The Basics - Using What you Already Have

It may seem obvious, but your office, your board with its MLS presence, and your national brand already have a number of services you can use to contact the public on the Internet. In addition, they already have established traffic which can assure that the content you put online will actually be seen. Do a quick check. Are you using those opportunities as well as you can?

Do Your Pictures Help to Sell Your Listings?

As they say, pictures can be worh a thousand words, but remember that they can convey both positive and negative impressions. There are two important steps to making sure that your pictures do the best possible job presenting yourself and your listings on the Internet. Here are some tips:

1) Use a good camera. In real estate, this means both a camera that is of good quality, and one that has a lens that will take good pictures even in a small room where you need a wide field of view. If your camera lens has a mm rating, you should look for something that goes down to at least 24mm. Lower is bettter. If not, try this - stand about 10' from a wall, then set the camera to its widest angle view. Can you see at least a 10' width of the wall? If not, you will not likely be happy with the results as you take pictures for listings.

It's hard to tell much about a camera's picture quality by looking at it in a store, or listening to a salesperson. I would recommend that you look for a name brand camera in your price range at your local retail shops, then check it out on an unbiased review site like this one - http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html where you will be able to see actual photos taken with the camera before you lay your money down.

2) Take lots of pictures - 5 or more for each one you intend to use - then pick the best. Make sure you have a basic knowledge of how to handle your camera in difficult lighting situations, like shooting towards a window, or avoid the tricky shots. A good tutorial for digital photography is found at Point2.com.

3) Take some time to learn basic graphics editing, or use photo improvement software that may have come with your camera. It's not possible to turn a terrible photo into a good one, but you can turn a good one into one that is much better.

A good freebie graphic editor is GIMP, which is available here.

4) If you don't have time or patience for the items above, consider employing a photography service to prepare photos that convey the best possible impressions for your listings.

Website Options

You will probably end up with more than one website, and that is a good thing. More sites means more exposure to potentially different audiences.

Freebie Websites -

These can be websites provided by your realty brand, Point2.com, and a variety of social networking services. Use all that you have time to develop and maintain.

Commercial Templated Websites -

Templated websites provide professional looking websites that often include the ability to edit and customize your site without having to know anything about website authoring. The downsides are some limitations in terms of design and monthly charges for hosting and maintenance.

Custom Websites -

These provide the ultimate in terms of control over your presentation, but they require web authoring skills, so that means that you either need to hire a website developer or become one yourself.

Developing Your Own Website -

There are no huge mysteries involved in learning how to author your own websites, but the skills need to develop over time. Use the online tutorials available for most software to develop your skills.

You will need to:

1) Buy your domain name and pay an annual fee for it ($10-20). Try GoDaddy.com or any domain provider.

2) Buy webhosting space so that your files are available on the Internet ($1 - $30 per month). Many services area available, but it is best to select one close to your home so that you come up higher in the search engine results for inquiries about your specific area. Try doing a search on Google for "web hosting + your community name". Some domain name vendors also provide web hosting services but they will not be of much use to you in getting traffic unless the server is in your own country.

3) Software to produce content for your website. Here are some programs I can recommend.

Website Authoring Tool -
Seamonkey (free)
Dreamweaver (high end)

Graphics Authoring Tool -
GIMP (free)
Corel Paint Shop Pro (not free but a good value)

Drop Down Menus for Navigation -
Xara Menu Maker (also included in Webstyle)

A good set of products that can be used to add advanced features to your site is available from CoffeeCup Software.

Put it on YouTube. com

You don't need to be an expert in movie making to create video tours for your listed properties. Try putting your photos into Photo Story 3 for Windows which is a free product from Microsoft. Add a narrative soundtrack and some background music if you wish. When you have produced your video file, be sure to link it to your Virtual Tour button on MLS and send it up to YouTube.com, the largest video sharing site on the Internet. If you have your own custom website, you can even get the html code from YouTube to paste onto your page, so that your visitors can watch your video on YouTube without ever leaving your website.