New Site Launches By Union Street Media

It has been a busy couple of months here at Union Street and we have quite a few new sites to announce.

We have three new real estate sites which have launched in the last month, including brokerage sites for Housing Solutions Real Estate of Hanover NH and Joy Tarbel Realty of North Conway NH. We also launched a new individual agent site for Kathy O’Brien, a Realtor here on Lake Champlain. These sites are wonderful examples of how an effective web design can capture the look and feel of a region.

In addition we have launched a fully redesigned website for The Grand Isle Lake House a premiere Wedding venue on Lake Champlain. One of our staff members was recently married there and is still raving about it. If you are looking to tie the knot you need to have a look at what they have to offer.

We are also proud to have launched Ken Woodhead Woodworking this month. Located in the hills above Woodstock, Vermont, and other custom handcrafted woodworks from his studio. A master craftsman, Ken’s attention to detail has produced a series of beautiful hand made wood works that you can see in his gallery.

Last but certainly not least we a happy to launch sites for two of the best senior living communities in Vermont, The Lodge at Shelburn Bay and The Lodge at Otter Creek both of these wonderful communities offer an ideal setting for maintaining an active senior lifestyle.

We’re very pleased to add these great sites to our portfolio!

Negative Real Estate Consumer Report

I receive daily emails from ActiveRain, these cover all kinds of topics. Usually I don’t have a lot of time to read through them; so I skim over the newsletter titles and see if anything catches my eye. Well today one did: “Survey Says… REALTORS Suck”. Wow! I certainly clicked on that one.

The first thing that struck me was that this is a great example of an attention grabbing blog title. It will get your readers to click and read. It is controversial, and let’s face it, people love controversy. As a former real estate agent and the daughter and sibling of two REALTORS I couldn’t resist reading on.

I found the article interesting. I think it is a good reminder to ANY agent, new, old or otherwise, about what your consumer is looking for and what is important to them.  A professional in any field should always be keeping up on the needs of their clients.

Two of the most interesting points for me where:

1. That the most important thing to the consumer is lowest commission and knowledge is the least. My reaction to that was, “No wonder you think REALTORS suck.” In my experience the lower the commission, the less attention paid to the client.

Maybe that’s not true in all cases, but I have a feeling it doesn’t help! So how does the average REALTOR put this information to use? Should they all be slashing their commissions?  Well it turns out that 95% of consumers are still using Agents. Even though the consumer feels they can get just as much knowledge by doing their own legwork, they are still relaying on real estate professionals when all is said and done.

I don’t think this is a free pass and should be counted on, especially in this market. I think it’s important to be the best at what you do and the most knowledgeable about technology, your area, the state of the market, etc. Those are the agents that will get the business and keep it.

2. The example photos Jeff Corbett uses, got me giggling. He could not be more dead on with this point. If all you can fit in the bathroom shot is the toilet, leave it off the listing! Nobody needs to see the toilet. Okay, so the owner did a great job redoing the bathroom, but it is too small to photograph. How about taking close-up shots of some of the details? BUT, please spare us the toilet shot.

The other one that always gets me is the tiny bedroom, that just shows the bed or maybe a corner of the bed and a window. In those cases, how about a video of the property? We can help guide you through this process and you’ll be better off for it!

Just to hammer the point home, here are a few examples of photos you should skip!

Are they selling the bed or the house?

Ahh the lovely toilet… So homey!

Overall its a great article so give it a read! “Survey Says… Realtors Suck!” By Jeff Corbett, Active Rain Staff Writer. You’ll probably find one or two take aways.

The Evolution of Facebook and Twitter

The graying of Facebook

Two articles that comment on the increasing median age of Facebook users, in particular the 35+ crowds. A recent one, ‘Facebook Users Growing Up Fast’ from mediapost.com, talks about how now over half their users are over 25 in part due to the aging of existing users and the influx of older users. It also discusses ways in which marketers are looking to serve this new group of users.

The second one ‘My Midlife Facebook Crisis‘, which came out a year ago,  is a hilarious day-in-the-life style article from the Wall Street Journal. It anecdotally makes the point that we’re all inescapably social net-workers now.

Twitter flying high

Twitter has been getting a lot more mainstream media attention lately, so we thought we’d post this article ‘Putting Twitter’s World to Use’ from the New York Times. Amongst other things it talks about the increasing interaction between businesses and their customers driving business decisions and as a research tool diving into the world’s collective mind.

It’s only upwards for the folks at Twitter.

Real Estate Blogging Success Story

When talking to clients, USM consistently recommends starting an on-site blog to help boost their website’s performance. At their most basic level, on-site Blogs are very beneficial to a lead generating website on two distinct fronts:

• On the human side of things blogs, offer a way for a business to show their clientele a more personal side with minimal time commitment. When writing copy for a business website, the author needs to think about maintaining professional voice and assuring that the piece that they are writing is consistent with the subject of the page they are posting it. The beauty of a blog is that by their very nature people expect blogs to be more informal and cover a variety of subjects. On a blog you can have two posts one after the other about completely opposite subjects and it is completely acceptable.
• As with everything on the Internet, you are writing for two audiences: people and search engines. There is lots of fancy language involved in Search Engine Optimization, but the keystone of SEO is “the keyword”. If, as you blog, you do so with an eye to your site’s primary keywords, you can turn your blog into a treasure trove of unique, keyword-rich content for search engines. The SEO value of blogs does not stop there, however. Because of the nature of blog software, every time you write a post, the software notifies Google that it has new content and the blog is re-indexed. The more frequently the site is indexed the better your placement in Google will be.

These are pretty standard, as long as you blog frequently on you own domain you will reap these benefits. Quality of writing and pertinence of subject also can provide their own benefits. Take for example our client, Brad Dinsmore, a Southern New Hampshire Realtor. Brad had us build him an on-site blog a few months ago and started blogging about subjects effecting his market area in and around Windham, NH. He was doing a great job, titling his posts with keyword rich language, blogging frequently and linking to the rest of his site. Because of this, he was receiving the benefits listed in the bullet points above. Because of the quality and originality of his posts, a reporter from a local paper called the Eagle Tribune came into his office last week with a copy of one of his blog posts titled Southern NH Home Sales: 1st Quarter 2009 the reporter wanted to write a feature article for the Sunday Edition based on Brad’s post. The end result of this was that on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Eagle Tribune were two large color photos of one of his office’s agents Debbie St Jean and two, first time-home buyers as part of an article entitled First-time buyers a ray of sunshine in dismal N.H. housing market. This is publicity that you cannot buy and a perfect example that when you put your expertise out there you will reap the benefits. If you know your market better than anyone else then let people know. Add content to your site and blog regularly. You may not get a featured article out of it but you will start to gain the recognition that you deserve.