If you work in real estate, you have probably experienced the satisfaction of helping clients navigate the various challenges of finding a new home or putting one up for sale. To be successful, it is critical to not only build relationships of trust and understanding with clients, but also assure your clients that you have the expertise to fulfill their needs. It is likely the case that you did not expect privacy compliance to be a major concern for your business. Nevertheless, this is a reality for not just those working in the real estate industry, but for businesses of all kinds.

If you have a website for your real estate agent business, U.S. privacy laws may require your website to contain an up-to-date Privacy Policy. Noncompliance with these laws may cause a negative impact on your business, such as incurring fines and even lawsuits under certain circumstances. Because of the broad reach of privacy laws, it is critical that your business is prepared. This article seeks to provide you with some critical information so that you may comply with the law while continuing to achieve success for your real estate agent business and your clients.

This article will discuss the following four topics:

• How real estate agent websites collect personally identifiable information;
• What laws require real estate agent websites to contain a Privacy Policy;
• Fines that may result from non-compliance with privacy laws; and
• Where your real estate agent business can get an affordable Privacy Policy solution.

How real estate agent websites collect personally identifiable information

When websites collect personally identifiable information (“PII”), privacy laws govern how that PII is used and disclosed to others. PII can be defined as any piece of information that directly identifies, or may reasonably identity, a specific person. PII may include the following:

• The first and last name of an individual
• Addresses, including zip codes
• Telephone numbers
• Email addresses
• Username/Password for property portal/IDX

In some cases (though rare) real estate agent websites might ask to collect credit report info, bank account information, and social security numbers in order to get pre-qualified to purchase a home.

Real estate agent websites may collect PII via the following:

• Contact forms and appointment forms containing an individual’s PII, such as telephone numbers and home addresses
• Inquiries from across state lines from potential clients desiring to move to a different state
• Portals containing images of users’ houses, along with information such as zip codes and addresses that may be viewed by others

If your website collects PII via any of the above methods, then your website may be required by law to contain a Privacy Policy. 

What laws require real estate agent websites to contain a Privacy Policy?

Privacy laws are broad in scope. If your business’s website is accessed by users protected under an applicable privacy law, such as California, there is a good chance your website must comply with it. Depending on where current and potential clients may access your website, this means that your business must be aware of major privacy laws governing the collection and use of PII. More likely than not, these laws require your website to contain an up-to-date Privacy Policy. These laws include the following:

• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA);
• California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA);
• Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A;
• Delaware Online Privacy and Protection Act (DOPPA);
• Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The above laws require websites to contain Privacy Policies. These policies must make a variety of disclosures pertaining to what information is collected from the individual, how that information is used, and who has access to that information. Check out our article on laws requiring Privacy Policies for more guidance on what privacy laws may apply to your real estate agent website.

A new development that is creating significant compliance challenges for businesses is the expansion of consumer control over how PII is collected and transferred. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act allows consumers to “opt-out” of certain disclosures and transfers of PII to third parties. Moreover, this particular law requires businesses to make specific disclosures pertaining to their information collection and sharing practices within their online Privacy Policies.

With privacy laws in the United States and abroad continuing to evolve, it is critical to determine what privacy laws apply to your website so you can effectively respond. As these laws continue to change, the risk of incurring heavy fines and lawsuits only increases.

Fines that may result from non-compliance with privacy laws

Noncompliance with applicable privacy laws can potentially result in significant fines and penalties. These fines may range from $2,500 per violation to €20,000,000 or more in total under European law. This “per violation” calculation is significant. It means that, even if your website only receives a handful of visitors on a weekly basis, the total fines incurred from violating the law can still be significant depending how often you collect PII from individuals.

Where can a real estate agent get an affordable Privacy Policy solution?

