Some of Arizona’s most Successful Agents call John Hall & Associates home.

Tag Archive: Google

Google Cheat Sheet for REALTORS®

by on Jan 11, 2011 | Careers and Training, Technology

Google Profile: google.com/profiles

Why: Proactive ownership of google results for your name. Share the information you want people to know. Add links to your websites and social media sites.

Google Places: google.com/places

Why: Google Juice! Add a “Place” for your real estate business. Use your office address. Complete as much of the profile as possible. Include 10 pictures, 5 videos, payment types, etc. BE SURE TO SET YOUR SERVICE AREA.

Google Calendar: google.com/calendar

Why: Easily syncs with Android phones. Share calendar with your real estate team, family, or friends. You can also set reminders for important events.

Google Alerts: google.com/alerts

Why: Helps manage your online reputation. When you set up alerts for your name or community Google will automatically notify you when new results are found on the web.

Google Sites: google.com/sites

Why: Free website with multiple themes to choose from. Add unlimited pages. Add a free home search tool available from armls.diversesolutions.com. Add Cromford Report’s current market stats that are updated automatically – for free. (Visit http://johnhall.com/?p=3746 for instructions on how to link charts.)

Google Maps: google.com/maps

Why: This is a great way to showcase your neighborhood’s points of interest. You can build multiple maps if you work multiple communities and embed them on the neighborhood pages you’ve created on your free Google Site.

Google Voice: google.com/voice

Why: This handy call transfer/voicemail tool will provide you with a custom phone number that you can use for business. Or, if you’d like to have your voicemails transcribed into emails, google voice will do that too! (To watch a video interview with an agent using Google Voice visit http://johnhall.com/?p=6509)

Google URL Shortener: goo.gl

Why: Shorter links are easier to share. Copy and paste any web site or web page address into goo.gl to get a free, trackable shortened URL. Good for social media sites and print advertising. (Also a QR Code is automatically created for each shortened link.)

What Successful Agents Look For In A URL Shortener

by on Oct 5, 2010 | Careers and Training, REALTOR® Marketing, Selling, Technology

What is a URL shortener? It’s a tool that takes a long url and makes it shorter.  For example:  http://public6.superlativestudio.com/Search.aspx?segmentid=2901151&rid=29214&htmlfile=835036.html and http://goo.gl/WSYy take you to the same place.

Goo.gl Logo

Google released their URL shortener to the public last week and has been welcomed with open arms.  Not only is it simple and free to use, but it allows you to share usage statistics with others and it automatically creates a QR Code for your other marketing materials!

Click-through Statistics

When you share a goo.gl shortened link in twitter, facebook, or any other site and people click on it – they are tallied.  In the 6 Step Real Estate Listing Marketing System I talk about adding a URL to the photo captions.  Ideally a short, trackable URL would be used.

Let’s say your short url is goo.gl/umo0 (this is a link used in a popular techcrunch article).  To view the usage statistics the creator of the link can simply click the Details button.  It opens up a new page with a chart showing the click volume and a few details about the clickers.

If you’re using the short link in your marketing materials for a particular listing – email the details page link to your seller.  Now they can see click-through traffic as well.

QR Codes on Listing Flyers

If you’ve started to use QR Codes in your real estate business, goo.gl can save you time.  Add .qr to the end of any shortened link to access a savable QR image.  Using the same short link from above as an example it would be http://goo.gl/umo0.qr

What do Successful Agents look for in a URL shortener?

1.  It’s okay to use for commercial purposes.

2.  It’s trackable (aka: it gives you click-through statistics).

3.  It’s $FREE.99  :)

Google Voice for Real Estate Agents

by on Sep 10, 2010 | Careers and Training, Technology

Last Friday I caught up with a REALTOR® in Scottsdale, D Patrick Lewis, about a fresh tool he uses to manage his voicemail called Google Voice.  Like most Google tools, Voice is $FREE.99 and comes packed full of features.  (Check out the video here if it doesn’t display above.)

Would you like your cellphone to automatically transcribe your voicemails and send them to you in an email? Google Voice can.

Have you ever needed to let your real estate broker hear a message left by another real estate agent? Google Voice will let you email the voicemail transcript and audio file.

If you could, would you download and save all voicemails associated with a specific transaction? Google Voice will let you.

Cool Google Tools – John Hall & Associates Success Series

by on Oct 21, 2009 | Careers and Training, REALTOR® Marketing, Technology

I had some fun yesterday with a classroom of agents interested in using some of the free google tools.  The class went through the why’s and how’s of some of my favorite google tools.  The next time this class is offered is December 3rd at the Tempe office – check the intranet calendar for times and to RSVP.  Enjoy!  (Sorry slideshare strips the animation.)