Thursday, April 28, 2011 – 1:00 PM Eastern

We all know that home buyers are doing research online, but did you know that Trulia and the other top three national real estate listing sites together get over 90 Million visits per month?  (Hitwise, March 2011 – Trulia.com, Realtor.com, Zillow.com, Yahoo Real Estate)  That’s a lot of home buyers!

One of the best things about Trulia and these other national websites is that they have a captive audience.  We know that the users are interested in real estate because there is nothing else to do on these sites but look for homes and research real estate.    

But how engaged are these users?  We know that Trulia users spend an average of 15 minutes per visit.  Are these home buyers finding your communities in their search?

Join us on Thursday, April 28th at 1pm Eastern Time for tips on how to market your homes and communities to engaged home buyers online.  

With over 10 years experience working in technology and consumer online services, Tice Burke has spent the past three years helping brokers and new home builders navigate the online space. Tice has launched and runs interactive marketing programs on Trulia.com for brokers and builders of all sizes, in order to help them reach home buyers online.  After earning her Bachelors degree from Princeton University, Tice lived in San Francisco for 10 years and now resides in New York City.

The Webinar is free, but seating is limited.  Register Today!

Please join us at the Tech Know Expo sponsored by Senior Life Magazine,  Brevard County’s first Technology Expo.

Date:  March 29, 2011

Register now to attend the free classes, seminars, and exhibitors at Viera High School.

Greg Bray, president of Blue Tangerine Solutions,  will be presenting  “Protecting your computer from viruses and spyware” at 3:40 p.m.

Registration is FREE, Admission is FREE, and workshops are FREE! REGISTER TODAY! OPEN FOR EVERYONE! Please visit TechKnowExpo.com for further details.

Please join us for these two very informative ASK THE EXPERTS Webinar programs scheduled for this month – March, 2011.    

10 Reasons Why You Can’t Afford To Be Anti-Social

Thursday, March 10, 2011 – 1:00 PM Eastern
 Expert Speaker:  Mollie Elkman, Group Two Advertising      

On Thursday, March 10th at 12 noon Central / 1:00 p.m. Eastern, we will talk with Mollie Elkman of Group Two Advertising for her presentation about the “Ten Reasons Why You Can’t Afford to be Anti-Social.” 
 
Ask yourself:    

What do I know about social media?    

What is my Facebook page doing if I don¹t know how to use it properly?    

Will a blog help us gain market share? Is tweeting worth the time and effort?    

Everyone is talking about social networking.  It can be downright intimidating. But it doesn¹t have to be. In fact, it should be fun and informative. You just have to know the right questions to ask.
 
Register Now.  The webinar is free, but space is limited.    

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Steps to Increase Traffic to Your Website

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 – 1:00 PM Eastern
Expert Speaker:  Greg Bray, President of Blue Tangerine Solutions        

 Having a smart website with excellent content and easy-to-use navigation is only as good as the traffic that you are getting at the site.  It’s like building a great store out on a country road versus setting up that same shop in the middle of a popular and crowded mall – there are tools and SEO techniques to make sure you’re maximizing your website traffic!  
   

Join us on Tuesday, 3/22 at 1:00 pm Eastern for tips on how to improve and increase the traffic that is being sent to your website, so you can generate more qualified leads and customers!    

Register Now.

With the recent explosion in popularity of mobile and tablet devices, many of our clients are interested in improving how their website works when it’s being viewed on the mobile web – particularly with an iPad or an iPhone. What an interesting circle we’ve covered.

A few years ago, we rejoiced that 99% of web browsers were supporting Flash technology and that it could be added to all websites. You see Flash technology in the more visual elements of many websites, where there are moving pictures (not real video) or interactive maps or products where you can zoom in/out for more detail. The addition of Flash makes the website more interesting and more interactive for the visitor. It was a great day when we learned that 99% of all browsers would support Flash, which meant that no visitors were left behind.

It’s been interesting to us that over the past few months, particulary since the iPad came on the scene, that we are now lamenting the use of Flash on the website because the Apple devices (iPad and iPhone) do not support Flash. We’re at the point where some visitors are once again being left behind because their devices don’t let them see those very cool Flash slideshows or interactive pages.

Don’t fret – There are two viable solutions.