When faced with the compliance challenges posed by the numerous privacy laws on the books, businesses must often incur substantial costs just to hire attorneys to write a compliant Privacy Policy. We’ve partnered with Termageddon, a Privacy Policy generator that will create a customized Privacy Policy for your website and keep it updated whenever privacy laws change. For more information check out our Dynamic Privacy Policy info page.

The post Why Real Estate Agent Websites Need A Privacy Policy appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Here are the passed Privacy  Laws that you may be violating:

The California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 
The General Data Protection Regulation 
Nevada Senate Bill 220 (goes into effect on October 1st, 2019)
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) (goes into effect on January 1st, 2020)
As you see above, two new laws go into effect over the next six months (Nevada/California). The California one is a big deal, because it enables Californians to sue businesses anywhere in the US for not having a Privacy Policy. The fees per violation of the CA law are up to $7,500. Nevada fees are $5,000 per infringement.

The fees per violation of the CA law are up to $7,500

Furthermore, there are over a dozen states that are drawing up new bills requiring websites to have Privacy Policies, which are sure to have different requirements for each.
But the real kicker is that what passes today as a compliant policy will likely not pass as compliant in the future.
You will be required to maintain your policy pages as new laws are passed/amended.
This is not a hoax. These new Privacy Laws are real, and website owners that do not comply with can face very real, very large fines.

But the real kicker is that what passes today as a compliant policy will likely not pass as compliant in the future.

Sensitivity to privacy protection is the new normal and you’ll want to take it seriously. Stay tuned as we keep an eye on this, and work to keep you informed.
***If you have questions on this matter please contact us directly, and we will help ensure your compliance and protection.***

The post If You Have A Contact Form On Your Site, You Could Face Huge Privacy Law Fines appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

What Benefit Are Google Sitelinks?

1. It improves your “Click Thru Rate”
– Your most popular pages are typically the ones that are shown in the sitelinks. Offering these popular links right away ensures your audience is clicking through to the content you want them to experience.
2. Sitelinks establish credibility
– The amount of space that your site with sitelinks below takes up in the search results is impressive. It shows a sort of endorsement from Google. You won;t be overlooked.
3. Increased the awareness of your services and offerings.
– Having your best pages appear in the sitelinks instantly reveals what you have to offer to your audience. Your brand, your reputation, your content… all of it is suddenly more visible than other results on the page.
4. Effective Pages get more visibility
– Instead of hoping that your homepage successfully directs your audience to the most effective pages on your site, sitelinks presents them right in the search results.
5. Having Sitelinks is a clear indicator of a website with healthy SEO
– This does not mean however that if you don’t have sitelinks that your site is poorly SEO’d.

How Do I Get Google Sitelinks?

There are no guidelines from Google as to how to get sitelinks.
What we do know is that sitelinks are associated with sites that use what Google would consider “best practices.”
Here are a several things we recommend to give yourself the best chance at getting sitelinks:
(Note – many of you will need to work with your website support to address these)

• Submit your site to Google Search Console (AKA Google Webmasters)
• Sign up for Google Analytics and add their tracking code to your website (you might need your website support you help you here).
• Make sure you have a unique and descriptive Site Title. This is ours: Real Estate Tomato | Custom Real Estate Website Design | WordPress
• Make sure you have a unique and descriptive Meta Description.
• Your main navigation menu needs to be clearly organized. This means ONLY the most important pages are the main menu items and their related pages are in dropdowns below. It is also a good idea to use Parent Page >> Child Page structure where you have deep content.
  For example:
  If you have a Community page that showcases all your featured Communities is might have the URL like this: awesomerealestate.com/communities/.
  Now a “Child” of that page would have a URL that looked like this: awesomerealestate.com/communities/alexandria/
  That is a proper hierarchy organization of your pages.
• Add and submit a sitemap.xml to your Google Search Console. If you are using WordPress you just need the Google XML Sitemap Plugin.
• Cross link to and from your websites most important pages. Continuing with the community page example, you should make sure that each page has links to the other important community pages, as well as to search pages, contact pages, and other site defining pages.
• Similar to the homepage Title above, make sure your pages all have SEO friendly titles that relate to the content within. This is important because it’s what appears in the sitelink.
• Similar to the homepage Description above, make sure your pages all have SEO friendly descriptions. This is important because it’s what appears in the sitelink.

