You want to post new content to your social channels.

But also use a tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule content multiple times to keep driving traffic.

This is separate from other social media links because it requires a very careful approach.

Reddit users particularly dislike being sold to, but it can be done if handled carefully.

Brent Csutoras has written extensively about marketing on Reddit.

Another simple, but overlooked link.

If you havent already, create a company page and add a link to your site.

No, dont go out and get dozens of crappy directory links.

But DO look for legit industry directories.

This is a good source for finding niche directories.

Cant find one for your industry or niche? Create your own.

Think Yelp, Bing, etc.

This is particularly important for local brick-and-mortar stores, but can help online brands, too.

Check out this post for a list of local directories.

If you have the dev skills (or someone on your team does), create a WordPress theme or plugin that others in your industry would find useful.

Alternatively, commission one and white label it.

Write an ebook, then add a link.

Simple stuff, right?

Writing a book can be time-consuming, so consider hiring an editor to help you turn a series of blog posts into a book.

A similar strategy for getting traditional media links, but focus more on your local area.

This is a good resource to get started.

Yep, good old guest blogging.

Find an industry news blog or complementary business blog and pitch a solid, well-written post.

Manual outreach is a numbers game, but it does work.

Look for broken links to pitch resources for, reach out to webmasters when it makes sense, and above all make sure you are offering value.

This video on Moz is a great resource for manual link building.

Dont forget to claim your listing and add your website link.

In many cases, people will see this information before they see your site.

See your brand listed or talked about somewhere? Ask for a link.

Set a Google Alert for brand mentions and reach out when you find someone is talking about your brand.

Branded anchor tags are good, but so are key term anchor tags.

You can literally see real-time sales and conversion data for any website, and which campaigns drove that traffic. Start your free trial today.

Use key term anchor tags internally, and ask for them when you are comfortable doing so.

Is there a topic or process you spent a ton of time researching or perfecting?

Publish a resource or how-to guide for others in the same position.

Think about it if you were looking for a resource theres a good chance other people are searching for a guide, too.

Compile a list of resources or ideas people in your industry would find useful.

For example, a list of 50 links youd want to earn or places to find free stock photography.

Offer value and you will earn links.

You can create these based on your own research or curate stats from other sites.

Create in-house using a tool like Canva (they have a specific infographic creator) or outsource.

I mention performing and publishing your own research a few times in this post.

That is because unique research is fantastic at attracting links including from infographics.

Make sure you send out your research results and state it can be used in infographics.

Go on sites like Quora and offer useful answers to questions.

The key here is offering value, not just searching for places to drop your link.

If you have a newsletter list, use it.

Also, consider sponsoring a newsletter for a complementary business.

Anytime your logo shows up online, ask for it to be a clickable graphic with a link to your site.

YouTube is often touted as the second largest search engine, so make sure to upload any video you record there with an embedded, clickable link.

Dont overthink video.

You can go live on Facebook using a smartphone and good lighting, then upload the video to YouTube.

Did you give a speech, teach a class, or present a webinar?

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50 Types of Links You Want & How to Build Them - Search Engine Journal

Matt Ryan just recently told you that Belmar is now enforcing "Resident Only Parking" to help keep out-of-towners away and now another Jersey Shore town is following suit.

Asbury Park has now brought back metered parking to help keep visitors away.

The pay-for-parking will start back up on May 1st. This was originally nixed to try and help Jersey Shore residents who are financially struggling.

"We're hoping if you're required to pay for parking you'll go somewhere else," said Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn.

If you do need to go to the Asbury Park area, officials suggest that residents use the paid parking app called Asbury PARK instead of physically touching the meters to pay.

For now, the e-scooter and bike-share programs are on hold.

Take a look at the original article at APP.com.

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For episode 191 of The Search Engine Journal Show, I had the opportunity to interview Mark Traphagen,Vice President, Product Marketing and Training at seoClarity.