Flash Detection

The quickest solution is to build a detection tool into your website that will recognize if the visitor is coming from a device that can view Flash. If it doesn’t, then you should serve a non-flash page or element instead of the usual flash element that can be viewed in the regular website browser. On many websites, Flash is used on the home page for a slideshow or introduction, as well as on the product detail page, whether your product is a home floorplan or a gift basket of oranges. It is sometimes used on a map or directions page, where the zoom in functionality is useful. By delivering the non-Flash page, your website should display on the smaller iPhone/iPad devices without the broken Flash pages.

 .mobi Websites

HOWEVER, there’s another solution that takes this a step further and that is to develop a .mobi website. The .mobi website is designed to fit on the small screen of handheld devices, and to provide reduced navigation and briefer content, to accommodate your visitor who is viewing on a small screen. This ensures that someone viewing your site on a smartphone (such as an iPad/iPhone OR a Blackberry, Android, etc.) will be able to quickly get through the site to find the most popular content that someone viewing on a small screen would need.

For example, a potential homebuyer wants to get directions to your Open House or to see information about the inventory or model home. A potential online shopper is looking for product details and photos, an easy way to place an order online with as little typing as possible. You can accommodate their needs with the .mobi site by eliminating some of the less popular navigation links (such as About Us or Partners), and providing drop down menus on the forms (to reduce the need for typing). Include a link to view the full site, and you’ve provided your visitor with everything they need while they are researching your company.

If you want more information on how to set up a non-flash or a .mobi website for your business, please call us at 321-309-6900 x 314 or send an eMail to info@BlueTangerineSolutions.com.

Are you using a Flash detection for your mobile website or do you have a full .mobi site?  What works for you?

Charles Ruma, president of Virginia Homes, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2006 at the age of 36.  Thankfully, today he is cancer-free.  Crediting his good outcome to the treatment he received at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Ceter, Charles set out to make a difference for all people living with a cancer diagnosis, and so A Home for Hope was born.

The “Hope” home will be a new build, at 3,100 square feet with an estimated post-construction value of $459,500 in the Tartan West community in Dublin, Ohio. Ground was broken in early December and upon completion in June, 2011, the home will be auctioned live at a celebration event, with 90 percent of the sale proceeds supporting OSUCCC-James, and the remaining 10 percent to The LIVESTRONG FOUNDATION. Public donations can also be made on behalf of the project. 

With cancer prevention as the design theme, features such as a kitchen geared toward whole food preparation, low volatile organic compound (VOC) building products, radon abatement, a home gym, and a vegetable garden will support the idea of healthy living.

“Once Huntington came onboard, the project has grown to involve all of our subcontractors and many, many other caring people who have been affected by cancer.” Virginia Homes will be working with subcontractors and suppliers to attain donations of goods and services for the home in order to minimize construction costs.

Our Blue Tangerine Solutions team was honored to be selected to build the website for the new home.  The site offers a webcam to follow the construction progress, an opportunity to register for the live action and a form to donate to the project.  It also includes great graphics ranging from the floorplan layout to photos and videos related to the project.  To learn more, visit HomeForHopeProject.com.

If you haven’t set up your .mobi website yet, what are you waiting for?!  The time to do this is now – after all, this is 2011.  It’s the start of a new decade.

According to mobilefuture.org, there were about 300 million apps downloaded in 2009 and that increased to 5 billion in 2010 (last year!)  In 2010, there were 20 million mobile Facebook users and about 77 million smartphones shipped in the Fall alone.  With so many people using mobile devices, it just makes sense to create a .mobi website for your business.

Here at Blue Tangerine Solutions, we make it easy for our website clients to have a .mobi site because we tie it into the database of their “.com” site, so they just have to maintain one central source for website content. 

The .mobi websites are always a bit different than your regular .com sites, for two main reasons: 

1)       The current mobile devices do not have the same technology that you have when viewing a website on your computer, so some of the interactivity is lost on the .mobi device.  For example, Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad do not display Flash, so an interactive map or floorplan page would need to be changed for your .mobi site. 

2)      The mobile devices have much smaller screens and therefore they need to have fewer navigation choices so that you don’t clutter up the small page.  While your .com site is being viewed on a ‘big screen’ and there is room to show lots of links/pages, the mobile device screen is much smaller and you need to be more selective with the navigation choices that are presented. 

If you are ready to learn more about how to set up a .mobi website, please check out these sites that we recently launched with our clients and call Rob Hill at 321-309-6900 x 314 or write to us at info@BlueTangerineSolutions.com.

The staff at Blue Tangerine Solutions would like to congratulate our partner, Richard Elkman, MIRM and President of Group Two Advertising, for being awarded the 2011 NAHB Legend of Residential Marketing Award from The NAHB National Sales and Marketing Council. 

