Daily Archives: November 8, 2011

Middletown R.I. Town Council Extends Wind Turbine Moratorium | Mt Kisco Realtor

After the lengthiest debate of Monday night’s Middletown Town Council meeting, the council voted 5-1 to extend the existing wind turbine moratorium for six more months beyond the current expiration date of Dec. 7, 2011. But a motion by the one dissenting voter, Councilor Barbara VonVillas, left open the possibility that the Council may exempt small wind turbines from the moratorium.

At its next meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 21, the council will examine whether to allow small wind turbines to be exempt from the moratorium. Planning Director Ron Wolanski clarified small wind as meaning a turbine that is less than 50 feet high.

The discussion about wind turbines was the result of a memorandum that Councilor Bruce Long had placed on the council’s docket, calling not only for an extension of the moratorium but also for commissioning a privately-funded study on the setbacks and impacts of wind turbines.

“The question has always been, what is the appropriate size and type of wind turbine for Middletown and what are its effects?” said Long, in explaining why he felt Middletown needed its own study, rather than waiting for one that will soon be released by the state.

But the council did not support the study, with several members voicing their belief that plenty of information about wind turbine effects already exists, and a privately funded study might be seen as biased. “Studies are useful only when they are unbiased and they are credible only when they are supported by credible sources,” said VonVillas.

Members of the public spoke for and against the wind turbine moratorium and study. Dick Adams, of Island Drive, urged the council not to extend the moratorium, describing the fact that Calvary United Methodist Church, on Turner Road, would like to build a turbine to address its energy needs, but cannot write any grant applications while the moratorium is in effect. Richard Price, of J.H. Dwyer Drive, however, urged council to extend the moratorium and commission the study: “It will delay things, but if you don’t do it, you will risk wind turbine permit applications coming in without adequate protection on the books.”

In response to Councilor Richard Cambra’s observation that the council needs to know more about what the residents of Middletown want in terms of wind turbines—“small, medium, large, or no wind turbines at all?”—Council President Art Weber suggested that a public hearing be held to gather information about the town’s preferences.

Although there is a moratorium in place, Middletown has an ordinance that allows residents to apply for special-use permits to build wind turbines, but it is generally felt that the ordinance needs to have more parameters. An application in the fall of 2010 from a resident who wanted to build a large turbine on her property, which is located near Second Beach, prompted the calls for closer analysis of the town’s ordinance.

Realtors using Blogs, Facebook, and Google for fun and profit | Pound Ridge Realtor

We are in the Web 3.0 world now. Realtors are just starting to get it, but most of them don’t get it. Not all of it. Not yet.

It took a while, but Realtors are finally coming around to Web 2.0, Web 3.0, social networking, whatever you want to call it. It is becoming clear to Realtors (finally) that building a website and waiting around for Google to find it simply doesn’t work. This is a good thing! It means that they are waking up to the reality that we are LEAVING THE INFORMATION AGE and that we are ENTERING THE PARTICIPATION AGE. While this is a positive step, and Realtors are using more of these social solutions online, many see them just as a tool for profit instead of a tool for SHARING THEIR KNOWLEDGE and building credibility.

Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0. What does it all mean?

Web 1.0 was the “information age”. In regards to the web it was from 1995-2001. Building your website, getting a domain name, and having a presence with email were about all a Realtor could do with Web 1.0. Adding meta tags to your website and some other formatting is what web designers did to get you found on search engines. There were a LOT of search engines back then. Today there are just a few. The old meta tag days are gone forever. It will never again be that easy to spoof search engines and become #1 on Google with a meta tag or even a blog post.

Web 2.0 is about shared content, online applications, and syndicating content. It was also about mashups and the new nature of syndicating, cataloging, and making data discoverable by using tagging to create a more democratic search. Mainly, it was about applications and new ways of posting and sharing data. For Realtors it was the MLS systems, blogs, photo sharing sites, and other websites that are now indispensable tools for Realtors.

Web 3.0 (to me) is about relationships. It is the “participation age”. It is about much more than building applications that automate marketing (Web 2.0). It is about knowledge currency. Trust. Honesty. Transparency. Reputation. Networking. But you can’t have any of that if you don’t understand the unwritten rules of being a good net citizen, known as Netiquette.