Traphagen talks about how and why SEO professionals need to be thinking differently about rankings today and beyond.

Mark Traphagen (MT):It seems like a lot of us that are in the search marketing industry certainly feel like its accelerated and we all know that that could be a trick of our minds.

It always seems like theres more happening in the present than there ever was in the past for all of us, even in our lives.

But at seoClarity, we actually track those things.

We take literally hundreds of thousands of screenshots, for example, of the search of our clients, actual search results every day.

We have years of tracking data on that and we watch how the SERP changes.

What weve seen is that in the last two to three years, its definitely been changing at a pace that is exponentially higher than in all the years of search history before that.

Were actually seeing those changes, we have the data that we can track those.

Then you ask why is that or how is that happening?

I think a lot of that may have to do with just the advances in automation, particularly machine learning and what artificial intelligence that Google and other search engines are employing.

It wasnt all that many years ago that most of this was kind of hand-done if we want to change something, this would go back in the slide rule days, engineers had to figure it out and program it and code it and that sort of thing.

Now a lot of that is being done at a much faster pace by using things like machine learning to Google can be more agile and change things constantly and test new things and adjust, so search is changing almost daily.

MT: I think one of the biggest changes in attitude that I see the most successful SEOs having is to resist the temptation to get hold by every little change that happens.

Like every update, every reconfiguring of the search results page, every new search readers guideline that comes out.

I mean, you want to keep up with those things and theyre interesting to know about and you want to them, but I think weve been at a time for a while now when the smartest SEOs are realizing that the most value for their companies or their clients comes from keeping a big picture in mind and going back to the fundamentals:

All these things with the user in mind.

Because the big picture is, what Google is moving toward and pushing toward and getting better and better at, year by year, is matching that user experience matching what the ideal Google user is actually trying to get to and to use.

So, Im not saying ignore the small things, but dont get carried by the moment-by-moment trends.

Brent Csutoras (BC):But the more you start to see the evolution of search right now, the more you start to see a need for people to have the knowledge to be able to determine that.

Like you said, really savvy SEOs are extremely essential right now, wouldnt you say, considering the fact that you have to be able to determine which one of these bright and shiny objects is worth chasing?

MT:Thats really well put and I think its more essential than ever. And the area of expertise has changed.

As you put it earlier, back in the old days at least, you could be an SEO if you knew how to link build, you knew enough to make sure that your site was easily crawlable, and you had a little bit of understanding of the importance of content, things like that.

But now its become much more an area of needed expertise, which is great for the industry, for our careers, those that are willing to invest the time and becoming the experts of that.

We now have to be real decision-makers, marketing decision-makers where were looking at, as you said, the most important thing is:

Right now while were recording this, were in the middle of the pandemic experience and I think thats coming home more than ever.

But one of the things that a crisis does is it gets you hyper-focused on what really matters.

What do we need to get down to?

So having the data is so important.

I think more and more SEOs are realizing I need to not only have access to the best possible data, but have the experience and the wisdom to know:

Then, secondarily, communicating that to the rest of my organization or my clients depending on your situation to help them understand how we can work together to make the improvements that are going to matter.

MT:Ranking reports are still valuable for what they are.

But I think what were seeing is that if you rely on what I would call a traditional ranking report alone, you can get a very misleading picture.

And this ties in very well to what we were talking about a moment ago about its not just having data and then next extension is having the right data, but also knowing how to look at it.

I think the big story with calling a traditional ranking report (focused on the traditional 10 blue links) where we cant go by 10 anymore

So the simple links to your website on the Google search result page no longer reflect the reality of what happens in a great many search queries.

The most obvious example that weve seen is the growing number of search features, which are all the things that can appear on a search result page or even within those traditional web links that are not just that good old-fashioned blue link with a two or three-line description underneath it.

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How SEOs Need to Be Thinking Differently About Ranking with Mark Traphagen [PODCAST] - Search Engine Journal