If you were to Google “real estate” it should become obvious that it is highly competitive. Google returns about 657,000,000 results for “real estate” and the first page is filled with the likes of realtor.com, realestate.com, Yahoo! Real Estate, Wikipedia, eBay and CNN. Century 21 doesn’t come up till the third page and it is the highest ranked of the big real estate firms for this search. Your company has no chance dominating this keyword.

So what should you do? Look at the long tail, which means that you should find specific keywords that are not nearly as competitive as “real estate”. So now let’s try Googling “residential real estate in Midtown Atlanta”. What a difference! Instead of 657,000,00 results, you now only have 181,000. The top results are mainly local companies that would take days to find if you were sifting through the results of the “real estate” search. And let’s face it; nobody is going to click past page five of the results for any Google search. If you are a real estate firm based in Atlanta, or have an office there, this is a much better keyword to choose.

Why is it better to pick the long tail keyword? Let’s say by pure magic, someone finds your Atlanta based real estate company on Google when they search “real estate”. You now have received 1 click from 500,000,000 people who Googled “real estate”, but this person was only searching “real estate” because he wanted to find information on the state of the real estate market in New York City. You’re out of luck on this one because:

1. You are not a real estate magazine or blog and do not have market spotlights at your website.
2. You are an Atlanta based real estate company and have no office in NYC, or even in the whole northeast for that matter.

So now that 1 click you finally earned after all the hours of SEO work and funds you used has been wasted because the keyword was way to broad. You should focus on niche keywords, especially if you are a smaller company with small pockets. SEO can be a time intensive project and for an entrepreneur to waste that much time on SEO for the wrong keyword instead of the core business might prove fatal.

Finally, using a specific keyword will significantly increase your conversion rate. When people are searching broad terms, they most likely are not looking for anything in particular, which means there is a small chance for a sale. However, when someone searches an extremely specific keyword, there is a drastically higher chance of that individual purchasing your product or service.

Basically, a linkwheel is a set of SIX Web 2.0 properties interlinked in a “wheel” structure, all promoting a page on the web which is the focus of that particular “wheel”. Below is an image of the “LinkWheel”.

Basically, you have six properties up, and each contains a link to the “focus hub” and its ‘neighbor’ as you can see in the image above, the arrows representing links.

Your “focus hub” could be any page you wish to promote. For example a page on your website, or another Web 2.0 property. To expand, you could build a linkwheel like this around a page, and then build a new linkwheel around each of the properties that are in that linkwheel. For example, in the above image, you would continue building another linkwheel having Weebly and Squidoo etc as the Focus Hub.

So give the LinkWheel a try and you will see results almost instantaniously. You can also create LinkWheels around each one of the web 2.0 properties in your main LinkWheel. This will give them more traffic/value and in turn give the center website more traffic/value.

You can download the full 18 page LinkWheel report from its creators website.

“On April 16th Max Finn, social media marketing and web development expert discussed tips, techniques and ideas on how to enhance your social media presence.  Max is the Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing consultant for NAI Global. An avid blogger, Max has been involved with 5 start up companies and took his last blog, the4eblog to an Alexa ranking of 35,000. The blog also won several awards and Max has been featured on the front page of top social media blogs, such as Social Media Today and Junta42. Several of Max’s blog posts were published on a weekly basis in the New York and New England Real Estate Journal.”

Click to watch the recorded version of my WebEx!

Interestingly enough, this was not a one-time event that caused the freeze, but instead was a series of events that I could no longer ignore.

I realized that I Google my name, companies and keywords that relate to both, several times a day. Why do I do this? I would never consider myself a conceited individual; in fact I am quit the opposite. I check the Google rankings so frequently because I want to be as visible as possible to potential clients and connections. I also need to make sure I am doing my job properly. If I am taking the right actions then I should see a steady increase in my visibility, as well as my companies. You are probably saying, “But Max, you are a web 2.0 and SEO specialist and have to care about that stuff”. This is a valid point, but think about how many professionals work on commission.

