Author: Eric Bramlett (page 1 of 2)

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

I attended Homegain Nation early this week.  It was a fantastic time, giving me the opportunity to meet many great people I’ve known online for years.  I decided to run a little experiment and bring my Ubuntu laptop, while leaving my windoze machine at home.  So…Ubuntu performed extremely well, but MLS vendors performed very poorly.  I was not able to get the following web apps to work properly on ubuntu:

• MLXChange (obviously)
• Docusign
• Zipformonline
• QuickbooksOnline

I planned to use VNC to access MLXChange from my windoze desktop I keep running (which does crash, and I then call Ali to restart so that I can access it,) but I was pretty shocked that the other 3 vendors aren’t truly cross browser compatible.  So, for now, Ubuntu is my great “around town” OS, but it looks like I’ll have to use my windoze machine on road trips (until I get a mac.)

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

I’ve been missing my Bloodhounds!  I reminded myself that arguing about politics is like arguing about religion, so logged in to push up a new post.

About a year ago, I posted that the Android OS was going to free me from Windows (and Office.)  Unfortunately, the g1 was a gigantic POS, so that didn’t happen.  However, in the meantime something fortunate did happen:

I dumped a giant glass of iced tea on my laptop.

During the two weeks of my PC repair, I was forced to move off Outlook and start using the powerful tools that Google provides (free) in their apps products.  End of two weeks, and I was off Outlook entirely.

Zoom forward a few months from that point and I’m bored out of my mind (funny how that happens in a real estate broker’s life during the Nov-Dec months.)  Out of this sheer boredom, I decided to install Ubuntu (linux) on an old PC laptop we had sitting around.

I’m writing this blog post on that machine.  Ubuntu is incredible.  This 5 year old laptop with 512kb of RAM runs faster than my 1.5 year old PC w/ 3gb of RAM and lightning fast processor.  I can’t wait to replace buggy Vista with Ubuntu on my fast machine!

So…I put it to you:  Find an old laptop in your house, download Ubuntu, install it, and give it 2 weeks.  Ubuntu is ready for prime time.  You belong in the cloud, and there’s no reason to be bound to an OS.

I’d love to hear feedback from anyone/everyone willing to give Ubuntu two weeks1!

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

Let me repeat that: If you want to close more deals, force your users to register to view property listings on your website.  I can back this up with hard data.  I can back this up with recent data.  If you allow open registration on your IDX/RETS site, you do not receive better leads than the broker/agent with forced registration.

Anyone who tells you otherwise has no idea what they are talking about. They either have no data, have never analyzed their data, have never tested, or have never sold or been involved in helping agents sell real estate. Let me repeat that: They have no idea what they are talking about.

I have confirmed these findings with:

• Eric Blackwell
• Wayne Long
• Ryan Ward
• Morgan Carey
• Louis Cammarosano
• Me

Each person listed above gets a minimum of 300 visitors per day from qualified sources – SEO, PPC, or social media ads.  Two people listed above have significantly more data that proves this.

If you don’t get at least 100 visitors per day of potential customers to your site, then you have no real data to confirm or deny these findings.

Every person I know who has tested forced vs. open registration who has significant traffic has opted for forced registration, and has seen an explosion in the number of leads, no degradation in lead quality, and as a result, has closed more deals.

Someone please prove me wrong.  With hard data.

If you want to close more deals, force registration.  The only thing open registration will do for you is get you a table with the cool kids at the conferences.

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

Apparently, if you’re all business and speak clearly, it’s really good:

But, if you’re one of “my boys” and talk really fast…not so good

Regardless, Google Voice is mad cool.  Here are some instructions on trying it out as Voicemail.

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

As I’ve said in the past, I’m not a fan of the term “Web 2.0.”  I’ll take it a step further and say that there are many aspects of the “Web 2.0” movement that I dislike.  There are enough aspects of the movement that I find silly that I can, and will, fill a post (but not now.)

Contrary to popular belief, I am a fierce capitalist.  Granted, I do love the open source movement, but I also think that there are ways to monetize open source, working within our capitalist system.  Much of “Web 2.0” seems to be anti-capitalist.  Users want everything free (no registration, no paid memberships, etc…) and in many cases don’t want site owners/bloggers to earn directly from their endeavors.  It should be a labor of love, right?  Any money earned should be earned indirectly, the 2.0’ers say.

Chris Johnson hit some great points in his recent post, and I agree with 95% of what he says.  However, I don’t reach the same conclusion.

In the past, paid blog reviews were fantastic for SEO, but with Google’s call to turn in paid links, and with the proliferation of the nofollow tag, this isn’t the case any longer (for white hats.)  However, Paid Reviews are still fantastic ideas for many vendors.  Why?  Highly targetted traffic.  Traffic that can, and will convert.  When was the last time you clicked on an ad when reading a blog?  However, would you follow a link to a vendor, if a blogger you respect wrote a thoughtful review, and the product pertained to you or your business?  Many people do…even when they know the review was purchased.