Yeah, us geeks are full of ourselves, and we talk too much.

Well, hey… there is a lot to know with all this stuff. So in this article, I will answer the fundamental questions that I am getting from Realtors as to how to best use these new methods of networking to grow their real estate sales. How to come up high in Google. How to really use a Blog. And why how you use Facebook matters to your reputation.

Rule #1. There is no simple path to coming up number one in Google.

It can be a little draining explaining to folks how to come up high in Google because most people don’t want to hear the truth. Everyone wants to believe that there is a quick fix or trick to coming up high in Google, but there isn’t.
Some Truths:

  • You need a site that has a lots of content.
  • You need a site that has an old domain. The older the domain the better.
  • You need a site that has well-formatted content.
  • You have to have ORIGINAL content. Lots of it.
  • You have to have a high Google PageRank, which can take quite a while to develop, and Google doesn’t update it often.
  • There ARE formatting things that you can do to your website, like text linking, deep linking, adding a Google Sitemap, better page titling, and MUCH more.
  • To get your Pagerank higher, you have to GENERATE A LOT OF INBOUND LINKS to your websites.
  • You have to have time to wait – it sometimes takes a generous amount of time, especially to develop your site’s PageRank.
  • There is more.

Stop thinking of Google as “something to be done” or handled, and think of it as a report card of your online work. ALL of your online work.

There are no free lunches with Google, no quick and easy tricks. But there ARE tricks and techniques. Most small web development shops don’t know all them. The more experienced web developers that understand how Google works charge a fee to work on your website.

Your blog can help you with Google. Your Facebook page can help you with Google. Simply adding tags to your blog posts WON’T MAKE YOU NUMBER ONE ON GOOGLE! But if you do them right, then they can help. I really want all of my clients’ websites to come up #1 in Google. But only 1% of my clients are willing to do the work it takes and wait for it to happen. This creates a natural conflict for us, especially because it is complicated to make happen. This is why there is a strong cottage industry of thieves that will take your money to “get you ranked in the top 10″. I have looked at many of them, and 99% of them are thieves.

I will focus on additional things that you can do to come up higher in Google outside of Blogs and Facebook in a future article.

Rule #2 Your website solution company should be your SEO consultant too, not just your web designer

It is up to YOU to contact your web design company, perhaps every 4-6 months, to give your site a checkup. Going to Google and typing in some words to see your ranking is NOT how you should be testing your site. Did you know that when you are logged into Google they change your search results based on what they know about you? It is true. So typing words into Google is not the way to test your site. There are many tools for testing your site outside of Google.

Rule #3 If you use a template company for your website, your Google Pagerank WILL suffer.

There are a LOT of companies out there offering turn-key Realtor websites with MLS listings in them. For the non-technical Realtor on a budget, these sites are an easy way to get a site live with listings. A Realtor was in my office the other day, and we pulled her site up to look at it. She is a friend, so I wasn’t charging her. I was just taking a look at what she has. Her site is build by a company that does Realtor template sites. So I check her Google PageRank, and her ranking is ZERO out of 10. That’s right – zero. So no matter what this company can offer her, the site won’t come up high in Google. I pointed this out to her, and she quickly back-peddled saying “most of my sales aren’t from my website anyways”. But it is pretty obvious that this is a copout, because why have the site if it isn’t going to generate leads?

So you might be wondering, why do template sites get penalized form Google? Duplicate content. Google is now smart enough to notice when a bunch of websites all look the same, and it hurts your score when your content isn’t unique.

Rule #4. Blogs are great for SEO, but are you using your blog correctly? Probably not.

