I had a great time today sharing some of my web design and Internet marketing experience and knowledge with hundreds of real estate professionals at the Minneapolis & St Paul Real Estate Bar Camp event today.

It was great to be around and interact with people truly wanting to learn, improve, share and take steps to trying new things.  I met and talked with so many Realtors, Brokers and Mortgage professionals that are excited and dedicated to doing more online.

If the Bar Camp concept is new to you, it’s a user generated conference format.

I enjoyed leading 3 different Real Estate Bar Camp sessions today on:

• Why Good Web Design Matters
• Social Media Q & A with Kate-Madonna (she rocks)
• Local Search Marketing – Google Maps

The organizers of this Bar Camp event did a great job and kudos to Greg Sax, Jason Sandquist, Nobu Hatu and Teresa Boardman.  I’m glad to have been asked to attend/speak by Jason Sandquist whom I’ve know on Twitter (@jasonsandquist) for 2 years, but now finally in real life as well.

Here are a few photos I managed to snap and there are many more on the REBCMN Facebook page.

As you can see from the board above, a wide range of topics were covered.   Social media, iPhone apps, blogging, search, web, video and more was delivered for the Real Estate industry.  Many commented and tweeted they were ready to get back to the office and start implementing what they had learned.

Great event, great people, great day.

I had the pleasure of attending the first Local University put on by GetListed.org in Spokane, Washington on February 4th, 2010.  This one day event, provided a fantastic amount of local search, SEO, social media and other Internet marketing information to over 150 attendees looking to have a better grasp on how they can be more visible online.

Organized by GetListed.org co-founder David Mihm, the seminar featured a great line-up of experienced Internet marketers as well as Google and Bing representatives.  The Local University seminar will be heading out to other cities in 2010, bringing a fantastic wealth of information for any business or organization looking to improve their online marketing knowledge.

In just a 4 hour session, attendees took part in detailed presentations, real world case studies, Q & A sessions, how-to’s, do-it-yourself tips, resources and more.  Overall it was some incredible search, social and local/maps information, from talented presenters, all for $129. A complete steal to get a ton of  basics, the best practices and the baseline to market online.

The panel of speakers form left to right were Mikko Ollila of Bing, Ryan Hayward of Google, Matt McGee of Small Business SEM, Mike Blumenthal a local search expert, David Mihm of GetListed.org and Mary Bowling of seOverflow. Not pictured above was Spokane SEO expert Ed Reese.

Local University is a must for any business that wants real answers, real examples and access to grasp the opportunity to succeed online.

In addition to attending the seminar it was a chance for me to finally connect in person with other search marketers I have read, done business with and interacted with for some time.  I had a great time meeting a few new ones too like Mary Bowling, Mike Blumenthal (aka Professor Maps) and Mike Ramsey as the presenters took in dinner the night before.

Minneapolis In The Local University Future?
The one last piece that put me on a flight to Spokane was to attract the Local University offering to the Minneapolis area later this year.  The amount of information, the level of expertise and the complete offering would be perfect for the local business community here in the Twin Cities.

I can tell you that the event left Spokane buzzing, satisfied and hoping for another one.

Hopefully I’ll have some good news soon, but don’t hesitate to let your voice be heard with a comment below.

It’s highly accessible and tempting for anyone to create a Google AdWords account and start spending some money on pay per click search engine advertising.  Unfortunately this easy access doesn’t translate to an ease in getting results.

The Details Matter
A successful Google AdWords campaign involves the right research, configuration and tracking to get you anywhere near the perceived pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.

When done right, pay per click marketing produces a marketing formula of sorts, a map of numbers that lets you evaluate the investment it takes to land a conversion.  Depending on your business and website, this conversion might be an e-commerce sale, a specific download, visitors to a specific page or just getting users to your website.

