Email has quickly taken over as the number-one method prospects will use to make initial contact with an agent of company. So, it goes without saying that it is absolutely critical that every real estate professional own and maintain an email account. But, after looking at real estate advertising in the Homes Magazine, I notice a number of real estate agents failing to market and brand their domain name by using a personal email address in their contact information.

It appears that it is common practice for many agents to include their personal email address in their printed advertising. Worse yet, many of these personal email address are from free email service providers like gmail, hotmail, and others.

While the use of free email accounts are great for personal email, but agents who wish to convey a more professional tone should refrain from publishing personal email addresses for business use. This includes using an email address provided by your Internet Service Provider.

A more professional approach is to follow the lead of any other corporation and use an email address that is associated with your domain name. For example, if Beth Hanson has a website at bethhanson.com, it would be more professional for Beth to use beth@bethhanson.com than to use beth2094@hotmail.com. If Beth were to use an email address using her domain name, it gives her yet another opportunity to market her website.

At TheRealEstateHost.com, we provide all our real estate agents, brokers, and offices an ample number of email accounts for their professional use. This means that everyone of our clients can use a professional email address that matches and promotes their brand in all their printed marketing materials.

Your corporate of business domain name is an important extension of your company, agency, or practice. Use it to its full advantage online and offline for a consistent and professional appearance. In today’s competitive marketplace agents, brokers, and offices must use every advantage to stay ahead of the competition. The enhanced image this simple practice provides might just convince that prospect viewing your Homes Magazine ad to contact YOU.

Many companies today are using blogs for a number of reasons. Some use them to promote their products and services. Others use them to help improve their search engine ranking. Still others use blogs to get a specific message across.

We’re going to take a different approach. We’ve decided to use our blog to help you make better use of the Web to maximize your real estate business - whether you decide to purchase our services or not.

You already know that an Internet presence is critical for your business. You already know that the majority of home shoppers turn to the Web to learn about your local market and shop for a real estate professional. What you may not know is how you can make use of the tools available through the Web to increase your business and make the Web work for you.

We’re going to use this blog to cover a variety of Internet subjects and learn a few things along the way. We’ll explain complicated and technical terms in simple English so you’ll better understand how the Web works. And, we’ll give you advice on how you can leverage many of the tools and Internet technologies to get more business and run your business more effectively.

Today’s real estate market is highly competitive. The agent or company that can best serve consumers is the one that will succeed. One way to serve your clients and prospects is to be knowledgeable about new, cutting-edge Internet technologies and apply your knowledge to serving your clients.

So, I hope you enjoy the new blog. Better yet, I hope that we both learn something along the way.