Commercial Real Estate brokers are a perfect example for individual’s being their own companies. Sure some large clients will go through the firm to find the best broker for the deal, but what if someone is searching for a retail broker in Northern Georgia? This is where search engine optimization will see exponential growth. These commission-based professionals have no choice, but to adopt web 2.0 tools. If you are not coming up on the first one or two pages of Google when searching your name…YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. Don’t fear though because there are many ways to cost effectively boost your search engine rankings and web visibility. Below are three simple and free steps for everyone:

• Blog: I am getting tired of explaining the tremendous value contained in blogging, but until more people lose their stubbornness I will keep preaching. You can setup a blog for free on several platforms and if you want to take it to the next level you can pay for a higher quality platform. Once you have a blog your web presence will shoot through the through and you as an individual will be more search engine friendly.
• Social Networks: I am not talking about just the big generics like Facebook or LinkedIn; I am also talking about unique and niche networks. Look into joining social networks that are focused on your industry and what you do exactly. The keywords will match better and offer search engines increased relevance.
• Share: Whenever you publish something new, like a blog, make sure to share it with as many people as possible. Sign up for sites like Business Exchange and Digg to promote your blogs and other posts to a massive audience. This is guaranteed to increase your daily traffic and will in turn increase your authority with search engines.

So with these three starting points you should have your hands full until the next more detailed lesson on self-promotion. I hope this article makes you look at yourself as living company with hundreds of cost effective tools at your disposal to grow your network and business operations. These lessons are valuable for everyone, but especially to commercial real estate brokers, athletes, independent contractors, lawyers, entertainers and students/entrepreneurs

However, many people are still unsure of the true value behind Twitter. This application is not a time wasting, social utility. If used properly, it is powerful individual and business tool. The most obvious value behind becoming a frequent Tweeter is the SEO benefit.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is crucial in today’s business world to understand SEO. Every company and individual should strive to be on the first page of Google for various keyword searches. In order to do this, you must be great at what you do and write valuable content on your field of expertise. Twittering allows you to publish short (140 character) blogs, which will appear on the feeds of all your followers. If other Twitter members find your content interesting they will follow you, so they can see all your future posts. The more followers you have, the greater your credibility will become and your search engine ranking will consequentially increase.

Along with the inherit SEO benefit, Twitter is valuable in several other ways. Firstly, it is a lightning fast form of communication to a large group. You can keep colleagues, partners and friends up to date on breaking news or insider information within seconds of finding out. And with Twitter applications for the iPhone and Blackberry, it is just one click away. Once logged in, you can quickly type your message, click update and within a fraction of a second all your followers receive the message. Twitter can also be integrated into corporate and personal blogs. This way any Twitter updates you make on the road will automatically feed to your blog. Twittering is also a valuable tool at large events, such as conventions. Instead of the conventional Q&A session at the end of speeches, a screen can be set up on stage and the audience members can Twitter their questions, which will appear on the big screen. This way everyone can hear the question without the usual confusion. These are just a few of the ways Twitter can offer value to the business world. For more information on Twittering, feel free to contact us.

Everyone understands the concept of Facebook, but few business professionals understand how their company can capitalize on utilization of the platform. This article will be your step-by-step guide for unlocking the hidden value of Facebook.

