Active Rain Best Practices - Part 1

For you active rain users, in terms of your profile page, did you know:

… that your profile gets indexed and ranked by the search engines?

… that links most often go to your profile page?

… that Google sends traffic to your profile page?

… that prospects read EVERY word of your profile to determine if you are someone they want to consider working with?

… that agents who don’t already know you will read your profile to help determine if they want to refer business to you?

So if you hastily dashed off a profile page when first setting up your active rain account, it’s pretty important, based upon the above points, that you give thought to developing a more robust profile page; one that truly speaks to who you are as both an Agent and a person. Beef that profile page up!

To help with indexing, consider using the first and last name fields in a slightly different manner, by incorporating keywords relevant to you and your business. Put both your first and last name into the first name field. Use the last name field for a very short tagline using those keywords relevant to you; i.e. Phoenix foreclosure specialist... or Scottsdale retirement community expert.

The opening of the description field should compel readers to WANT to know more about you, and the remainder of it should indeed give a great picture of who you are, both professionally and personally. Be professional, but be YOURSELF, let it show through your writing.

Your contact information should include ALL means they can contact you: office and mobile phones, email address, and links to all your social network pages, including active rain, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Use video if possible – and as much as possible. People LOVE video, and will view it before reading text. When placing video, be sure to place it so it falls ½ above the page fold, and ½ below. That helps to ensure the reader scrolls and sees everything on the page.

We can all tell the world all about our expertise, ethics, etc. all day long, and the reality is, it won’t hold a candle to the impact that third-party testimonials provide. Use as many as possible. Make sure they are as detailed as possible, not the generic, “Joe Agent did a fabulous job selling our home!” If they are detailed about how you truly helped in a sticky or difficult situation, they are far more impactful to readers.

Next week, we’ll discuss how engaging with your peers on active rain can help build YOUR business!