Reasons Google might NOT show sitelinks for your site:

• Your site is poorly optimized (For ex: Pages have the same or similar title and meta description. Or you have thin content on pages)
• Your site doesn’t allow for the algorithm to find pages “good enough” for site links
• Sitelinks wouldn’t be relevant to a particular search query (not all searches produce results of site with sitelinks)
• You are missing a sitemap
• You have not submitted your site to the Search Console

Can I Change My Google Sitelinks?

There are no settings to control your sitelinks. Google’s algorithm selects which links it determines “when we think they’ll be useful to the user.”

Can I Demote a Google Sitelink?

Sadly Google stopped allowing this option in Oct of 2016.
Some important notes:
Current maximum number of sitelinks is 6.
Current maximum number of characters in the sitelink title is 31
Current maximum number of characters in the sitelink descriptions is 65
If you found the above tips helpful, you should really subscribe to future updates.
Or if you are a little embarrassed by your current website, drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover!

The post What The Heck Are Google Sitelinks And Why Do I Need Them? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

In 2017 40% of the Visitors to Our Clients’ Websites Was Mobile.

This is a growing trend. We started noticing an uptick back in 2012, and it has been growing ever since.
2012: 9%
2013: 13%
2014: 19%
2015: 27%
2016: 33%
and now 2017: 40% Mobile.
At this rate, by next year nearly 50% of your website audience will be mobile.

At this rate, by next year nearly 50% of your website audience will be mobile.

Have you ever heard of Bounce Rate?

Bounce Rate is the percentage of users that come, look one page, and leave your site without taking any action.
Our own Bounce Rate for November is 1.59% 
This means that less than 2 out of 100 leave our site without clicking to see more.
**If your website is not mobile friendly, your Bounce Rate could, at best be around 50%.
Half the audience you attract to your site leaves right away.
All that time, money, effort, that goes into your site is flushed for half your audience because you don’t have a mobile friendly website.
Nearly 3 years ago, Google announced that they give preference to mobile friendly websites in their search results.
So if you want to start appearing competitively again, and want to keep half your audience from leaving your site before they even look around, we can help!
Drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover that brings you into 2018!
 

The post What Kind Of First Impression Is Your Real Estate Website Making To Mobile Users? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Action Items | Let’s Get Right With Google

Google has a couple of different links you can use to update your publicly facing profile with them.
Make sure both are properly filled out and looking good.
Google AboutMe
Google Profiles

I know you will probably never use it, but if you haven’t already, you need to sign up for Google+
It is important to make sure Google knows to tie your name, your profile, your website, your testimonials, your logo, and your business details all together.
By taking the time to properly sign up and fill out the above, you will lock in your Google Identity.

The other best reasons to use Google Plus:

(Keeping this simple so you see the value)
Demographics – Where FB leans under 40 and female, Google+ leans over 40 and male. Interesting huh?
Instant Spidering – Want a blog post to get spidered by Google immediately? Share it on your Google+ page.
SEO Boost – If your content is shared, reposted, or liked (+1 its called on G+) Google will consider your content exceptional, and place it better.
If you found the above tips helpful, you should really subscribe to future updates.
Upcoming posts include how to get those shortcut links under your website in the search results like this– you wont want to miss it!
Now if only your website represented your business as professionally as you feel it should.
We can help!
Drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover!

The post Simple Must Do Steps To Build Your Real Estate Profile With Google For Better Ranking appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

• Your brokerage can supersede your efforts at claiming the address of the office.
  There can be only one business at that location. So it might be best to use a home office location or a specific suite number if possible.

