You’ll never have to buy email list again after this show. Doug McIsaac and I continue the No B.S. Marketing to get more leads series with this episode of Real-TechGuy radio.  This week we reveal some of our favorite list building secrets to help you get more leads when you market online.

After losing my facebook page last week (and getting it back) I promised to help you understand how to protect yourself from losing everything.  So I’ve put together a 6 page report on list building.

As we found out last week, nothing on the internet is yours except for your email list.  This report will give you the tools you need to get started building your email list today.

((Instructions – You can view the report on this page OR you can download it HERE))

List Building Report: Protect yourself from the uncertainty of Social Media

We’re back on track with the No B.S. series to get more leads and I have something very important to tell you.  If you’re marketing, then you NEED to be testing.  On this episode of Real-TechGuy Radio Doug and I share the importance of testing and some ideas on things you can test in your marketing.

Just in case you missed it, last week Facebook Killed The Official Real Estate Referral Group, but the good news is we got it back and we learned some really great lessons.  In this episode of Real-GuyRadio Doug and I share 3 ideas you can implement to protect yourself before this happens to you.  Enjoy!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you this NEWS story…

Can you believe Facebook killed The Official Real Estate Referral Group? Without warning, without notice on Wednesday July 14th, 2010 the page was shut down.  If you didn’t know about the page, let me give you some quick stats:

• 47,000 + members
• 1,419 referrals provided
• 21 months old

As upset as I was I didn’t realize how this page had impacted the community.  Luckily, Chris Smith from Tech Savvy Agent recognized this as a big story and did an interview with me to let our community know what happened.  Check out the interview below:  (if you don’t see the video player, Click HERE to watch it.)

What happened next?

Into the night the story was picked up by Mari Smith (thanks to Naomi Trower) and gained major momentum on Twitter.  By the next morning there were hundreds of Facebook shares and Tweets spreading the word.

After the community rallying behind us (THANKS!) Facebook reinstated the page and allowed me to change the vanity URL from Facebook.com/SocialREALTORs to Facebook.com/RealEstateReferralGroup.

Lessons Learned

1. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  If I only relied on Facebook for my business I would have been dead (more on that in a minute.)
2. When you add value to your network, they will add value to you.  If it wasn’t for my network we would have never gotten the page back.
3. Most importantly:  Before buying a domain or naming a page, do your research so you can avoid these types of hassles.

What can you do to protect yourself?

1. Cross Pollinate:  Don’t rely on just one network.  If you have influence on Facebook, move over to other networks (like You Tube & Twitter) to see if some of your community members are there.  Communicate and interact with them there as well so if you loose one network you’re still tied in together in other networks.
2. Build REAL Relationships:  The number are meaningless if you don’t make a real connection.  Social Media is just a tool to help us meet more people and actually connect.  Luckily, in my situation I had real relationships with some people in my community who helped me spread the word when things went wrong.
3. Build a list: Facebook is great, but sometimes we forget that even “our pages” really belong to Facebook.  the idea is to leverage the interactions and connections to move people off the page and onto your list where YOU HAVE CONTROL.

I want to help you avoid this & Give you a gift

The most important thing you can do to protect yourself is to start building your own email list right now.  Luckily, we practice what we preach and we had email addresses of 8% of our members.  You can call this an insurance policy just in case all hell breaks loose.

My gift to you is a report on how to build a list using Facebook Pages.  I am working on this report as we speak and will have it available to you on Thursday.  It’s the least I can do to thank you for the support.

I want to make sure you don’t miss this report, so I recommend you subscribe to the feed so you don’t miss it.

If you’ve been following the No B.S. marketing to get more leads series, this week’s show is going to be real fun. Doug McIsaac and I discuss how you can use Google Adwords to get tons of targeted traffic back to your site almost instantly.

Remember, traffic (clicks) is the best way to test and idea online.  (((And just in case you’re too dense to get it… marketing is just “ideas” to get more leads.)))

Still trying to figure out how to use Google Adwords to Get More Traffic?

Just like we mentioned on the show, Perry Marshall’s the MAN when it comes to adwords.  Click on the banner below to get his 5 Day eTraining to prepare you for the adwords jungle.

Yes, this is an affiliate link, but the 5 day training is absolutely free.

Guest Post by Drew Burks

WordPress is free yet priceless and I believe it is the number one tool any Real Estate agent can have in their arsenal.

When it comes right down to it, Social Media & Blogging are turning the real estate profession on its head.  The thought of providing free information to consumers and communicating with consumers on their terms is completely foreign to the traditional Real Estate Agent mindset.

Once an agent sees what WordPress can do for them (in terms of SEO and marketing) they quickly realize it’s greatest business tool ever created!

