Online Real Estate Technology

Don't Get Ripped Off

One thing that really ticks me off, is when a company or business preys on you because you may not have the knowledge or time to research what they are trying to sell you, or be aware of the value of the product or service they sell and to work out whether the cost they charge is reasonable, so here is a warning to all business owners not just real estate operators.

I’m going to let you in on a situation that I walked into this morning during one of my office audits, I’m going to hide the names of the real estate business for obvious reasons and I can’t name the company involved, but I’m going to do my best to make sure you don’t get ripped off by these sharks by writing this post.

So here’s what happened, During the course of my audit, I check what domain names the agency has registered, and in the discussion today, the agent handed me correspondence from a domain name registration company in Melbourne advising him that his company name and location domain name was available for sale and that by filling in the attached credit card form he could secure that domain name from them. Now here is the sting, the price was $295 + GST.

 The domain name offered for sale is a .com domain name, so I then checked the domain name availability on GoDaddy.com, and found it was unregistered and still available and the price for that domain name was US$14.

Now, how can you sell something you don’t own, and at $295+GST, that’s not a mark up, that’s a complete rip off. My advice to the office this morning was to buy the domain name from GoDaddy at US$14 and tell the company in Melbourne to go jump, and so should you, if you get these sharks trying to rip you off. 

If you do get one of these letters, first thing to do is check out the domain name availability, and you can use GoDaddy.com if it is a .com domain, or Crazydomains.com.au if it is a .com.au domain and check the price.

The business owner said to me this morning, that his first action was to pay the company because it looked like an invoice for payment and he had no idea what a domain should cost.

So now you have been warned, if in doubt and you want advice, then email me from this blog, I’ll be more than  happy to help you shaft them.

domize domain name search

One of the problems I’ve encountered when searching to find if a domain name is available, is the time it takes to search for it and then find all the variations. Well to help you do this a lot quicker, here is a great search engine called Domize  that you can use to find domain names and all the variations available.

All you do is type in any phrase or word that you want to search, and the site will come up with domains based on that name or word, and suggest shorter versions of the domain for you, the site picks up on all .com and related top level domains, but unfortunately, does not yet pick up .com.au domains. We can’t have everything!!

It also includes a power search feature that uses brackets to encompass various search terms, so instead of searching each domain combination separately, you just add the words in brackets and the site will search them all for you. You can also “star” a domain site for checking or reference at a later date.

Domize is linked directly to Godaddy.com, so you can buy the domain names on the spot.  So give it a try, it will really make your domain name search a lot easier.

I’ve just got a colleague of mine to join Twitter and on checking out her Twitter page last night, I was surprised to find that she hadn’t used her own name. I mentioned this to her this morning on our way to the seminar at Fraser’s in Perth and Sarah replied that her name and variations of her name had already been taken. Now, if you are wanting to get into social media or even market on the web under your own brand, it is vitally important that you buy your domain name.

It is now just as important that you register your user name on social media sites as well, because if you don’t someone else will. Being able to use your name to build your profile or brand is vital to your success on the web and you need to ensure that you own it and register it. By having a consistent image across all social sites allows your followers or devotees to find you and follow you, plus it has the added benefit that you don’t have to remember hundreds of user names.

So create a user name, preferably one that identifies you instantly and register it across all social sites, you can use this great web site to check if your user name is available. Some sites will not allow your full name and limit the number of characters that you can have, so create a user name that is consistent and easy to remember.   

Register it on every site you can find, you’ll never use most of them, but at least you will own the user name and this will stop others from high-jacking your name or brand.

If you have popular web site or blog and have lots of followers, there are some users on the web who will try and grab your name and create their own logins, so now you have been warned.

Go forth and Grab it quick before it is gone, gone gone!!

I refer back to my post on buying your domain name and how important that is to you and your office, and this week I’ve been in Bundaberg conducting internet marketing audits for some of the real estate groups in the area. Upon checking this out with each office it appears that they still do not or haven’t thought about, buying these domain names that relate to their geographic area. If you are part of a franchise group or an independent agent, I believe you should buy the domain name that reflects your local area, if only to stop someone else from buying and using that name as a redirect on the local area search.

Lets say I own mikeandrewrealestate.com.au and I’m based in Bundaberg, I should be buying all variations on this including mikeandrewrealestatebundaberg.com.au. This stops any other agent or office from using that domain name. Without owning these, you really are allowing other competitors to come in underneath you.

I found in Bundaberg and in Cairns last week that some agents are not doing this, and even if you don’t use the domain at least you will own it.  

Also check out extending this to social media platforms and I’ve included a link to Peter Fletchers therealestatemarketingmaven.com blog post on this very subject.

Please let me know if you need any help with this and I would be glad to assist

One of the vital ingredients of on line marketing is your web site which has to be attached to a domain name. This week I’ve been conducting on line marketing audits for agents in North Qld and one of the checks that I conduct is whether you own your domain name. Surprisingly I’ve found that in most cases the business owners don’t. Not owning your domain name is the same as not registering your business name, someone else can come in underneath you, register the domain name, effectively stopping you from ever using your own name for your web site domain, worse still, they can then try and sell it to you for exorbitant fees.

So get on to the domain registration sites today and buy, if they are available, your business name,your own name, and all the variations within your suburb or area of operation, and buy all of the domains, including the .com, .com.au, .net, .net.au and the .mobi versions.

Protect your self and your business.

If in doubt ask me via this blog and I’ll help you.