1. Registration: The first thing to do for all new members is obviously registration. Once logged in, take a look around your home page and become familiar with the new feed. Your news feed will keep you up to date with all the actions of your friends. The setting can easily be changed if you only want to be notified of certain actions.
2. Friend Requests: Once you have your bearings it is time to invite partners, friends and colleagues to become your friend. Now it is time to get down to business.
3. Complete Profile Info: Fill out all the information in your profile exactly how you would with your LinkedIn Profile. Search engines are going to crawl this page, so you want as much professional information as possible, as it will help with your ranking.
4. Add Application: Browse through the application gallery and add apps that you see useful. I recommend adding the RSS reader to your page and then linking your personal or corporate blog to it. This will drive traffic to your blog and will add another link to your blog. Another useful app to add is the Twitter app, which will directly feed all your twitters to your profile.
5. Create Groups: Create a group for your whole company, departments or project teams. You can set these groups to private or leave them open for the public based on the reason the group was created. Applications can be added to groups if needed. Use the discussion forum and wall to quickly communicate with team members on specific projects or problems.
6. Create Product/Service Fan Page: Establish your brand by creating a large following on Facebook. Fan Pages are vital because they allow consumers to communicate directly with the company and/or other consumers. If you just released a new product, your fan page can give you a great deal of value feedback, as most likely your fans will start discussions on the page. These pages also allow your consumers to be very hands on because they can upload pictures and videos.
7. Advertising: Facebook makes all of its revenue from advertising and has developed quite the impressive ad platform. Depending on the size of your company, you can choose different types of advertising. Anyone can buy ads at any time by number of clicks or by number of impressions. When you run this type of ad, you choose what you want to advertise, type in the text of the ad, upload the photo for the ad, choose a social action, pick the location (worldwide, state, city), pick the sex, pick the age, type in keywords, set a daily budget, pick your max bid and finally choose your schedule. The social actions are stories about a user’s friends that are related to and displayed alongside your advertisement. You can select which pages or applications provide relevant social actions that can be paired with your ad. Another type of advertisement that larger companies use, links actions taken on a company’s website to actions taken on Facebook. If your friend rents a movie on Blockbuster.com, he/she can choose to share this on Facebook. If they choose yes and one of your friends likes the genre of movie you rented, an ad will appear in that friend’s news feed stating X rented Y movie from Blockbuster.com. The level of personalization Facebook has created for their advertising platform separates them from other social networks.
8. Insights: Along with the superior ad platform, Facebook has developed a powerful research platform to track the performance of your ads. You have access to data on activity, fan demographics, ad performance and trends. With this information, you are better equipped to improve your custom content on Facebook and adjust your ad targeting. Their robust database of authentic demographic information provides you with deep understanding of exactly who is engaging with your business and how. Best of all, this service is completely free.
9. Application Creation: Another great way to promote your company is to develop a powerful application. With Facebook Platform, you can create applications that integrate deeply into Facebook, harness the power of the social graph and create new opportunities for you business. The platform provides you with all the necessary tools to quickly create custom experiences for users to interact with your business. There is currently over 400,000 registered developers on Facebook, so don’t wait any longer.

As you now know, Facebook should not be taken lightly. It is one of the most powerful web 2.0 platforms available in the current market and all businesses should be implementing a few of these discussed steps. Social networks are not just for fun anymore, which is why companies like Ernst and Young, Apple and Nike all have strong presences on Facebook.

For a startup business, YouTube is a significant tool in gaining a viral presence. It can cost companies thousands of dollars in PR and marketing expenses to gain a following and establish a brand, but with YouTube it is virtually free. Once you set up your company account, you will have also created your own YouTube channel. You can customize the CSS on your channel to be personalized for your respective brand. Once the channel customization is complete, it is time to fill it with video content.

What type of videos should you create? Let’s use a commercial real estate firm as our example. As a startup company you will want to prove you industry expertise. In this case, the first few videos should be discussions about specific markets that your company knows inside and out. Talk about the rent rates, demographics, future growth, local economy and other information that a client will find interesting and valuable. Post these videos and your target market will come to watch them. Once you have reached the 500-1000 viewer threshold think about making a recruitment video. In this video talk about what makes your company unique, your clients, your growth potential and the work environment. Finally, think about making video tours of high profile properties in bigger markets. This will give you a unique edge on your competitors.

YouTube has endless possibilities for startup and established companies alike. If you do not currently have a channel on YouTube, set one up right after you read this blog.