What do you do with a virtual assistant who successfully
keeps the New Jersey regional RE/MAX Website at the top
of search engine visibility? Hire them. Read on to see
how Seattle VA Cheryl Allin of
Virtual Assistant For Real Estate can use her PPC
search engine mastery to make your site visitor
count soar.
MI: Cheryl, your
experience includes 18 years as an
administrative assistant –how has this prepared
you for being a real estate Virtual Assistant?…
CA: Well Michael, I
have a rather unique history. I began my career
as an Arabic Linguist for the military, which
taught me discipline and attention to detail. I
built upon that with administrative positions in
many industries including banking, construction
and high tech. I was always eager to take on new
responsibilities, and this enabled me to learn
at the elbow of several highly successful
business people. During the “dotcom heyday” I
was Director of Operations for Vidwatch.com
where I ran every aspect of the business from
hiring to finance to marketing. That was quite
an education, to be given the reigns of a
fully-financed business and drive it forward. I
then realized as my family grew, that there was
no reason why I couldn’t apply that knowledge on
behalf of my clients as a Virtual Assistant. I
can relate to my clients on their level and
truly understand how to partner with them to
help them grow their businesses. It’s important
that your Virtual Assistant has the experience
and skill to anticipate your needs as your
business grows.
MI: What made
you pick real estate support as a specialty over
other fields?
CA: I come from a
real estate background, actually. My grandfather
was a very successful agent for Century 21 many
years in San Diego, California. I would often go
to work with him when I was growing up. When I
launched my Virtual Assistant practice, it
seemed an intuitive direction to support real
estate agents as they were early web adopters
and quickly realized the power technology could
hold for their businesses. I get the best of
both worlds: the chance to exercise my
technology expertise and the opportunity to work
with real estate agents!
MI: I know that
one of the functions you specialize in is
pay-per-click (PPC) search engine positioning.
What is that and why is it important for real
estate Websites?
CA: Pay-per-click (PPC)
search engine positioning is a highly effective
way to attract targeted traffic to your website.
If you have potential customers going to Yahoo
or Google and typing in search terms like, “home
for sale in ocean county,” you want your website
to be one of the top three results. You can
accomplish this quickly and easily with PPC
programs. Overture and Google’s Adwords program
are the two top contenders in PPC as their
results are shown on the most popular search
engines. Smart agents are investing in PPC
because they know that their potential clients
are using search engines when looking to sell or
buy their next home. If you want their attention
and you don’t have time to put your website
through the lengthy and ongoing process of
search engine optimization, then this is your
answer.
MI: How do your
efforts help keep an agent’s site on top using
PPC positioning?
CA: I go in and
monitor their keywords twice a day to ensure
their listings rank in the top three. I also
watch to see if I can adjust their bid amounts
to lessen their cost, should another bidder
lower his price. Too often, the automated
processes at Overture and Google will have an
agent paying more than really necessary for
those placements. They fluctuate frequently, so
keeping an eye on them is key for getting the
most value.
MI: Can you give
an example of how you have helped one of your
clients with search engine positioning?
CA: I’ve been
working with Mark Schilling, Information
Technology Manager for the RE/MAX of New Jersey
Regional office. We’ve developed a comprehensive
program of targeted keywords both at Overture
and Google that drive close to 200,000 hits per
month to their regional website. All of those
hits trickle down to the agent level, providing
their agents with an excess of 25,000 leads and
300,000 listings viewed per month. I monitor
these programs daily to ensure that they’re
getting the best results possible for the most
value. This saves Mark from having to try and
find time in his schedule to do this himself. I
also can go in at a moments notice and pull
detailed reports on their spending, average cost
per click and more. I’ve also been highly
effective at more traditional search engine
optimization.
MI: What other
types of tasks do you specialize in that
supports real estate professionals?
CA: Coming from
Microsoft land, I’m a technology nerd. I love
web design, web maintenance and I enjoy solving
technology issues that come up for my clients.
I’ve made it my goal to know the ins and outs of
every piece of technology available to my
clients such as Top Producer, eNeighborhoods,
Advanced Access and countless others. This
allows me to offer expert support from platform
to platform, saving the agent from having to
learn countless programs. If it’s technical or
web based, I’m the expert to call.
MI: What do you
like most about working with REALTORS®?
CA: Realtors are the
very definition of an entrepreneur. They know
that their success or failure depends solely on
their ability to deliver results to their
clients. As such, they’re very focused on what a
VA can achieve for them and they’re always very
clear about their needs. As a fellow
entrepreneur, I can fully relate and thus am
able to deliver exactly what they seek.
MI: What is the
most common mistake potential clients make when
they first try to hire you?
CA: Well Michael,
oftentimes I find that an agent will call me
knowing they need help…but they’re just not
certain what they want me to do for them.
They’ve hit the wall in their productivity
level, but they’re having difficulty in letting
go of control over many of their daily
functions. If they can cross that threshold and
recognize that I’m very engaged in helping them
succeed, then things progress quite easily from
that point on.
MI: What are the
top three things professionals should do before
contacting a VA about services?
CA: First, I would
recommend they examine their current business
processes and make a list of every single event
they handle on any given day. Write out every
nitty gritty detail from answering E-mails to
keeping those domain names current. Then, they
should highlight the tasks that take up the bulk
of their day or tasks they just don’t enjoy
doing - and outsource them to a VA that
specializes in those tasks. Finally, they should
examine how many technology tools they’ve
bought, paid for and yet aren’t utilizing to
their full potential. A VA can help them
dramatically increase their return on investment
for those programs.
MI: Last
Question: What advice do you have for REALTORS®
who are thinking about hiring a VA but haven’t
made that first step yet?
CA: I would have to
quote you, Michael… “Why not???” Yes, we are
“virtual” but as many of us proved when we
attended your incredible session at NAR last
week, we are very real. We’re just as passionate
about creating dynamic results for your business
as you are and we’re constantly gaining added
knowledge and expertise from our work with other
agents located all over the globe. The success
of any Virtual Assistant directly relates to her
ability to make things happen, and once you
begin working with one of us – I guarantee
you’ll wish you’d started sooner.
MI: Cheryl, your
professionalism shines through, thank you for
sharing your experience with our readers!
CA: My pleasure,
Michael. And thank you for all that you do in
promoting the Virtual Assistant Industry. Your
passion and drive are an inspiration and a
motivating force for all of us. I truly hope my
answers will be of benefit to both agents and
VAs alike.
To learn more about Cheryl and her services just
go to
http://www.va4re.com. You can contact her via
e-mail at
cheryl@va4re.com or call her at
253-565-3015. Always remember to do a
thorough due-diligence before hiring any kind of
assistant. This interview is part of an ongoing
series of VA profiles designed to help you find
that perfect VA that will launch you to the top
quicker and with less effort than you ever thought
possible!
