3 Internet milestones; online estate agents must take note.

The internet has hit three big milestones. The first was in the newspapers today; internet market expenditure has outgrown television spend for the first ever time. Whereas television has been leading the marketing spend for over half a century now, the internet took just over 10 years.

Stats were collated by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) shows that internet spend was a record £1.75 billion budget was spent on online advertising whereas only £1.6 billion was spent on TV advertising. This means that the internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising spend in the UK, while TV ad accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets.

Could this be a sign of things to come? Will families gather round a LAN connection to communicate online after Sunday dinner? The suggestion bit extreme but the stats do suggest that the internet is increasingly becoming part of our daily lives. Take this next milestone for example:

In the U.S. alone, over the month of August, there were 25 Billion online videos viewed, which means that the average internet user watched 157 videos each over the month. The data supplied by ComScore, also mentioned that Google had a share of 39.6% of these views (remember estate agents, this will mainly be YouTube).

A staggering statistic, but what does this mean for estate agents? It means that estate agents can take advantage of this phenomenon by having video content on their estate agent website. Virtual tours of individual properties and marketing videos of the local area can be uploaded onto the estate agent website to promote either the area or the property particulars.

The last internet milestone is a social one involving a three-fold of social networks in London; the London network of Facebook has the largest number of members, Twitter's chief executive said that London is the "top Twitter-using-city" and lastly a Digg Spokesman said that 10% of Digg's (A social network where users share content) traffic comes from London alone.

Don't believe the old adage that 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks', estate agents that haven't need to start embracing the online world and taking advantage of the opportunities on there. When considering a new web site, always demand a specialist. Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques 'we provide IT services just for estate agents. Services include web design for estate agents, SEO for estate agents, SEO services, web sites for estate agents and software for estate agents, but we also provide domain name registration for estate agents. To see what we can do for your estate agency, visit our portfolio page or contact us.'

Damn good reasons why estate agents should invest time and effort into social networking

For those estate agents that are unsure, Google (the UK's largest search engine with over 90% of the search engine market) scans the internet for web pages that it can use in its SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and good news is that this includes your social networking profiles!

Facebook

A recent statistic said that 5% of all internet usage is on Facebook. Facebook allows users to create personal profiles, Facebook 'pages', groups and applications, all of which is indexed by Google. Another recent fact, for estate agents considering a Facebook page, is that Google has indexed 503 million pages. Estate agents should not take this social network lightly when trying to gain online exposure.

Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques comments, 'Estate agents now, more than ever, need to be on Facebook. Facebook has over 300 million people worldwide, which is almost the same as the U.S. population and the UK has approximately 20 million users, meaning that 1 in 3 people, in the UK, has a Facebook account.'

Troy Stanley, continues, 'Facebook is a great way for estate agents to support their online presence. Estate agents do not need to spend as much time as users do, but they [estate agents] need to start regularly updating and expanding their profile by spending 5 minutes or-so a week.'

Troy Stanley confirms, 'Spending more time will benefit the estate agent's website and the estate agent's online presence in two ways. Firstly Google will is more likely scan a webpage the more it is updated and estate agents can use certain Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques to improve their ranking. Fill your Facebook page with as much information as possible and use related keywords.'

'Once your page has filled out with all your business information, estate agents must then post content that property searchers will be interested in reading.' Troy Stanley reveals 'Users will be interested to know your latest properties for sale as well as the estate agent's latest events, socially and officially. Colin Bibra, an estate agent in Ealing, has an excellent online activity on both Facebook and Twitter.'

'Don't forget that this is not taking into account the possible communication between you, the estate agent, and members of public looking for property online. Giving them an opportunity to start an online conversation has become more attractive than ever before.' - Troy Stanley

Twitter

Twitter expanding at an enormous rate and is the 27th most visited website in the UK. A large amount of estate agents and users 'do not get' Twitter yet it is still expanding. Some high profile celebrities use Twitter in the UK including; Steven Fry, John Cleese, Jonathan Ross, Philip Schofield, Russell Brand and many more.

Estate agents can use Twitter to their advantage, by 'Tweeting' a link to the latest properties on their website, estate agents can boost traffic to their own estate agent website.

Troy Stanley comments, 'Estate agent should think Twitter as not just a social networking site where they can directly communicate with members of the public, but a type of media that is free. Again, estate agents do not need to devote an enormous amount of time using Twitter, but a few minutes a week 'Tweeting' their latest properties for people to access firsthand. 'Setting up a social network profile only takes 5 minutes. Estate agents can call Resource Techniques on 0208 457 4777 for free advice on setting up and utilising their social networking. - Troy Stanley.

Resource Techniques is a specialist in providing IT services for estate agents. Services include web design for estate agents, SEO for estate agents, SEO services, web sites for estate agents and estate agent software. Visit our portfolio page for our estate agent website designs or contact us page for more information.