While this post is just an overview, the following main items are key to a solid AdWords PPC campaign:

1. Research – You must understand your audience, the keyword terms they will be searching for.

2. Configuration – The correct set-up of an AdWords account, campaigns, settings, budgets and tracking tools are all key elements.

3. Copywriting – What your ad says matters! In many cases you will want to test different ads and text to see what performs best.

4. Landing Pages – The most overlooked item is landing pages. You need to understand that when a user clicks an ad, you have this small window to convert them. Sending your ad link to your home page is not going to cut it, take them right to the conversion point and make it easy for them to buy, download or contact you.

5. Evaluation – The ability to track and review data is one of PPC’s biggest assets. Having Google Analytics and your AdWords configured correctly to track each movement is a must. Without it, your flying blind.

6. Adjustments – The best campaigns are reviewed and assessed weekly and even daily. Just setting it up and letting it run is a bad idea.  You want evaluate and make decsions on the right adjustments to find your strongest results.

We hope this quick overview is helpful.  If you have been wanting to explore Google AdWords or have tried it the wrong way in the past, Five Technology is here to help you with the right strategy to get results.  Give us a holler!

Sometimes you have to go bigger, the Ranchline Network web design project is an example of that.  The Ranchline brand has 4 other websites on our web platform and I have worked with them for years, including on their logo design.

Ranchline Network is a national real estate listing website, focusing on high-end land and ranches for sale. The website features hundreds of listings from brokers and agents all across the US and even Internationally.

Ranchline was founded by real estate broker Paul Taylor III who has achieved incredible success in the industry.  Paul and the Ranchline team saw a great opportunity to bring their marketing and Internet success to others in the Real Estate industry as a tool for them to market their properties and homes for sale as well.

Ranchline Network – A Better Website
At the core of the Ranchline Network website is a focus on making real estate research easy for the consumer.  The website offers the ability for a user to create an account to save properties and searches.  The layout is clean and offers clear navigation in multiple formats for any user to find their desired property.  These include:

• Type Navigation like Ranches For Sale, Land For Sale & Waterfront For Sale
• By State Navigation like Montana For Sale, New Mexico For Sale, Texas For Sale
• Search filters for land type, location, price range, listing ID# or keyword
• Visual map search with listing population numbers by state (see below)

In moving through the real estate listings users are presented with both strong visuals, clear navigation and over property details. Once into an exact listing the page consists of a variety of images, content, details, maps and more.

Content Management System To The Extreme
Our web platform is extremely flexible, scalable and capable of some great custom features. This project offered us the chance to program some great features for the updating and adding of listings.  The back-end offers a great feature and tool set including:

• Online creation of client accounts
• Online payment of one-time advertising & membership fees
• Uploading of listings, data, photos, video and more
• Listing statistics for agents to view stats on searches, impressions, views, clicks & contacts
• XML feed capabilities to automate listing population & updating process

Overall Website Project Details
The Ranchline Network project was a very expansive project and the client is not engaged in online marketing strategies with Five as well.  As an overview, the web design project involved:

• Custom web design
• Content management system integration
• User accounts and agent accounts
• E-commerce & merchant account
• Multiple search & filter features
• Banner ad network
• Photo gallery features
• Google maps
• Various XML data feeds
• Search engine optimization
• Pay per click marketing
• Web analytics

Check it all out for yourself, we’re proud to work with Ranchline as part of their team and business success.

Visit the website: http://www.ranchlinenetwork.com

I had the opportunity to talk about social media with members of the Independent Community Bankers of Minnesota on November 12th. We discussed how community banks could utilize Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social media platforms to connect and communicate with their customers and prospects.

The events other presenter, Cindy Cofer Evert offered great insight and tips on press releases and PR.  Her info made for great web content ideas and distribution via a business blog. The group was very interested in Internet marketing, engaged and had great questions following my presentation.  Below is my slide deck from my social media talk.

Thank you to the ICBM for having me, it was a great event.

Thanks to @jonasPK of ICBM for the photos.