Richard will be presented the award on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at the 30th Annual National Sales and Marketing Awards in Orlando, Florida.

We’ve had the privilege of working with Richard and his team for the past six years on numerous joint projects, but it’s the total of his 40-plus years in the homebuilding and advertising industries that led to his selection as the 2011 Legend.

For more information about the award, visit TheNationals.com.

For more information about Richard Elkman, please visit this YouTube tribute at http://www.youtube.com/user/GroupTwoAdvertising#p/a/u/0/zFFTAoTcyrk.

Congratulations Richard!

Does your small or medium-size business cater to local clients?  If yes, are you maximizing your oppotunity to drive more traffic to your business by using local search? 

Local search is an easy way to grow your customer base, by ensuring that your business is FOUND when a potential customer is searching for your type of business.  Here are a few of the top secrets for utilizing local search, and you can learn more by viewing our full presentation on our YouTube channel.

First, you need to understand what local search is (those results that show up with a map and directions) and how to get your site to show up in the local search results.  The same tenants of good SEO still apply, such as making sure that the relevant keywords show up within the title and copy text on your website.  (For more information, visit our On-Demand webinar library.)   Make sure the geographic areas that you service are mentioned in your website copy and that your physical address is on each page of the site.

Your website listing can show up in other search results as well, so you get greater exposure from being part of local search.

It’s pretty obvious that local search is important for your business, so why doesn’t everyone participate.  The biggest reason is probably that you have to actually create a local search account with the major search engine providers – Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Our YouTube Video will show you how to get your site added to the local listing service for the top three search engines.

We’ll also show you how to ‘claim your business’ in Google Places, as it’s possible your site might be showing up even though it wasn’t added to the local search yet, so this is a Don’t Miss opportunity to give Google more information about your business.

In our video presentation, we’ll show you the admin tools that you can use to create coupons to show up on your site and how you can see how many people have looked at your site.  This is information that every business should be aware of!

Local search is an excellent tool to drive more traffic to your website.  To learn more, visit our YouTube presentation and we ask that you consider Blue Tangerine Solutions for your future website development and internet marketing needs.  We can be reached at 321-309-6900 or online at info@BlueTangerineSolutions.com.

Halloween is only four days behind us, and it’s amazing  that our local stores have their holiday decorations and products lining the shelves.  While it seems like the ‘season’ begins earlier and earlier each year, I will trust that the stores have done their research and they know that the holiday shopping season begins on November 1st.  With that in mind, we thought you should know about a resource site that our Blue Tangerine Solutions team built called ChristmasSource.com - Your Source for All Things Related to Christmas.

The site  has links to some great resources for online bargains, as well as online holiday games, stories and traditions.

If you have time, take a moment to play our online game – Operation Present Drop II.  (Be careful, it can be slightly addictive and fun for all ages.)

A local home builder, Burgoon Berger, looks to takes advantage of new bar code reader apps used by smart phones.  The IT Director for the company states that “enabling individuals to more easily and simply capture and utilize company contact information such as model home locations, sales agent names, agent phone numbers, hours of operation, website links and driving directions are now all able to be captured in one tiny little barcode that you  upload to your smart phone.”

These barcode reader apps are available for smart phones like the new Android phones such as the HTC Evo and the ever popular iPhone. The apps use the phone’s camera to capture the barcode and then display and store the information for you. Once the barcode is scanned in, you can use your phones automation features to dial the phone numbers, display the location on a map and even get driving directions using your phone’s GPS features or simply save all the information to your contact lists.

Given that Burgoon Berger builds in an area that is essentially a high-tech corridor and the fact that these types of phones are becoming the standard, they are betting that this is tool that will be used by those seeking to visit the builder’s model homes.

The builder uses the “QR Code” type for their barcodes; there is also a version from Microsoft as well called a “Tag”.  There are several websites allow you to create barcodes for free online.  One popular one is by the “ZXing Project” located online at this link. http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/

Below is a sample of one of the builder’s barcodes that contains all the information.

For detailed information on scanning barcodes visit this link. http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/how-to-scan-qr-codes-with-your-htc-evo.html   For more information on Burgoon Berger,  the innovative homebuilder showcased in this article, please visit them online at BurgoonBerger.com.

Let us know if you are using 2D or QR bar codes, and if so, how you’re using them.  Are you using them to share information about your product?  Are they being used to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns?  Share your ideas on what does or doesn’t work with the use of bar codes and mobile devices.