WhereToLive.com Blog

How Your Website Impacts Your Phone Calls

September 27th, 2011

Did you know that your telephone works better – as a phone – if you have a high quality website? Here’s how: 1. Mobile: If a prospect is standing in front of your listing, can they find out information about that using your mobile optimized website or a mobile app? If they like what they …Read More

Listings Are Not Link Bait

September 13th, 2011

While Google looks at hundreds of variables to decide whether a website is relevant and credible, the variable that was first documented in a college paper and lead to the formation of the company remains one of the most critical: the quantity and quality of inbound links from 3rd party websites. This variable has stood …Read More

The Traffic Impact of Google Plus So Far

Sharing Listings in Google Chat
August 29th, 2011

We’ve been receiving some questions about Google Plus and its impact on traffic and search results. Now that the service is roughly two months old, it’s worth looking at whether this is something real estate agents, brokers and franchises need to take seriously. At WhereToLive.com, we have largely taken a wait-and-see attitude toward Google’s latest …Read More

4 Reasons Why Your Homepage Isn’t as Important as You Probably Think

August 1st, 2011

During the design and redesigns of our client’s websites, an inordinate amount of time is spent focused on the homepage’s design. I’m here to tell you that the homepage isn’t as important at you probably think. Why? 1. Less than 10% of visitors land on our clients’ homepages. In fact, it’s often closer to 8% …Read More

What Not to Blog About on a Real Estate Blog

July 5th, 2011

Last week, I wrote about Topic Ideas for Real Estate Blogs. This looked at topics worth considering blogging about, along with examples. This week, let’s look at what topics to avoid. Over time, I’ve read thousands of real estate blogs, so have a sense for what seems to work and what flops. I’ll spare the …Read More

Topic Ideas for Real Estate Blogs

June 28th, 2011

Creating a blog is easy. Actually publishing content to it on a regular basis, on the other hand, can be difficult. Below is list of topics that seem to work well as blogging topics based on what we’ve seen on the thousands of blogs managed by WhereToLive.com: 1. Profile local businesses. Show off your local …Read More

Why Should I Take More Photos of Properties?

June 20th, 2011

Of all the things real estate agents could do to help sell their client’s homes faster, the easiest and most obvious – yet not consistently done – is to take more pictures of properties. Here are some of the issues we hear regarding why agents don’t take more photos of houses, along with an argument …Read More

QR Codes Tie Print Advertising to Online Inventory

Print Listing with QR Code
April 25th, 2011

QR codes1. are one of the hottest topics in real estate marketing for 2011. A quick scan with a smartphone’s camera can now provide access to additional information about a property or agent. However, some of the uses of this technology that we’ve seen seem to be a case of using technology for technology’s sake. …Read More

How Trulia Dependent is Your Broker Website?

April 18th, 2011

One of the most interesting shifts in real estate broker traffic that I’ve witnessed in recent years is the shift in referrals brokers are receiving from Trulia.com. For example, below is a monthly charge of visits to a broker’s website from April 2009 through October 2010. This is the overall traffic pattern. Unfortunately for this …Read More

What is the Impact of Google Dropping Real Estate Listings?

January 27th, 2011

Yesterday, Google announced that they are getting out of the real estate listings syndication business. As they explained it on their Lat/Long blog, they are going to stop taking data feeds of listings from agents and brokers, and will no longer be providing a real estate listings layer on Google Maps. For WhereToLive.com clients, this …Read More