Chris Johnson reached out to me last week by sending over a custom css file he had laying around for the totally uncustomized Thesis theme I had rolling on my personal site. I thanked him for the hand and did a little tweaking. Then he busted on me again a few days later for ignoring some really basic SEO rules o’ thumb. This time figured I’d save my reaction for BHB…
Why didn’t I waste any effort makin’ pretty or SEO ing PropertunityKnocks.Com?
The answer is really pretty simple: I’d spent the previous year or so working to generate leads via the web on another site by writing like crazy, looking for links, and doing crazy stuff with rss based plugins, but now I had a few secret weapons that were making lead generation a lot simpler.
Here’s what they were.
One of these. (A Pink One..Don’t Ask)
And this.
And of course…this and this.
And most most importantly, This!. (Credit where credit is due.)
And I used them twice a week, without fail, for a month or so. Consistently. Mondays and Thursday’s @ 9am, Mr. Roboto style.
The result? Leads. Lots of em. Warm inbound phone calls with questions about the “Propertunities” I’d featured. Plenty to sustain me with a comfortable income and eventual repeat investor business for years to come. (The videos were all of REO listings.)
But as is my usual MO I eventually got distracted, took another job, and gave up the Roboto video routine. And something weird but not totally unexpected happened. Even though I’d stopped taking videos and hijacking craigs list traffic, I was still getting phone calls weeks and now months later…”
So when Chris reached out with some friendly criticism it seemed like the right time to stop ignoring PKnocks and get it going again.
But do you think I went a little overboard?
Could it be that PropertunityKnocks.Com is now a national real estate video blog?
Take a look and tell me what you think. If you wanna join the fun, let me know and I’ll set you up with a page for your area and maybe give you access to feature some of your listings on the home page.
Or, maybe you think this is a flawed idea somehow? Maybe it’s wrong to pull in all that content generated by others, even if Youtube does allow public “sharing”?
I don’t know…
Please let me know…
_________________________________________________________
By the way: I was going to call this post “Video Killed The SEO Star but figured it couldn’t be totally original. So when I g’d it, here’s what turned up on Zurbed.
…And the fun video from that post. Ironic and telling in the end that my text based search is what turned this up?
John Kalinowski says:
Ryan- I like the video page, but curious what SimplePie does for you? I checked out their site, but I don’t get it. Also, what did you mean by “hijacking craigs list traffic”? Thanks! – John
March 2, 2009 — 2:57 pm
James Boyer says:
The video idea is a very good one. It works well for foreclosures and REO properties and possibly your own standard listings, but for other peoples standard listings this could be big trouble if you don’t get permission from the listing agent and possibly the home owner as well.
March 2, 2009 — 3:16 pm
Ryan Hartman says:
John,
Thanks for the response. I’m actually not currently using simplepie on the Propertunityknocks site. I’ve used it a lot on sites like PhiladelphiaRealEstateHub.Com, particularly to pull feeds from specific categories into niche pages set up for that category. Example: all posts to the main blog about a neighborhood can be made to land on that page.
For the craig’s list comment: All I meant is that I’ve never done a CL post about a property without starting the post with something like: “Yo. Check out some funky fresh Philadelphia REO Video Property Listings Here!”
In a big market like Philly their are hundreds, maybe thousands of buyers casually skimming the Real Estate section. Fun link backs like the one I just mentioned are always good for 5-20 visits which usually translates into some kind of lead, whether it be an idx sign up, contact form submission, or (frequently when the site features lots of video) a direct phone call.
Kickass signs btw…
March 2, 2009 — 3:18 pm
John Kalinowski says:
Ryan- Thanks for the additional info. Definitely something I’m going to play around with. I’ve been planning on some sort of REO video review site, and you have some great ideas. Appreciate the sign compliment. I started with Greg’s concept, and last December left RE/MAX to roll out my own shop based around the sign. So far we are cranking, and it should be a great year for us!
March 2, 2009 — 3:48 pm
Ryan hartman says:
James,
Yeah, I thought about that… Is the permission implied once the listing agent allows the vid to go live on YouTube with the “public” sharing option? I don’t know…
March 2, 2009 — 3:48 pm