Online Marketing Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers: Insider Secrets You Need to Know to Take Your Business to the Next Level

Jim Kimmons’ forward to “Online Marketing Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers” was the perfect table setter for author Karen Vieira. The foreword bemoans buzz words and scams involved with online real estate marketing including “black hat” SEO. Kimmons is right to connect his focus on good sales technique in real estate with Vieira’s “quick paced” and informational approach to online marketing.

Vieira’s approach to online marketing for real estate professionals does not spare any detail. In Chapter Two “Creating Your Brand,” the author spends time on the various messages sent by business card colors. Readers are treated to explanations of crawls, keywords and meta tags that are treaded on lightly by other authors. “Online Marketing Technique” does not assume the reader’s prior knowledge of online marketing from the starter; rather, it helps build a knowledge base from chapter to chapter.

“Online Marketing Technique” is a fantastic investment for real estate professionals because of its staying power. The book offers checklists on developing a real estate brand, designing a website and creating online affiliates that will generate sales leads. Vieira challenges readers to create websites for each listing, use their personalities in professional blogs and head to eBay for real estate’s hidden gems. This book does not unveil top secret information on marketing properties online; rather, Vieira blends traditional sales techniques with new technology in user-friendly language.

Rating: 5 / 5

This book is very appropriate for what is going on in the economy right now. It addresses topics that concern everyone such as real estate agents and even potential homeowners. This book is right on point with what consumers are looking for in a website when browsing for a home.

This will be very beneficial to real estate agents and brokers. It will help them to improve their sites to be more consumers friendly. There are even polls included in the book about what people want in a website. Search engines have become very popular and this author discusses how to create one that is effective.

Rating: 5 / 5

Although Karen F. Viera targets real estate professionals in “Online Marketing Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers,” she has really given all business owners an outstanding guide to the use of the internet in developing a robust business and an active and engaged clientele. In “Online Marketing Techniques,” Ms. Viera very persuasively makes the case for the use of websites, blogging and other on-line vehicles as necessary elements for any marketing strategy and she presents those elements in a methodical, easy to read fashion that is never condescending to her readers. Indeed, relatively complex internet marketing techniques such as “search engine optimization” are explained in a way that will allow even the most technologically challenged reader to apply Ms. Viera’s lessons to the everyday task of developing a business.

Although “Online Marketing Techniques” offers a comprehensive examination of most aspects of on-line marketing and the use of both the internet and more traditional media in the development of a brand and a business, there is one glaring omission that Ms. Viera should address in her first revision of the work. Specifically, Ms. Viera fails to adequately explore the marketing power of social networking websites. Admittedly, she does reference Facebook, MySpace and similar sites in passing, but those types of social networks, along with Twitter and the rest of the ever-expanding universe of social media sites, deserve at the very least their own chapter, if not an entire section of the work. It is simply not enough to mention that marketing requires the use of Facebook, MySpace and other such sites. Effective use should be fully explained.

Ms. Viera’s treatment of social networking sites notwithstanding, “Online Marketing Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers” remains an excellent primer on the use of the internet and traditional media in the development of a cohesive marketing strategy – both for real estate professionals and for anyone who wants to develop their business to its fullest potential. The Internet is not going away any time soon, but businesses that fail to follow Ms. Viera’s advice may very well find themselves unable to compete in the digital age.

Rating: 4 / 5