I disagree with Chris’ conclusion that all Paid Reviews are bad for blogging.  However, I do agree that paid reviews can, will, and should evolve.  He’s correct that Ratespeed could possibly have become better, had an intelligent conversation occurred, and all aspects been discussed.  How much more valuable is honest criticism over blanket praise?  If the community you’re targetting recommends you change, and you make those changes, how would that community respond?  There’s real value in that discussion – value Read more

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

I was pleasantly surprised to come home from the grocery store last night and see a package from T-Mobile w/ my new G1.  My girlfriend wasn’t so pleasantly surprised b/c it meant that I would for the most part ignore her for the evening while playing with my new toy.  Here are my first impressions:

1. If you’re already a Google fanboy, you’ll love it.  When you fire it up, it prompts you for your google ID, and you’re done.  Your email, calendar, and contacts are all seemlessly integrated with the phone.  You don’t have to lose your @mywebsite.com email address, either.  Using Google Apps, you can allow big G to give you all their services for free, and retain your branding.
2. The App Marketplace is REALLY thin right now, but there’s not an app on there that costs.  I immediately installed Accuweather (which I had on my BB,) and Plusmo College Football (which was already available for IPhone.)
3. Coming from the BB, I like the trackball + touchscreen navigation.  Very easy to maneuver websites with a lot of small nav buttons using the trackball, and very quick to navigate easier sites with the touchscreen.
4. I’m assuming b/c they piggybacked off the 1-800-GOOG-411 technology, the voice dialer actually works REALLY well.
5. There’s no port for headphones, which is really annoying.
6. Amazon MP3 is every bit as good as itunes.
7. So if you rotate the g1 on its side the screen does NOT adapt.  It’s very easy to navigate through w/o using the keypad, so I think this was a pretty silly move.  I’m not sure if they can do a soft upgrade using the compass or something, but I hope they can.
8. The messaging is not as consolidated as the BB.  I really like getting my sms, mms, and emails all in the same viewer.  There doesn’t appear to be an option for that here.
9. The browser isn’t quite as nice as the Iphone’s.  The Iphone browser does a good job of autosizing a site to fit the screen – android’s, not so much.  However, it’s still the 2nd best phone browser I’ve used.

So, all in all, I’m happy with the Read more

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

What does this have to do w/ “the maverick?”  At this point in time, I would literally vote for a feces throwing monkey, as long as it wasn’t stamped w/ the elephant, and wasn’t throwing feces at me.

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

Microsoft Office will be uninstalled on my PC on 10/23.

If all goes as planned, Windows will be replaced by Ubuntu on 10/24.

Sure, the Google phone isn’t as sexy as the Iphone.  Open source isn’t supposed to be sexy.  Just free and awesome.

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

Huge news in the world of search: Google now publishes search volume for specific keywords through the Adwords Keyword Selector Tool.  In the past, we’ve had Overture (which went away,) or Wordtracker to turn to.  Both of these tools were fairly inaccurate.  The new data that Google released appears to be far superior to either of these tools.

I’ve long been a fan of Google Trends, and I’ve wasted many an afternoon looking up the strange search habits & statistics of Googlers in different areas & cities.  Want to know if Keller Williams is more popular than Re/Max? Google Trends can give you a good idea.

The new data that Google has opened up to us gives us very powerful information about mind share, or public awareness.  It logically follows that the more people are searching for a specific brand, the more generally aware the public is of that brand.  We can now put a “search score,” in points on any specific brand.

So….how did everyone stack up?  you can click on the image for an easier to read doc, and more information

by Eric Bramlett

Real Estate

Author website

Much ado about Galen Ward’s Truliamazing Tricks of the Trade! Greg has already written a fantastic post about the reaction, so I won’t spend any time rehashing. An interesting side note that has been brought up by a few commentators is why Trulia is really kicking butt in the SERPs. It’s their Truliamazing Trojan Horse(s)!

Linkbait is one of the most powerful tools a white hat SEO can come up with. It can come in the form of interesting content (ahem, BHB,) controversial content, and neat tools that include a link back to the creator. Linkbait is by no means a bad thing. It’s part of what makes interesting/cool sites rank highly in the search engines. Google like-a-da-linkbait!

However, linkbait can definitely be a bad thing to you – in your market. If one of your local competitors cooks up some tasty linkbait, and you happen to repost it, and link to them, you’re helping your competitor rank higher than you in the search engines.

Trulia is truly kicking butt in the SERPs (for big time terms, and for long tails) because they’ve cooked up some solid linkbait in the form of widgets.

Let’s focus on one widget, and why it works – the “Trulia Stats” widget. (Oh, let’s also completely ignore how terribly inaccurate this widget is.)

Take a look at the bottom links that are included on the Trulia stat – “Austin Real Estate” which links to their Austin page, and “Trulia” which links to their main page. When you post this widget, you effectively tell Google that Trulia is the authority for your market, and then you give them another vote to their index page, which helps them kill it in the longtails.

So….what to do?

I would recommend not using the widgets at all (did I mention they’re really inaccurate?) However, if you want to be a “Truliamazing Agent” and act just like Trulia, then you can go ahead and post the widget, and either delete the link, or add the rel=”nofollow” tag. After all, you just trust their data – you Read more