Byron Robinson

I just thought I would blog about a new tool that we have with our Houston Realtor Association. This new tool was integrated into our MLS system on October 15, 2009 so about a little over a month ago. If you are like me and get tired of everyone trying to sell you a product to feed off of you then this tool would absolutely make you proud to have an association the helps you print flyers for free.

Our association has teamed up with 8touches and allows us to automatically populate flyers, brochures and postcards from our listings in the MLS system. You have the option of created a pdf and printing it out from you computer or paying a small discounted fee to 8touches for quality prints for some pennies per page.

I have a listing that I took at 25121 Barmby Dr, in Spring Texas and I have attached a picture of the flyers below. The flyers have several different layouts just like the companies on the internet that charge you a monthly fee or pay per flyer.

These flyers are professionally designed and give you a great product withing minutes. Example Below

Your company logo and name will populate into the marketing materials also. When I ran out of Flyers, I just email my seller the pdf so he could put more flyers in the info box.

Being a new webmaster can be a bit overwhelming especially if you are trying to learn SEO and getting your site to rank high in Google. I am pretty sure that AR has some pretty savvy webmasters here and if bad neighborhoods has already been discussed here, I apologize for bringing it back up. It's just that when I think of a bad neighborhood, I didn't think of it being on the Internet.

I grew up in the big city and currently serve the city as a civil servant, but had no idea about being in a bad neighborhood on the Internet. This is my story for today. I've been reading about SEO and getting my website to rank well in Google. When I heard about submitting my site to directories, blogging and submitting articles to build links to my site, I ran with it. I was able to get my Houston real estate website from page thirty something on Google to page 5 within about a month for a certain Keyword phrase. I thought man this stuff is easy, until I checked the keyword phrase again and my site was nowhere to be found. I was initially upset and wondered what happened, so instead of reading other sites on SEO and ranking, I went straight to Google and that is when I discovered bad neighborhoods.

I said to myself "man I hope I didn't screw up and get into a bad neighborhood" if you know anything about bad neighborhoods like I do, you would get a mental picture that would probably scare most people. I started to look at building my website and getting ranked in Google in a whole new way. I did not want to be locked up by the Google Cops (penalized for violating their TOS) so I got scared.

In my mind I started picturing a bad neighborhood with drugs, gambling shacks with password entry, illegal activities, no street lights, dark alleys etc... and started to think of it in a very comical way that I will illustrate in words. I pictured a street punk or thug on the corner saying " I got these links for you man, it's good stuff, it will help you to build popularity with all the search engines in no time... it will only cost you $19.95 to $99.00". Later to find out that the links I purchased were stolen and jacked from other sites in the form of spam and illegal linking strategies.

Now, I look at linking strategies and getting ranked in Google in a different light. I look at it like the real world instead of the world wide web. In the real world I would not want to be in a bad neighborhood, because of experience and watching the negative news at night.

Thugs = Hackers, Spammers, Illegal linking strategies etc..( I stay away from them and build natural links)

Bad Neighborhoods = Links to gambling sites, adult material sites, Link markets or farms and massive reciprocal linking with irrelevant and too many relative websites.

Good Neighborhoods = (the place to be) links from Forums, Blogs, Article Directories, local directories and Authority sites with relevant and relative information that compliment my site allowing me to build organic links that happen naturally as a result of good linking practices.

If you feel that your site has dropped because you may be in a bad neighborhood (Which is possible, because sometimes bad neighbors will find you and move right next door) you should check to see exactly who is linking to you. I am pretty sure there are several sites on the Internet that can help, but I found one that is easy to remember and could help you figure out if questionable sites are linked to you. The site is bad neighborhood, it will let you know who is linking to you and it is totally free. I am not affiliated with this site just found a good tool and thought I should share it.


Now I have to figure out how to get out of the bad neighborhoods if locked up by the Google cops...

Word of advice, stay away from get ranked fast schemes. Get your behind out of the HOOD!

This is my first blog on Active Rain and I have blogged on my own personal site a couple of times. Blogging is totally new for me, but I thought I should write about a new tool that our Realtor Association in Houston has allowed us to place on our personal website to get leads.

The tool is online agent chat. I know of sites already using instant chat, but I don't know of too many Realtor Associations empowering their members with a chat tool. Anyway, I placed this new tool on my site and tested it out and it works great.

The online chat allows a potential client to get in touch with you if they come across one of your listings while they are online searching our associations website or if they are on the Internet and find your website they can contact you also.

All I did was put the tool on my site and activated it through our associations site. It only shows up on your site if you are actively online. I think it is a neat tool, because of the potential for a hot lead coming your way and being able to build rapport with them while they are ready to buy or sell a home.

I think that if you are a Houston area Real estate agent and you're a member of HAR, this is an invaluable tool that you should add to your marketing efforts.

If you would like to see and test this tool out I just placed it on my site a couple of days ago. My website is www.realtydreammakers.com

You will only see it flashing if I am online. It will state "I AM ONLINE".