Recent Real Estate Website Launches

John Merse

by John Merse

March 13th, 2012

We’ve had the privilege at Union Street Media of launching several new real estate websites.

Asheville, NC Real Estate Websites

www.asheville4seasons.com

Asheville 4 Seasons

Asheville 4 Seasons Realty is located in Asheville, NC. This firm is brokered by two women with four additional agents. The team went out on their own because they wanted to control their brand and customer service. They wanted a website that integrated the Asheville MLS directly into their website. The new site will help promote their brand and give them the ability to rank better in search engines.

Stowe, VT Real Estate Websites

www.theobergteam.com

The Oberg Team

The Oberg Team is part of the Coldwell Banker Carlson real estate office in Stowe, Vermont. This team has branded out of their office website and developed a unique and personally branded website. Their new site will allow them to grow over time without having to worry about limitations. They wanted a professional website that was easy to use and update. The team site will allow them to be more aggressive with internet marketing and content creation to help capture more market share in the Stowe, Vermont real estate market.

 

Middlebury, VT Real Estate Websites

www.lakedunmorevtrealestate.com

At Home Team

The At Home Team is part of the Century 21 Jack Associates office. They are based in Middlebury, Vermont and focus on the lake Dunmore area. This team of three agents wanted a site that would allow them to grow over time and increase performance in their market. Their new site allows them to focus on creating resources for potential clients about the surrounding area. The web based content management system is easy to use and gives them control over their website. With a professional design, they can be confident that site visitors will be happy and find what they are looking for.

www.sandyburkenbush.com

Sandy Berkenbush – Agent

Sandy Berkenbush is an owner at Stone Ridge Properties, another Union Street Media site. As one of the top producers at her firm, she needed a website that would reflect that and her market. Sandy needed a website that would be easy for her to update, add pages and testimonials. The site also features local community videos and allows users to sign up for her newsletter easily. One of the advantages to her new Union Street Media website is that it has integrated MLS data so Sandy doesn’t have to input it herself.

www.sharoncarrollrealtor.com

Sharon Carroll – Agent

Sharon Carroll is a Keller Williams agent who specializes in real estate in and around the south shore of Boston. Sharon has access to the latest technology that will allow her clients to easily search properties from her website.

www.ludlowokemorealestate.com

Ellison Properties

Ellison Properties is a small office located in Ludlow, Vermont. They’ve been around for a long time and focus on residential properties. Ellison Properties needed a more robust website for their team. They wanted to be able to integrate their MLS listings to enhance their SEO efforts. The site is also beneficial as it is easy to update and edit which will help them spend more time selling. At the end of the day they wanted a well designed, reliable website that represented them online and helped differentiate them from their competitors.

 

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Union Street Media Acquires Webfodder Real Estate Clients

John Merse

by John Merse

March 9th, 2012

Union Street Media, a leading provider of website and internet marketing solutions for the real estate industry, has acquired the real estate website clients from Webfodder Inc, a Cape Cod, Massachusetts based website design firm. Dan Kompass, Webfodder’s longtime General Manager, joined Union Street Media in December 2011 as the new Business Development Manager.

Ted Adler, Founder and President of Union Street Media, added, “We have long admired the good work that Webfodder has done on behalf of their real estate clients.  By acquiring Webfodder’s real estate clients, Dan can once again service the clients he has worked with over the past twelve years.  We thank the Webfodder team for their help in bringing the deal together.”

Webfodder’s clients will be able to take advantage of Union Street Media’s real estate website and Internet Marketing package.  Union Street Media’s integrated solution combines MLS listings data and essential website tools into a single, easy to use platform. Our real estate platform enables clients to efficiently drive their marketing strategy with management tools for content, mobile sites, listings and lead management plus analytics and reporting. Dan and the rest of our management team will help Webfodder clients implement strategies that help them get found and sell more homes through the web.

“Union Street Media has a truly amazing and talented team. As someone who has worked with real estate websites for many years, I can honestly say that they know what it takes to make a Realtor successful in the digital world. Working with this group of professionals, who are completely dedicated to the industry and their clients, is nothing but inspiring!” says Dan Kompass, Business Development Manager.

We’re excited to bring these clients onboard and give them access to some of the most advanced website tools available to Realtors in New England. The acquisition will not affect client websites or services. Union Street Media will be working with Webfodder to provider ongoing service and maintenance during the transition.

 

Company Contact:
Dan Kompass
dkompass@unionstreetmedia.com
802-865-3332 ext 110

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Introducing Facebook Timeline Brand Pages

Allyson Locke

by Allyson Locke

March 7th, 2012

Facebook rolled out a completely new profile for brands called Facebook Timeline. Facebook users have already had access to Timeline on their personal accounts. The way you interact with your followers has changed, too. Brand Pages have become much more visual, with a new Cover Photo, and your posts can be highlighted differently.  While there are many new options for creativity and branding, it’s important to note the changes have undone some of the features from the last update.

