Optimizing Your Tech Savvy Agent Profile

Unless you have been living under a rock, no doubt you’ve heard all the buzz surrounding what Chris Smith and his Tech Savvy Agent team has been up to of late. Chris has been seriously rockin’ webinars, Twitter, Facebook and generally doing a fantastic job empowering RE.net. No wonder the guy was recognized among the Top 100 Influencers in Real Estate by Inman for 2010. Chris deserves all the love and then some!

Use Posterous and Create a Real Estate Network for Tech Savvy Agents!

So the latest stroke of genius from Chris and one of his side kicks, Benjamin Bach is this referral network these guys have set up to showcase techie real estate agents at Posterous! This is just one more reason why I’ve got serious man-love for Posterous! The simplicity of emailing your profile, with your photo is just caveman easy as we like to say at Dakno! Brad and I have been big time advocates for agents to take advantage of Posterous. This is one more shining example how agents can set up Posterous sites for your clients the same way Chris established this community for web-savvy agents.

Real Estate Agents Have a Golden Opportunity – Now What?

I was chatting with several Dakno clients telling them they needed to really take full advantage of this strategy when it dawned on me real estate agents might benefit from a simple how to guide to optimizing your Tech Savvy Agent profile. Below is an image of an email with a macked-out, SEO-bustin‘ Tech Savvy Agent Profile served up on a silver platter. Because of all the detail, I encourage you to click on the image to view the larger version.

Step by Step Instructions to Optimizing Your Tech Savvy Agent Profile

By the way, these instructions can be pretty much used for any profile. There are some nuances to these instructions that are germane exclusively to Posterous  and those will be noted below:

1. The subject line of your email is actually your Tech Savvy Agent Profile Title (H1 Tag). This is very important to Google so make sure you include your area keywords in your profile title. (All profiles titles need your keywords. With Posterous, your subject line is your post title).
2. If you really want to go for the SEO gusto for your profile, add your tags to the Posterous post. This is accomplished by adding your tags inside double opening and closing parentheses in the subject line of your email. Simply separate the tags with a comma. (Exclusive to Posterous)
3. When Benjamin says you can add your link to your homepage, I say make the most of this opportunity. Plus, it will make your profile SEO-sticky. Adding links to interior pages deep inside your site is important. All email clients allow you to highlight keywords and add hyperlinks. Don’t go overboard with this but adding links is an awesome way to enhance SEO and make navigation for the consumer easier so they wind up on your online hub of your real estate website and blog.
4. If you call yourself a tech savvy agent, no doubt your online marketing strategy includes social media engagement. Be sure to link to all the places you play on the social media landscape. This will make it easier for consumers to find and connect with you. (Valid for all profiles)
5. One of the most overlooked opportunities for adding SEO-pop to your profiles is create sub headlines and tag those with the H3 tag. It’s equally important to take advantage of these sub headlines to crank out your targeted keywords. (UPDATE: Your Tech Savvy Agent Profile needs to be written in the HTML based version in your email client to retain your H3 tags and NOT in the Text Based version.)
6. When you create your tech savvy agent profile (or any profile for that matter), always strive to convey to the consumer how a relationship with you benefits THEM!! That means telling your buyers or sellers being a solid agent first and a tech savvy agent second helps the consumer in their home buying and selling transaction. Remember, all the techie tools in the world are worthless unless you can leverage them to the ultimate benefit of your client. If you lack the rudimentary agent skills of managing relationships, offering superior client services, lack proper negotiating skills and fail to adhere to your fiduciary responsibility to do all possible to protect your client from financial harm and keep them safe from legal peril, I say lose the tech tools and gain a fresh perspective on the fundamentals of being a “real” real estate agent.
7. Make it easy for the consumer to “connect with you”. I say offer a subtle “call to action” at the conclusion to your profile to connect with you by offering every way imaginable for the consumer to contact you.

What Did I Miss?

Feel free to leave a comment and tell everyone other ways to gain SEO-pop for your Tech Savvy Agent profile.

Helping you connect more effectively!

Bobby