I recently had a Realtor asking me for tips to make their website come up higher in Google. It happens all the time. Looking at their site, I saw a lot of things right away that could be done to make them come up higher in Google. It would take me….. 5 hours to explain all of it to them. It would take…. 20+ hours of work to implement it all. At $110 per hour, that gets expensive. Would they pay for that? Probably not. But some of my clients do. So, an easy to fill, glaring gap in their online marketing efforts that I saw was to add a blog link to their website. Why a blog? Because a blog makes it easier for the Realtor to add UNIQUE, ORIGINAL CONTENT to their website. Rich, juicy content that Google will respect when it reads it. Is that all there is to do? Fire up a WordPress blog, enter some articles, and sit back and wait for the Google gold rush? Hell Friggin No. There is still lots to be done.

Your blog needs articles that people actually give a shit about. Articles like this one! A rule in the new web world is that you have to stop holding onto your “secrets”. If you are an expert, you have to prove it with valuable information and less hype. The realtors that blog about Obama’s stimulus bill and who post their opinions about politics or their political affiliations on Facebook and their blogs are COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT OF HOW THEY CAN HELP MAKE NEW RELATIONSHIPS. Why would you alienate 1/2 of all of your prospective customers by being political? Leave your ego and your confrontational political opinions at the door in this new web world. If I am a potential home buyer that wants a Realtor that can be trusted (and some can’t be), then SHOW ME that you are an expert and that you can be trusted. TELL ME WHAT I SHOULD KNOW about what it is like to live in this area. Posting a list of links to area parks and restaurants is a cop out.

OK, so how to choose content for your blogs…. Ask yourself “If I was a home buyer, will this content help me?”. If the answer is “no”, then don’t post it. Also remember that blogs are chronological. They are for telling the story of the moment. The top ten tips of the moment. The top recent problems that you are solving for customers. The top resources for customers, etc. etc. It is OK if these get old over time, because if you are a TRUE PROFESSIONAL, then you will constantly have new subject matter that is unique, easy for you to write, and relevant for your customers. THAT is what blog content should be. Content like link pages, information on neighborhoods, taxes, employers, zoning, entertainment, restaurants, mortgage lenders, all that content that isn’t time sensitive – that content should be on static pages in your website. That content is not time-sensitive. It isn’t storytelling. It is resource stuff, not blog content. Don’t repost listings into your blog – it looks desperate. It looks even more desperate on Facebook.

Rule #5. Blog Content Needs to Be Described AND LINKED to Be Found

So you wrote a great post to help potential home buyers. Terrific! Then you go to Google and you don’t see it. Not even a month later. Something must be wrong, you say! My web designer led me astray with all of this blogging malarky! Those bastard web designers. Well, before you blame the web designer, you have to ask yourself these questions:

  1. did I add tags to my blog posts?
  2. do I even know what the hell the tags are, how they work, and what they do?
  3. does my blog have a decent number of posts in it?
  4. am I linking my blog to other blogs?
  5. are my tags formatted as complete keyword phrases?
  6. am I linking to my blog from lots of other websites?
  7. am I emulating this blog content and posting strategy to match the leaders of my industry?
  8. have I created adequate categories in my blog so that I get the quality text links in the blog?
  9. is my blog IN my company website, or is it linked from my company website? (hint: link it).
  10. am I using the right blog software? is it the latest version?
  11. am I using link directory websites like Digg.com, delicious.com, Technorati.com, and the other MANY sites?
  12. am I tagging and linking words WITHIN my blog posts to other websites? hrm?
  13. am I getting press coverage to get inbound traffic and links to this valuable blog content?
  14. am I tweaking the permalinks in my blog posts to create adequate search engine safe URLs?
  15. am I using Wikipedia to lookup all this crap that John McKown is telling me?
  16. if I don’t want to learn all the blog crap, can I honestly blame my web designer for not doing it for me for free?

Digg.com and Delicious.com are nice, solid ways to get your blog content indexed by Google. It isn’t foolproof, and no SEO tip is. They are all part of what is required today.

Rule #6. Facebook is a powerful networking tool. But no one wants to be friends with a jerk Realtor.