Your Company’s Timeline

The biggest change to Facebook Brand Pages is the new timeline or history feature.  It will list any activity that has occurred on your profile since you created it.  This means any posts you have created and anything your fans have posted on your page will show up.  You can also add in any past milestones your company has experienced, by date.  This gives you the option of telling your company’s story and evolution over the years.

Cover Photo

The Cover Photo gives brands a new way to enhance their Pages.  Similarly to Google+, you can display your logo, images of your staff members, or new products.  There are some guidelines however; you cannot use it as a promotional billboard. Facebook rules specifically restrict any sales, calls to action, or contact information. You will also not be able to reference any Facebook features, so no more arrows pointing to the Like button. Facebook wants this to be completely about your brand’s image and nothing else.

No More Tabs

One thing that companies have already started complaining about is the change to Apps and Tabs.  With the previous Facebook Pages you could create a Landing Page which listed sales or promotions and could even link to your website.  The new layout doesn’t allow that; visitors are directed to your wall instead of a Welcome or Landing Page.  You can still provide these tabs, but they will be featured in a much smaller way that people will need to click on to see (pictured below).  This makes it a little trickier to draw attention to announcements about events or sales.

*Hint: Your tabs will have unique URLs that you can attach to social media icons or include in emails. 

Admin Features

Another change is the way you can interact with your brand’s page and your customers.  Now you can see, in better detail, the performance data of your page.  You can find out how you’re doing with helpful charts and in-depth information.  Another beneficial feature is the ability to speak directly to your customers via private messages.  Your customers can now message you with questions or feedback and you can respond back without making anything public.

What You Should Do

I know that’s a lot to take in, but don’t panic, Timeline won’t be mandatory for brands until March 30th.  The first thing you should make sure to do is delete any old posts that you don’t want to show up in your timeline.  Then, find a high-quality image for your Cover Photo and begin adding any basic info you can about your company’s history to your Timeline.  The in-depth research stage will take a while, so don’t dive into the project just yet.  Try to understand the basic features before delving into that.  While some of these changes may not seem helpful or beneficial to your brand, they are meant to help you interact with your customers more closely than before.

What do you think?  Will Facebook Timeline Brand Pages really help you connect more personally with your audience?

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7 Deadly Sins of Duplicate Content

Tom Cull

by Tom Cull

February 13th, 2012

Would the real Michael please stand up? (Source: CA Technologies)

There is a reason a book has no duplicate pages and a machine has no duplicate parts. They’re not needed.

This is just how search engines view content. It’s not very usable or informative for search results pages to contain multiple copies of the same thing.   This is why your website may not be listed if a search query turns up other pages with content exactly like yours.  However, there are grey areas to this, and you may not be aware it’s even happening to you.

What You Need to Know

Here are some of the main types of duplicate content that can occur on a website and what you can do to avoid them.

1. Copyright Violation

> What It Is: Using content that is not yours or free to use
> Severity: High
> Consequences: Potential lawsuit and blacklisting from search engines
> Remedy: Just Say No to Plagiarism.  It’s always best to write unique content, but in cases where you want to reprint someone else’s content, remember to credit your source and pay fees where necessary. (And don’t expect the version on your site to show up in the search results.)

2. Thin Affiliate Sites

> What It Is: Examples of Thin Affiliate sites include websites created simply out of product listings.
> Severity: Medium/High
> Consequences: Some professionals have observed that Google’s slap on the wrist for this is penalizing 50 places in the search results, without being blacklisted (unless link farming is at play).
> Remedy: The rule of thumb here, is that if the affiliate site is not offering any new content, then it is deemed to be ‘thin’. Therefore, try to offer something up front such as reviews, blog posts, tips etc.

3. Massive Duplication

> What It Is: Intentional or otherwise, multiple copies of the same page
> Severity: Medium
> Consequences: When search engines start to sense foul play such as spam tactics, a site runs the risk of being penalized in the search results. If over 70% of your content is duplicated this could trigger the alarm bells with search engines.
> Remedy: Simply try to avoid it. Write additional extra unique content, on pages that are the same or very similar, to reduce the impact of this happening. A good way to avoid duplicate pages when you are switching to a new website domain is with 301 Re-directs, which tell browsers that a page permanently moved from one URL to another.

4. Unintentional Site Architecture / Pagination

> What It Is: Multiple versions of the same content such as long and short versions, product sort orders, etc.
> Severity: Medium
> Consequences: This one is less obvious and often only developers can make a fix. There is a risk that search engines won’t crawl your entire site efficiently. A typical example is sort orders on product pages such as price, review rating, etc.
> Remedy: Talk to your web developer about using correct canonical tags, so only 1 version of a page is indexed. Google’s Matt Cutts defines this as “the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices.” So help them out.

