Yesterday I had the rare privilege of being a guest host on “Coach Reggie’s” weekly radio show here in my hometown. If you are looking for a business coach in Wilmington, NC, or anywhere (I think he does this nationally) you need to talk to Reggie.

What does he do? Check this out, Reggie Shropshire is a certified Wilmington Business Coach with ActionCOACH, the World’s #1  Business Coaching Franchise (Entrepreneur Magazine, Jan. 2004 & 2005).

He focuses on 5 key areas to help a business succeed (But not limited to)

• Sales
• Marketing and Advertising
• Team Building and Recruitment
• Systems and Business Development
• Customer Service

It’s so funny how I met Reggie, the Internet through “Word of Mouse!” You see he teaches fundamental principles to his clients that dove tails into what I do, so when we met last week, within minutes we added another notch in our network circle. He sees the power of the Internet, social media, and teaches, preaches this to his clients. He and I are a classic example of the power of the Internet and networking.  In fact, he is even hosting a seminar September 2nd, 2008 here in Wilmington entitled “Turning Social Media from Sociable to Profitable.”  (Sign up here if you can go) Finally, someone that gets it!

Reggie is an incredible business man with lots of street and business smarts. He has helped several clients maximize their time, and increase profits, we all need that! So do yourselves a favor, take a look at his business, read his blog, comment on his blog, follow him on Twitter, he knows his stuff. I am sure he can help your business grow.  Don’t believe me? take a look at him in “Action” and testimonies in his video.

I am pleased to finally say there is a Wilmington, NC Search Engine Optimization (SEO) MeetUp group now in the Port City!

What a bland title, search engine optimization services Wilmington, NC..Why this title?  Well, this happens to be the city I live in, and I have been pleasantly surprised at the interest lately with internet marketing, namely SEO here.
There are just a few web marketing companies here, and just a couple seem to cater towards focusing on search engine marketing, but I think Wilmington is growing up!  This is something I have been waiting for for about 4 years now!  In the last year, I have received more inquries for my services here more than ever, and just the last month or two, an overwhelming amount.  I say bring it…We need to grow up here in Wilmington, and need to realize the time is now to optimize your site, and I am more than happy to help!

With the real estate landscape extremely difficult, it is increasingly difficult for agents, brokers, and internet marketers to throw efforts into a sinking ship, but remember, real estate always rebounds.  That is why I am active as ever trying to create resources to keep my clients happy, and build my real estate niche.

WIth that, I found ActiveRain.  This is an incredible resource for real estate agents, marketers, brokers, mortgage gurus, you name it, to post your story, resume, portfolio, even set up your own real estate blog!

Take a look at my portfolio & Blog:

My ActiveRain Real Estate Portfolio-Wilmington, NC
My ActiveRain Real Estate Blog-Wilmington, NC

Today I came across an interesting and savvy website that allows you to create free templates, and real estate flyers. Yeah I know, free web flyers are not new, for example I use Vflyer all the time; however POSTLETS is geared towards the real estate market, which is my focus for now. If you are dabbling in real estate, you have to give these a try! Not only do they create web 2.0 type web flyers, but once you have completed the 5 steps, you can choose your own color scheme, and then it will put your flyer in queue to be uploaded (syndicated) to the top real estate aggregators such as Zillow, Oodle, Trulia and more. Oh, did I tell you this is free??

Take a look at two ads I created:

http://www.postlets.com/res/873937
http://www.postlets.com/res/874244

Absolutely. With the nation struggling in real estate sales, please real estate people, please do not roll over and abandon marketing efforts. With online searching increasing 25-26% every year, now is the time to look to the internet more than ever before.

Well then, what opportunities are there to bulk up your web presence? Below I list several websites, and measurable products you really need to consider to keep a step ahead of your competitors. Take special note of the first one, blogs! I read an interesting article that talks about the wisdom of starting a real estate blog. In this article, it refers to a CNN article that gave stats that show leads and sales increased as a result of real estate blogs.

Ok, so lets get with the tips, and sites to advertise on. (Keep in mind this is a partial list, I will add to this as time goes by)

• Blogs
• Google, Yahoo, MSN pay per click campaigns
• Google Base
• Bargain
• oodle
• trulia
• edgeio
• Livedeal
• HomePages
• Homesandland
• Realty.com

I wanted to bring special attention to Realty.com. Recently they advertised that you could submit your agent information, and receive a great backlink from them. If any agents are reading this, you need to get over there and get a link! If you have a website or blog, backlinks are critical for site to gain credibility with the search engines.

For example, I recently submitted a client of mine there, and the great thing is they let you choose anchor text. (keywords hyper-linked) Take a look at the free ad I made advertising waterfront communities in Wilmington, North Carolina

This is crucial for optimizing your real estate marketing campaigns, so do it! If you need help with any of these suggestions, please leave a comment, I would be happy to help!

What a fantastic client we have. Mason Landing Yacht Club is one heck of a community, and the amenities they offer will be plenty. Our goal will be to drive potential buyers to the site, and encourage them to invest in an exclusive waterfront community in Wilmington, NC. This will be a fun project, and I am sure along the way I will post findings, and cool techniques to get them traffic!

Take a look at their location, and website. The site was designed by Wilmington’s best web design company, Akira Media.

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One of my clients followed up on some advice I gave, actually it was a combined effort but one that I learned from my colleague at Hippo Internet Marketing. The advice was to create multiple web sites each with a different focus in the furnishings world. You see his priority business or website has been his local Budget Blinds site here in Wilmington, NC selling blinds and window treatments.

Because of competition, and lack of attention given to other features and services he offers, we decided to create 5 additional sites in addition to the main Budget Blinds site, to accommodate other niche areas of his business, drapery, awnings, closet systems, and shutters.

The great thing about this is he can pool the link equity (juice) of each of these sites, make custom landing pages, title tags, meta tags, and really focus hard on these topics. All of this equals a mini “hub” if you will, and he could potentially dominate the local search results for the respective keywords and or services. Below are the sites he made, and the business they offer, remember they all link to each other….talk about excellent cross marketing!

Budget Blinds of Wilmington, NC - Window coverings, blinds, treatments etc.

The Wilmington Closet Company - Closet systems, wire shelving, wood shelves, shoe racks and more

The Wilmington Shutter Company - Shutters, plantation shutters, hurricane and more.

Awnings of Wilmington - Awnings for your porch, patio, deck or business awnings.

Drapery Designs of Wilmington - Fine drapery, curtains for your formal living room, dining room or any room.

Window Coverings of Wilmington, NC - Another site devoted to window treatments, blinds and more!

Have you guys seen this?  Ebay has been increasingly taking ground on their new brainchild kijiji, a free classifieds site  in an attempt to compete with Craigslist. 

Launched last summer, it still has time to grow, but take note of this,  since last summer, the U.S. site  has grown from 362,000 visitors in July, 2007 to 1.8 million in January, according to comScore!!  Below are some charts showing their growth.  The bottom chat however shows they still have some time to compete with Craigslist, but they have a good thing going.

Hey Tim, what do you think?  I bet you like Craigslist?

www.kijiji.com

They still have a ways to catch up to Craigslist..  (Craigslist in Green - kijiji in Red)