Am I bashing Realtors? No. I am not bashing Realtors. There are a lot of great Realtors out there, some are my close friends. Some, unfortunately, are jerks. There are also jerk web designers and definitely jerk mortgage brokers. Hang with me here…. I think it is great that Realtors are using Facebook. I have a Delaware real estate license and I pay the National Association of Realtors and KCAR dues. So I AM a Realtor, at least technically. So are you a “Jerk Realtor” you ask? Well, that depends totally on your behavior. If you joined Facebook because some guy in a marketing seminar told you to add everyone in your address book to your Facebook account to make money, then yeah, you might be one. My point is, I will help you. I don’t care if you are a Realtor or not. I help people because, quite frankly, when I do so it ends up helping my business and it makes me feel good to share what I know. My ego likes me being considered an expert. I’d be a jerk web designer if I used my knowledge to exploit people like I see happening EVERY DAY from other companies in my industry. If you are HONESTLY interested in me, my experience, what I have to say, how I can help you, then great. Add me as a Facebook friend and I will accept you. Again, I really don’t care if you are a Realtor or not. If I help you and gain your trust by doing so, then you should return the favor and recommend me as an expert too. But….. if you sponge me for information and then blame me because you didn’t do ALL of the things that Google and Facebook and your website require for online success, then you are a Jerk Realtor. If you use your Facebook account to post all your listings, then you don’t look professional. Why do I want to see all of your listings in my Facebook account? I don’t. And you will be removed from my friends list in a hurry. I bet other people feel the exact same way. Relationships are built on trust, sharing, and listening. Not by adding a hyperlink to someone. Use Facebook, but don’t be a ….. you know.

You are on Facebook. Is your company?

You can create a FREE business page for your real estate company. I added one for Delaware.Net, check it out and become a fan real quick: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dover-DE/DelawareNet-Inc/41553338643?ref=s . This a great way to get traffic, and to mass email your friends list with news from your organization. But BE CAREFUL. Don’t overdo it. Add content that matters, and don’t do it too frequently. Get all your business friends to add themselves to your new business page. There is a link at the bottom of the page when you look at my business page. That is how you can add your business site to Facebook.

Are you syndicating your OWN content?

If you are posting a good article to your blog, you should also use that article for an email newsletter. You don’t have an email newsletter? You should. The content that you mass email people is almost as sensitive as what you blog and post into Facebook. One thing that email newsletters are better at, is letting the visitor choose what content they want to get from you. For example, they could chose to get emails about new properties. So it is totally acceptable to email them property information. It is much different to dump your listings into your Facebook account.

Build a link share network – it is important

Earlier in this article I mentioned getting inbound links to your website to build your Google Pagerank. Google Pagerank can be thought of as a multiplier. Meaning, if your site has lots of jucy articles and keywords, but your Google Pagerank is a 1 (out of 10), then you are going to get beat in the search results every time. So your Google ranking can be thought of as this formula: Google PageRank * Relvance of Content = Ranking. One of the things Google looks at to determine how “important” your site is, is by measuring the number of websites that are linking to yours. It also takes into account RECIPROCAL LINKS. This is critical. So you should link to other large websites that have a good pagerank, and most importantly you should try to get them to link back to you. Start to look for sites that have a high pagerank, and then try to get a reciprocal link between their site and yours. Now repeat this dozens or hundreds of times, and you will start to see your Google Pagerank climb.

I wrote this in one sitting while watching TV. Ask me questions about any of this and I will do my best to answer you and explain further. Use the form below this story to post your questions. Thanks for reading, and I hope it helped.

Why you need a Blog | Bedford Realtor

Blogs. Certainly you have heard of a blog, but many people still don’t know what they are and why they are useful. In this article, I am going to explain what a blog is, why you need one, and how they can make you and your company a lot more money. Almost for free.

Wikipedia gives this definition:

A Blog (web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

Like all online tools and applications, blogs started out as a tool and a toy for geeks. If you look at email, forums, html, and now blogs, they were all used by geeks for some time before businesses found a way to monetize them. Blogs have fairly recently become the next online tool to become indispensable to businesses.

Blogs started as VERY simple online applications for posting online diaries. Those diaries were used as personal diaries, political activists, amateur news reporters, and for anyone that needed a soapbox. Today, that has all changed, and with this article I’ll show you some of the reasons why blogs need to be a necessary part of your online marketing.