5. Snippets

> What It Is: Often, summary content for menu pages
> Severity: Low
> Consequences:  So long as these are part of a larger page of content, this should not be an issue with search engines.
> Remedy: Mix up your snippets and keep them relevant to the larger picture.

6. Slogans

> What It Is: Taglines for branding often found in a website header or footer. If it’s text on a page, it can end up looking like duplicated content.
> Severity : Low
> Consequences: The repetition of a primary key phrase that you want to perform well for, could dampen it’s performance and result in the ‘wrong’ landing page being served up in search results.
> Remedy: Use your slogan in an image, in a header, so that it can’t be spidered by search engines. Use it once as a text link either on the home page or an about page in most cases, especially if it contains target keywords.

7. Duplicate Title Tags

> What It Is: Using the same keywords across title tags
> Severity: Low
> Consequences: Using the same keywords across title tags is called keyword cannibalization, whereby search engines have to choose between multiple pages to serve up in the results page.
> Remedy: Make sure you have unique titles, Meta Data and page content. You can also ask your developer to hide pages from being indexed by adding a NoIndex tag to particular pages. Also watch out for printer-friendly pages, which are built with session IDs in the URL so these need to have a NoIndex tag.

I’d appreciate any comments, counter points or other examples I might have missed!

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Posted in Content Creation Ideas, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | 3 Comments »

#BTVSMB Social Hack

Chris Lei

by Chris Lei

February 6th, 2012

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the #BTVSMB Social Hack on February 3, 2012.  For those of you hearing about #BTVSMB for the first time, it’s the BTV Social Media Breakfast.  Unlike previous #BTVSMB events, this event was setup a little differently.  Not only did we get to hear from two great speakers, Richard Ting of R/GA and Liz Gerber of Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University, but we also got to implement their ideas with a team activity.

Richard Ting | Image provided by Stephen Mease

During Richard’s presentation, he showcased  projects from R/GA and how Social Media played a huge part in their client campaigns.  Liz’s presentation focused on the process of identifying a problem within a community and finding a solution to implement.  After Rich and Liz gave their presentations, our last presentation was from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Farm to School.  Their presentation set the stage for our full day group activity.

The primary goals each team aimed for:

  • Increase economic development in Vermont’s food and farm sector.
  • Create jobs in the food and farm economy.
  • Improve access to healthy foods.

There were a total of six teams which were all named after vegetables.  I was on Team Arugula. We worked in our team to come up with a solution which met the goals of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Farm to School using information provided in the presentations.

Here are the steps process of what our team went through to  come up with the winning idea!

Liz Gerber | Image provided by Stephen Mease

 

Step One: Find A Problem To Solve

Every team was given a packet that we’d use to help us follow a standard process.  The first step was to consider a problem to solve. We had to write three “worth improving” statements about Localvore/Farm to Plate issues.  I consider there to be problems with the attitude of elitism around Localvore, the lack mobile development for CSAs, and the flexibility of CSA drop-offs.

 

Step Two: Dig Deeper

We now had to describe the target user, their needs, their wants, and what their desired outcomes were?  For me, I was described as a young professional living in Vermont.  My needs were described as wanting a more accessible way to gain knowledge about CSAs.

Step Three: Define Your Point of View

We defined our point of view by filling out pre-constructed sentences that we’d bring back to our teams.  My statement was:

“Chris, a young professional in Vermont is constantly finding himself asking what’s for dinner and how can he eat better.  He needs a way to access information about Localvores and CSAs. However, there currently isn’t a mobile solution that provides information.  It would be great if CSAs could send out push notifications to his phone when they are delivering near by.”

Step Four: Ideate: Generate Alternatives To Test

We designed quick product sketches that defined what our solution would look like to the end user.

At this point, as team Arugula, we voted on which of our individual solutions was the best and spent the rest of the day working on it.

My mobile app idea was voted the best.  The runner up idea was also a mobile app solution similar to mine.  Therefore, working as a team on the two ideas, we hashed out the specifics of our solution and made sure that it met the goals of the agency.

Team Arugula | Image provided by Stephen Mease

The Winning Idea

The solution that my team came up with was a mobile application that not only provides knowledge of Localvores and CSAs, but also provides a new distribution process.  The two factors that my team kept going back to during our discussions were how currently when consumers don’t always know how to cook some of the items or what to do with them.  The mobile app would not only  provide a wealth of knowledge about the food being delivered but the user could also schedule drop-off times.

At the end of the day we had the winning solution. The take away really is how just given a few hours, a team of complete strangers are able to work together and quickly hash out a solution.  I personally hope this is the first of many #BTVSMB Social Hacks!

For more pictures please check out Stephen Mease Picasa album.

Update: Check out one of Union Street Media’s client, Fresh Tracks Capital as Cairn Cross recaps his thoughts right here.  Cairn and I were also partners for Team Arugula.

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