loudog's Blog: All Categories

I know for a lot of you, page rank is an old blog topic that has been beat to death by SEOs and developers all over but for me, page rank still baffles me.  Currently, my website is a PR3 and it is my short term goal to get it to PR5.  Obviously, I would like it to be a PR10, but it is my plan to document my journey to PR5 here on this blog in hopes that some of the community can benefit.

Getting started

Although I have some ideas on how to start off, I am want to see what type of comments get posted in terms of advice.  Now before you guys tee of on whether page rank really matters or not, I have to say that I have read plenty on both sides of the issue.  My take on it is that improving my PR isn't really going to hurt anything (best case scenario is…

Go Green, Go Eco-friendly. It seems everywhere you look you see buzz words like Carbon footprint, Global warming and Energy-efficient. These catch phrases have become part of our every day vocabulary (especially if you are in the real estate biz like I am).  As local real estate agents, we here at nutshell are doing our part to help Ulster County Green Real Estate.

If you are looking to purchase or build a home, ask your builder or real estate sales person about energy efficient home features.  In my market (the Ulster County Real Estate Market) there are more and more energy efficient homes are coming on the market that are considered to be

If you are already a homeowner, there are some very simple and inexpensive ways you can make your home…

Pilfering through Google Analytics

So yesterday I was doing my thing, going through my GA reports @ 100 MPH when my mouse wheel came to a screeching halt (well maybe not screeching).   Usually when reviewing my keyword analysis I skip right over all the keywords that match or partially match my company name.  Today I took a closer look at that group of keywords and couldn't believe how much traffic was coming through those terms.  Currently, I rank #1 for the most popular term in my market and I am between 1 and 5 for the next 14 most popular (volume).  It turns out that I am getting more traffic for people typing my company name than some of the most trafficked (is that a word) keyword terms in my market.  Immediately, I run reports for 4 other web…

Penetrating Affluent Markets

For those listing agents that deal with the affluent market segments in their area one thing consistently rings true no matter what area of the country you work in . . . high-end listings usually come through word of mouth.  With every high end listing we get, we as real estate agents do almost as much to impress the client as we do to market the listing.  This ensure that we are talked about among the circles of the elite.  During the staging process, it is common to setup a decorative kiosk of relevant listing information and advertising materials.  One effective additive to your display is an album of photographs showing the detail of property in every perspective i.e summer, winter, fall, early morning, late evening,…

Technorati Profile

This is my post to verify my Technorati Profile.  If any of you come across it and have some experience or advice with this please comment.

Great Beginings

The first thing you think of when you hear or read the word Woodstock is the Woodstock Festival of 69 right?  Despite the name connection, the actual concert was held 43 miles away from Woodstock New York in our neighboring Sullivan County in the town of Bethel.  This being said, there is no shortage of culture in Woodstock.  The 1903 Byrdcliffe art colony is the oldest Arts & Crafts colony in America. The movement brought artists to Woodstock to teach the art of furniture, ceramics, metal works, weaving and went on to start Woodstock's first painting school.  Woodstock will be forever changed thanks to the cultural contributions of the Byrdcliffe Colony.

Woodstock New York Today

Today Woodstock NY Real Estate is still one of the most…

When training new agents, one of the things they have the most difficulty with is, planning the route of the homes they are showing.  Our market exists within a rural area with a senseless system of dirt roads, back roads, secondary roads, highways and roads that look like driveways.  Making your way around can some times be difficult, let alone keeping a schedule.

The problem . . .

The way it works here is that a buyer agent would have to call the listing office of each listing he or she plans to show, make an appointment for each and hope to arrive at each listing around the time the appointment was made (or the seller usually gets upset).  To do this correctly the buyer's agent would first have to geographically select the properties in a logical…

A great little tip I picked up at the last Prudential manager's conference.  It has everything to do with combating some the bad press that seems to be relentlessly distributed in regards to the state of the market.

As stated in some of my past blogs, our local Ulster County Real Estate market enjoys a significant boost to our second home market.  This boost comes about because of the unique combination of our proximity to New York City and the value of the home buying dollar in our area as compared to other "get away" destinations within 2 hours of Manhattan.  The result of this boost  levels off our market when other markets maybe suffering from a downfall.

What I found out yesterday, it that there are many markets throughout the east coast that fair…