Blogs are different from forums
A blog is not a forum. This is a bit of a pet peve of mine, because I constantly hear people calling forums “blogs” all the time. When you post on a forum, you are not necessarily a “blogger” either. Forums are discussion web sites for discussing topics with a group of people. Forums are better than email listserves because the discussions are searchable, and they persist much longer than discussions in an email list. The main difference between a blog and a forum is that the main content in a blogs is written by an individual, small group, or company, and in the case of a forum, content is written from visitors to the forum. Since posts to a blog generally start from the inside of the group, the content is always relevant to the subject matter of the blog web site. Forums, on the other hand, allow posting from generally anyone that signs up and participates. This makes forums a real challenge to moderate and maintain, because people can discuss anything they want to. When you are trying to create a massive community around a demographic, then you want a forum. When you want to market the expertise of your company or small group, then you want a blog.
Benefits of a Blog

  • Increased sales
  • You become known as an expert in your field
  • They get more traffic from search engines
  • They get traffic from next-generation social networking search engines (like technorati.com)
  • News agencies are more likely to do a story on your business
  • Real-life stories and tips warm up your web presence
  • Educating customers on how to be a better customer helps your business run better
  • You can update your blog on your own without your webmaster’s help
  • Helps build communication between departments that are posting to the blog

Blogs are rewarded handsomely by search engines

Search engines recognize blogs in several ways. At the most basic level, they naturally crawl them like any other web site, indexing the content n them. In this way, a blog provides your company with a second web site, which can cross-link to your main web site. If your company has only one web site, this can help. But blog software tends to be very optimized for search engines out of the box. As long as you are entering meaningful articles that contain your keywords, text links, and categories, then you should get most of these benefits automatically. Blog software typically generates nice page titles, text link titles, and search engine safe URLs. All of these Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tricks make your blog get noticed by search engines.

Blogs are Free

You can create a blog in minutes online for free using sites like Blogger.com. This has eliminated all barriers to creating blogs online. As you can see, this blog you are reading is not a blog on Blogger.com I don’t choose to use Blogger because It is a hosted application, and I can’t extend it like I can WordPress. WordPress is also free, but you will need a host for your blog. Naturally, Delaware.Net hosts blogs, so you can contact us about that. But the point of this article is not to sell you blog hosting. The purpose is to educate you so that you can realize the benefits of blogging for your business.
Blog content density is better than your web site’s
Since blogs are typically written by real people sharing tips, they are full of content that search engines can consume. In contrast, a corporate site might have lots of forms and other necessary pages that tend to water-down the overall content value of your site. Having a bloated site makes it harder for your web pages to come up in search engines without creating specific content that exists just for search engines, like putting big paragraphs of keywords on your site. People tend to get turned off when they see that garbage content, and they don’t trust the sites that have it in them. Blogs don’t need to resort to this, as long as they have enough articles in them.

Web standards help blogs
There is a lot of talk about using web standards in the web design industry, and blog software today uses many of these standards. For example, blogs can be skinned with new graphics very easily because they use CSS heavily.
Sample uses for your company’s blog

* Create a how-to section – these tend to get attention from search engines
* As a replacement for a static news article on your company home page
* Warn customers of possible problems that they could have with products/services in your industry
* Use the blog as an ask the expert section of your web site
* Tell customers about new products and services
* Link to related articles and web content from your blog

Who SHOULD have a a blog

* Anyone that is a trusted advisor to their clients
* Anyone that has written articles or tips that are designed to educate their clients
* Anyone that gets privileged access to services or products
* A person that is in support, or who fixes problems for a living
* Employees that believe in (and are allowed to) be open about their methods
* Any professional that has extensive training and/or experience on a subject
* Companies that need a way to share their victories and tell stories about their projects
* A senior professional that is willing to share lessons that they have learned

Who SHOULD NOT have a blog

* Unenthusiastic employees
* A CEO that does not wish to share
* A worker that punches the clock and who doesn’t care about community
* Someone that has terrible grammar and can’t write
* Someone that sees blogging as a chore

Blogs represent a part of the next-generation of search engines because they are a part of the user-driven, user cataloged part of the Internet known commonly as Web 2.0

Folksonomy – its probably not a word that you have heard before, but this simple concept helps to unlock the theories of social networking, social bookmarking, and it also explains how blogs are changing the way people search the Internet for content. If a taxonomy is the formal process of categorizing and naming things, a folksonomy is the democratic categorizing and naming of Internet content that is done by people when they categorize photos in Flickr, and when they categorize their blog posts, and when the describe links that they post onto Digg.com, etc. This social behavior change in how people categorize and rank internet content is essentially building a NEW SEARCH ENGINE that adds a piece to the puzzle that Google really doesn’t provide.

