Top 10 Articles from July

With July a thing of the past, it's a mad sprint to the summer finish line--and to closing transactions before the new school year begins. Between all the hustle and bustle, take a moment to check out our top articles from last month. You'll likely find something to help you in your dash towards fall.

1. 6 New Headshot No-No's for Agents
Your agent photo is a critical component of your marketing. In this very personal business, your face is your brand more often than not. But no matter how confident you are in real life, stepping in front of the camera can be unnerving and even intimidating. To help you keep your cool—and avoid looking like one of these agents—we've put together this list of headshot no-no's that you can refer to on picture day.

2. What Successful Agents Do Before, During, and After the Open House
The most successful real estate professionals know that getting the most from your open house requires more than just cleaning the house and placing an ad in the paper. It's important to have a strategy for each phase of the open house: before, during, and after.

3. How to Set Up Your First Facebook Ad!
You can get your first Facebook Ad up and running in under 10 minutes by following these eight easy steps.

4. 2 Real Estate Marketing Ideas For Low Inventory Areas
In practically every marketplace we work with agents, there is STILL an alarmingly low inventory. If you're an established agent with a consistent marketing plan, this probably isn't a concern to you, as your pipeline is always full. What about new agents, though? While you do have a tougher road to travel, it's not a lost cause. Today, I want to share with you two simple ideas you can use to help fill your pipeline and make sure that you have the successful 2015 that you so richly deserve.

5. 4 Traits of a Top Producer
Some people just walk in the light. I'm sure you know which light I'm talking about – the "everything they do seems to turn out great" light. This is rare – few can claim they all of a sudden just knew how to be successful. Sure, instinct plays a big role here, but for the most part, there are a few ingredients that go into making someone a top producer. Here are four.

6. 4 Rules for Conversation Marketing
By paying attention to what works socially, we can improve our conversation marketing. Think about the last time you went to spend time with a group of friends. If you were looking forward to the event, you were likely to be open and positive. I challenge you now to remember those feelings. Connect with them. Hold on to them and then carry them into your next business conversation. It may take a few tries, but once you get it the difference will be immediately obvious. Never forget that people buy from those they know, like and trust. Conversation marketing is the fastest way to become known, liked and trusted.

7. 5 Smart Strategies for Real Estate SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to helping motivated buyers and sellers find you—and the properties you represent—via Google, Bing and other search engines. At a high level, SEO is all about using relevant keywords in your website content and attracting links to your content from other websites, especially those that Google considers trustworthy and authoritative. Here are five smart SEO strategies you should implement on your website to attract more real estate leads.

8. How to Generate More Real Estate Leads
To compete in this market and acquire new leads, it's critical to have an effective lead acquisition and nurturing strategy. In this article, we'll review methods for acquiring new real estate leads to help you grow your business. Some of these methods are simple while others will require more planning and follow-through, but they can all help you acquire more leads.

9. How to Tap into Home Remodeling Trends for Marketing Success
57 percent of homeowners plan to undertake home remodeling or maintenance projects this year. Agents and brokers looking for potential listing leads can use this as an opportunity to connect. How? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

10. Listing Ownership: Whose Grass Is It Anyways?
"Who owns the listing?" appears to be a never-ending debate in real estate, despite a recent court case that certified the broker owns the listing and the MLS can protect it. Somehow there remains this belief among some incredibly intelligent people in the industry that real estate agents do the work, so they own the listing content. They do not. This has never been the case, and unless an agent becomes a broker/owner, it never will be. A listing was, is and will be owned by the broker/owner and not the agent.