Once verified:

• Add photos, including your headshot, logo, and images that you use in your other branding.
• Get reviews! Make sure some favorite clients visit the page and leave some 5 star reviews. Google will also pick up reviews from Facebook and Yelp.
• Share some content (blog post, quick insight, or the like) post it – get something fresh up there.
• The background/cover image for your business profile is currently set to be 1086px by 611px.
  You might need a designer to help you with this, or head over to Canva.com and work out something slick.

Another quick tip! Place your business directly onto Google Maps.
Zoom into your physical location, and right click on the area where you want to be located. There is an option to “Add a Missing Place”
If your business profile is verified (see above), and the address matches the location you are pinning, you can just fill out the quick form and bam! your business appears on Google Maps.
That will be enough to get you on the google results maps, unless all your competition just read this post as well.
If you found the above tips helpful, you should really subscribe to future updates.
Upcoming posts include how to best improve and leverage your personal Google profile – you wont want to miss it!
Now if only your website that comes up when you google yourself represented your business as professionally as you feel it should.
We can help!
Drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover!

 
 

The post Hey REALTORS®, Have You Given Yourself a Good Googling Lately? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

1. Leads? What Leads?

When was the last time that your site was responsible for a new lead?
If your online representation of you and your business is not bringing you new clients then it is time for a change.

2. You Are Still Being Charged For Basic Changes

Modern platforms are super easy to make changes on, and shouldn’t involve any additional costs.
If you are being nickled & dimed for the updates you need to make to your site then it is time for a change.

3. Your Google Placement Is Terrible

Basic SEO can have you appearing competitively in Google.
Odds are, that if your site is out-dated, you are no longer being found in search results. It is time for a change.

4. It’s Not Optimized For Mobile

Current traffic analytics show us that 40-50% of your website traffic is from a mobile device. If your site wasn’t designed for their convenience, then they are going to leave without looking around.
In addition to disappointing your audience, Google also gives preferential placement to mobile friendly websites.

5. It Is Slow Loading

Many factors can affect the load speed of your site: weak server, poor programming, too many large images, too many plugins, etc. If your site is not loading quickly, then your audience will not wait, and it is time for a change.
Bonus:

6. It Looks Out-Dated

Look around at the contemporary trends that your competition is using to impress their audience. If your audience has the impression that you can’t represent yourself competitively, then they will believe that you can’t represent them and their property effectively either.
We can help!
If you got this far down the post I bet you are considering a change with your website. We would love to have a no-obligation, non-salesy conversation with you about it. We’ve been doing this a long time. Answering your questions would be our pleasure. Go ahead – give us a call: 530-828-6764 or drop us and email.

The post 5 Warning Signs That You Need A New Real Estate Website appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Website Curb Appeal

When you have lots of competition the first impression is so important. This is why Curb Appeal is so important in real estate; it gets them interested.

If your website is failing to grab your audience by the shirt collar hand and tell them “you’ve come to the right place” then you are failing the first step of engagement.
One or more of these 4 words should be your goal when it comes to making an impression on your audience.
Delight
Connection
Captivation
Love
Look at your website from the perspective of the visitor.
Do you think it satisfies one of the above?
If you’re not convinced it does, perhaps you need to consider the next questions:
1. Is the message you want your website to offer clear?
2. Are the most important calls to action visible and attractive to your audience?
3. Do the first images elicit an emotion of your visitors’ dreams?
Or is it too busy, too confusing, or too canned?
If you fail to make an excellent first impression you will lose their interest and you will suffer what we call a high bounce rate.
If you would like to have a free consultation on whether your site has great curb appeal, or to learn what you could be doing to improve your first impression, drop us a line – we’re here for you.

