Got Google Presentation

On Tuesday April 1st I will be giving a presentation at the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors which will cover all the items listed below. This is a presentation targeted to lenders and real estate agents. Make sure you RSVP to our office at 805 965-7091 so we know how many folks to prepare for. We have a lot to cover and we will do our best to get through it all but we want to respect every one's time. We will start at 2:30 and plan to go until 3:30. We will stay after to answer any questions you may have. If there is enough interest we will have some follow up presentations which will go in to more depth on the topics people are looking to hear about.

See You In Escrow!

IGoogle
Learn how to create a very powerful Google start page that can display as little or as much information as you want.
Blogger
Blogging is becoming a very large part of any businesses online presence, learn how to navigate the Lawyers Title blog as well as get ideas on how to create and use your own blog.
Activerain
Get a brief introduction to Active Rain, an online Real Estate Community. Learn how Lawyers Title is using it to increase it's visibility and referrals.
GMail
Get a quick overview of how Gmail is being used, not only as an email tool but as a place where you can view more than one account in as spam free an environment as possible.
Google Reader
Learn about readers in general and how they are used to keep up on items of interest, and maybe your competition. ;o)
Picasa
One of the most powerful photo applications out there. Create slide shows and albums for your business.
Zeemaps
Get a brief over view of how to use this mapping tool, see how Lawyers Title is using it to display information.
Google Maps
See below, you may not understand how easy maps like the one below are to create

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Google Docs
Google is doing what it can to compete with Microsoft Office and you will learn how you can use these tools as well. Including how to embed a presentation on your blog or website.
Lawyers Title does it, why shouldn't you.

Searching For Real Estate In Santa Barbara County

I was having a hard time coming up with a blog topic today. Then I thought maybe some people are interested in a quick review of what comes up when you search for real estate in Santa Barbara County. So I decided to use google and typed in "Santa Barbara Real Estate", next "Montecito Real Estate", "Goleta Real Estate", "Carpinteria Real Estate", "Lompoc Real Estate", and finally "Santa Maria Real Estate". If you just look at the non sponsored links that come up you have to give credit to Gary and Laury Woods for being listed in the top 10 in all the South County areas. Other observations were that Homes and Land Magazine shows up pretty frequently. Realtor.com shows up as well as Trulia on a number of pages. Yahoo was probably one of the more recognizable sites that showed up in most of the searches. Other than that there are a number of agents doing a good job of getting in the top 10. One thing I did notice was that there are not any Association Websites showing up. Now on to the sponsored links. I'm sure I'm going to leave someone out. That is why I put in the links above so you can see for yourself who is making the top 10. Many of the sponsored links are real estate sites like home gain, or home finder. There are also a number of larger real estate companies like, Coldwell Banker, Village Properties, Sotheby's, and CAmoves.com. It was surprising to find some agents like Suzanne Perkins, Kevin Schmidtchen, and Dana O'Neill spending money to be a sponsored link. One local office that was certainly noticeable was Distinctive Real Estate.

Google Real Estate Tools?

Seeing as my blog is hosted on Google's Blogger site, and I have taken advantage of the tools they provide to see how often my site is being accessed and have used their advertisements, I thought I would do a little commercial for some of the tools I know about that might be helpful to real estate agents. Of course I'm sure you know Google as a search tool and it is probably one of the most successful ones available. They haven't stopped there. I'm not exactly sure what the business model might be but they seem to be creating a large number of tools you can access from the web. One of the most recent ones they have been perfecting is Google Documents. You can either create or load word docs and spreadsheets that can be accessed from any Internet computer. The latest feature that is available is an online presentation program similar to Power Point. The presentation program gives you a web address you can use as a link on your website.If you want to see an example check out MyTechOpinion. I can think of a number of presentations that might be useful, like one to out of area clients or one to clients on the statistics of your market. Another tool that I have found particularly interesting is Picasa. You can load photos of listings and with a few clicks of the mouse create a slide show you can post on your website. Picasa also has a simple way for you to view all your albums on your phone. Other tools I could elaborate on are video, IGoogle, Gmail..... If you haven't checked out all the productivity tools Google has you are missing the boat. Oh, and 2 more things. You get all these features with one account and they are all FREE!