Carolyn Gjerde-Tu's Blog: Tools for Real Estate Agents

I've seen the same questions come up over and over again in the forums-how can I find out who's linking to me?  Are those links followed? How do I know what I'm looking at in the search engines is the same thing my clients or potential clients are looking at? 

I'm very happy these questions kept popping up because I had no clue what people were talking about when I first saw some of the terms.  Whether you hire out to do your SEO or do it yourself, it is important that you have some idea of how search engine optimization works to help you get the most out of your website.  It is not very likely that your site will start seeing excellent results without some work from someone.

Here are three tools that will help answer the basic questions.. 

1.  If your…

I thought it might be fun to document the process of working on my new LEC2 site.   Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am because I get to start this site from scratch.  I keep looking at a blank template that has no customizations yet and thinking where do I start.

Well I'm really behind already and all I was supposed to do was supply a phone number, logo and give input on photos that I want for the slideshow.

I liked the colors in the standard site so I decided not to make any changes.  One problem I did not anticipate is that the blue/green and burnt red color are not easy to match up with photos for the slide show.  I guess I have a reputation to live up to based on feedback I get from my Davis Real Estate site so I have felt some pressure to pick…

I've had this screen shot of the REW LEC2 on my desk at the office since probably August.  Watched closely as Morgan laid out the development of the site here.  Checked the blog posts every few days to see if there was some new development to the site.  At first it was simply interesting to see the design process unfold but after a while, when some new feature was introduced I really started wishing my site had the quick search or the featured areas or the thumbnail listings, advanced IDX and on and on.

I always wanted a custom website.  I never liked the idea of a generic site, one of many copies, but a true custom website is still out of my budget.  Cal Carter who specializes in Gulf Shore Condos has one of the most beautiful custom websites I have…

I'm just about convinced that of all the social networking sites out there, twitter has the potential to offer the most value to real estate agents. The majority of twitter users do not have protected profiles so within minutes of signing on you can start following  industry and technology leaders, other real estate agents and people from your local communities.  It is the people from your local communities that I believe will have the best long-term value.

I have been spending a fair amount of time on twitter in the last few weeks and while I'm still definitely learning and testing things out here are just a few tools and tips to get started:

• search.twitter.com -- This feature allows you to search names, places, phrases, events and the results…