Using a Worpdress Blog

The WordPress platform is free, easy to install and configure, Google friendly and cheap to host.  To learn exactly how (step by step) to setup a wordpress blog visit my post on Blogging for Real Estate.

Some things you need to know about WordPress

What’s the difference between WordPress Pages, Posts and Categories?

• Pages are static content that does not change and may or may not have comments attached to them!
• Posts are more timely, you would add posts several times a week on subjects that might interest your target visitors.  Usually displayed in chronological order within multi-post pages!
• Categories are a way of grouping and sorting your posts under logical headings.

Next…

If you didn’t already choose a theme during the install you’ll want to do that now.  Then you’ll want to configure the plugins. Most plugins are free!

The other important thing to note is some plugins are here today and gone tomorrow, so at the time of this writing I am giving you a small list of my preferred WordPress plugins.

• Scribe
• Contact Form 7
• Dean’s FCKEditor for WordPress
• Google Talk Widget
• Subscribe to Comment
• WP Super Cache
• Facebook Social Plugins

Coming up in the No B.S. marketing series…

This was a guest post by my friend Drew.  If you didn’t read his post on Blogging for Real Estate you should really check it out, he shows you everything you need to do to get your wordpress blog setup.

Before you run off and setup your blog, I want to give you a sneak peak of what’s coming up.

Keep an eye out for my next post where I’ll show you how to save countless hours by outsourcing the blog setup freeing you up to do the stuff that’s more fun — testing keywords using adwords.

We’ve been talking a lot about keywords lately and today I want to share a very important concept with you.

There are two major ways that keywords get more traffic to your site, the first is going to be organically through SEO (search engine optimization) and the second, and much quicker way that we focus on is by using adwords to test them.

Now I’m not going to write bunch about it since we covered it in the broadcast below. The most important thing is for you to listen to that broadcast so you’re ready for what’s coming up.

I also wanted to do a recap before we head into Step Three of our Smart Marketing to Get more Leads series.

Recap of Using Keywords in Your Marketing

So here’s a little something special for you folks that like to take your learning on the go (you can either listen here or visit the page to download the broadcast.)

Doug and I recorded a show recapping the series to date plus we talked about how using keywords gets more traffic to your site.

To listen to the broadcast Hit Play on the player below.  If you don’t see the player then Click Here.

What’s coming up Next in the series

Now that you’ve gotten some keyword skills we’ve got to move on to the testing and development phase of your campaign.  Having good words is useless if you don’t know what to do with them.

Keep an eye out for our next post where my good friend Drew Burks will share how to setup your wordpress blog.

We’re on day 10 of this experiment and we’re finally ready to put all the research we’ve done to good use.  Today I want to talk to you about using keywords to name your website.  If you’ve been following along you’ll know this is step two in the master plan to get more leads.

Why you should use Keywords to Name your Website.

The idea behind everything we do online is to get more traffic (exposure) to your business, right?  The quickest way to get more traffic on Google is a good keyword strategy, and there’s no better place to start then your domain name.

When the Google spiders come out to crawl your site the first thing they find is your domain name, so if your title has the right keywords you’ll get an instant boost in the rankings.

Here comes the No B.S. part…

Remember when I asked you if you were tired of all the BS online?  Well here’s the truth, we’re going to be using adwords soon.  One of the tricks I use to get better ratings (Read: Cheaper Clicks) is to make sure my domain has the same words as the title I’m using.

…but I’m getting ahead of myself here.  I told you I was gonna give you the truth in marketing, and the first truth I’m going to share is that you have to spend money to make money.  There’s no way around it.  So let the spending begin with the purchase of your domain name.

Naming your website with Go Daddy

[Full disclosure, this is an affiliate link.  If you use it I might make a shiny nickel.  You've been warned.]

After doing the research and finding good keywords you need to buy the domain name that you’re going to test [Yes, Test!]  I have an account at Go Daddy which is one of the more common domain registrars. The reason I really like them is because they are integrated with Pay Pal.  Click the box below for a special offer [for really CHEAP domain names] from Go Daddy.

Do this NOW

Go buy your domain name (or names, remember we’re TESTING) and keep an eye out for my next post where I’ll be taking you to the next step of this process – Setting up a place for your traffic to go and convert  See you then!

Alright, now that you know how to find the best keywords I figured it might be helpful if I showed you how to use keywords in your marketing.

So, today I have a special treat for you.  A few months back I interviewed Doug McIsaac on using keywords to name your facebook page.  The principles covered in this recording can be applied to ANY marketing you do online.  Remember, words are the key to getting in front of the right people.