Folksonomies help drive Web 2.0
Every time someone posts a video to YouTube, others can comment on it. They can rank it. They can help make it more popular because the number of times a video is watched is also tracked. Below is a great video that explains how this is affecting the way people use the Internet to get and publish data, and how that interaction is being harnessed to allow people to collaborate.

Blogs can also be modified to take advantage of social bookmarking. By implementing plugins that take advantage of social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Del.icio.us, furl, reddit, and other sites, it is possible to spread the word about our new blog posts quickly, but you have to start the ball rolling on you own. This can make things a little more time consuming, but it is worth it.

Buying a Home – Money 101 | Chappaqua NY Realtor

Mortgage Rates
30 yr fixed4.07%
15 yr fixed3.38%
5/1 ARM2.99%
30 yr refi4.15%
15 yr refi3.49%

Home Equity Loan

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1. Don’t buy if you can’t stay put.

If you can’t commit to remaining in one place for at least a few years, then owning is probably not for you, at least not yet. With the transaction costs of buying and selling a home, you may end up losing money if you sell any sooner – even in a rising market. When prices are falling, it’s an even worse proposition.

2. Start by shoring up your credit.

Since you most likely will need to get a mortgage to buy a house, you must make sure your credit history is as clean as possible. A few months before you start house hunting, get copies of your credit report. Make sure the facts are correct, and fix any problems you discover.

3. Aim for a home you can really afford.

The rule of thumb is that you can buy housing that runs about two-and-one-half times your annual salary. But you’ll do better to use one of many calculators available online to get a better handle on how your income, debts, and expenses affect what you can afford.

4. If you can’t put down the usual 20 percent, you may still qualify for a loan.

There are a variety of public and private lenders who, if you qualify, offer low-interest mortgages that require a down payment as small as 3 percent of the purchase price.

5. Buy in a district with good schools.

In most areas, this advice applies even if you don’t have school-age children. Reason: When it comes time to sell, you’ll learn that strong school districts are a top priority for many home buyers, thus helping to boost property values.

6. Get professional help.

Even though the Internet gives buyers unprecedented access to home listings, most new buyers (and many more experienced ones) are better off using a professional agent. Look for an exclusive buyer agent, if possible, who will have your interests at heart and can help you with strategies during the bidding process.

7. Choose carefully between points and rate.

When picking a mortgage, you usually have the option of paying additional points — a portion of the interest that you pay at closing — in exchange for a lower interest rate. If you stay in the house for a long time — say three to five years or more — it’s usually a better deal to take the points. The lower interest rate will save you more in the long run.

8. Before house hunting, get pre-approved.

Getting pre-approved will you save yourself the grief of looking at houses you can’t afford and put you in a better position to make a serious offer when you do find the right house. Not to be confused with pre-qualification, which is based on a cursory review of your finances, pre-approval from a lender is based on your actual income, debt and credit history.

9. Do your homework before bidding.

Your opening bid should be based on the sales trend of similar homes in the neighborhood. So before making it, consider sales of similar homes in the last three months. If homes have recently sold at 5 percent less than the asking price, you should make a bid that’s about eight to 10 percent lower than what the seller is asking.

10. Hire a home inspector.

Sure, your lender will require a home appraisal anyway. But that’s just the bank’s way of determining whether the house is worth the price you’ve agreed to pay. Separately, you should hire your own home inspector, preferably an engineer with experience in doing home surveys in the area where you are buying. His or her job will be to point out potential problems that could require costly repairs down the road.