The post What Do People FEEL When They See Your Real Estate Website? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

GC – The formula for successful blogging can be taught by Jim and his team in a short period of time. My initial expectation was that it would take several months to learn how to use the back-end tools and another few months to create compelling content that would get picked up by the search engines. BUT, it turns out that the back-end WordPress tools are very user friendly, and the training had us creating a ton of resourceful posts within a few weeks. It certainly takes discipline and dedication to consistently create new content – but it has been so worth it. The beauty of real estate blogging is that you can work on your content during your down time. You definitely get what you put into it.
4. Why do you feel focusing on a specific niche is the best approach when it comes to content marketing?
GC – Focusing on a specific niche makes you the expert in that category. It magnifies you as a specialized agent and eliminates the competition.
5. What success have you experienced for all your efforts?
GC – In the few months since we started blogging we have already generated leads that have lead to over $20,000 in commissions.
6. Once you went live, how long did it take to start seeing the strategy start to work?
GC – It took about 2 months before we started getting the phone to ring.
7. What was the best thing you learned in your development period.
GC – We learned the creating videos got us quick rankings in google. Videos also got us quick results – people really responded to them.
If you want to see what Greg and Ana have been blogging about, or if you want to learn about New Construction Homes in Southern Dade County, check out their website.
At the time of this interview they had published about 70 posts in 6 months, which works about to about 3 times a week.
They are placing on the front page for a ton of targeted keywords/phrases, and haven’t spent a dime on pay-per-click.
This is success that will stick, even if they slow their pace blogging. They have out-paced their competition, and confirmed their authority in Google.
They own the niche, and Google has rewarded them for their efforts.
If you would like to see results like Greg and Ana, drop us a line, we’ll help you make it happen for you and your niche

The post Attention REALTORS! Blogging Is STILL The Best Way To DOMINATE In The Search Engines appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

1. Calmly – Writing App

When I write blogs, I typically use a notepad program before publishing to my WordPress website. I find it easier to focus using the plain, no frills, no distraction approach of the simple notepad.
That is until I stumbled across this online writing tool: Calmly. Calmly is professional text editor that is so inviting to just WRITE.
You can format content, add images, save your work, etc. But it’s the simple writing interface that me won over.
Check it out – maybe it’s a match for your blogging needs as well. https://calmlywriter.com

2. HemingwayApp – Readability Tool

If you are concerned with the “readability” of your blog posts, then this is a great desktop app for you.
The HemingwayApp grades your readability on a grade scale of 1 to 24 (higher is worse). Then it highlights the text in your post that it recognizes as troublesome. It even offers suggestions and solutions for your writing.
I don’t use it. But it does seem useful enough to recommend. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
(Edit: I just used it to clean up this post a little. Worked like a charm)

3. IrfanView – Image Editor

I have been using this light-weight image editor for 20 years.
It is fast, and easy once you get a hang of using keyboard shortcuts (instead of mousing through the menus).
I use it to resize, crop, and optimize every image I publish. http://www.irfanview.com/

4. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer

I think I have a pretty good handle on writing headlines that get clicked. But it’s always good to get critiqued and get some additional advice on how to improve.
It’s simple – just paste (or type) in your headline and this app spits out a thorough analysis of your effort.
I used it to see how it works… but haven’t relied on it since. I could see it being useful to new bloggers that want to make sure their headlines are effective. http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer

5. Piktochart – Infographic App

I recently posted about the undeniable effectiveness of infographics in social media.
This free tool has a ton of bells and whistles to create stunning and informative infographics. There’s a bit of learning curve, and making a nice infographic is a time investment, but it is nice to have a tool like this to work with.
Typically I use Photoshop for my graphic design work, but I am impressed with this tool and plan to give it a try for my next Infographic. https://piktochart.com/

6. Canva – Graphic Design for Dummies

Love this tool.
It makes graphic design fun, easy, and successful for those who don’t use Photoshop, and don’t have a lot of time.
Basically, if you want to say something with graphic design and get it shared onto your blog, or in your social media sphere, you need to try Canva. http://canva.com

The post 6 Real Estate Blogging Tools and Gadgets Worth Considering appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.