Dear CyberAgent user,

World Cup 2010! England might be at loss of words on why they’ve performed so poorly and other teams might be blaming the Jabulani World Cup ball but for South Africans it doesn’t matter as they are still enjoying the spirit of it all. Here at CyberAgent we truly had fun over the last month;

In the last two editions of our CyberAgent newsletter we requested that should you wish to get involved with other real estate agencies you can send us an email. We receive a suggestion from one of our readers;

CyberProp; although not using your product, I like to receive your newsletters and read them. Maybe a forum where users can correspond and ask advice on issues would be a good idea?

Thank you Hans for this great idea. There is now a forum on CyberAgent website where viewpoints can be shared between agencies. http://forum.cyberagent.co.za

CyberAgent and SAPTG (Knowledge Factory) will be working closely in the future. To start off with all CyberAgent users properties will be listed on the following website; http://property.saptg.co.za. This brings the total of websites that CyberAgent is affiliated with to a whooping 105!

Furthermore SAPTG will be supplying suburb trends on all our clients websites at no extra cost. This has already been loaded on your website and if you have any questions you can contact our webmaster; webmaster@cyberprop.com. Watch this space for more products and offerings coming your way.

For those who missed out on last month’s newsletter CyberAgent has a whole new module available, the Advert Generator. This module allows users to create their own adverts e.g. newspaper adds, single ads and various others. This has an easy to use interface with various pre-set templates available and allows for multiple selected properties to be used to generate a single advert. This module is available to all our desktop users (CyberAgent Professional and CyberAgent Lite) at NO extra cost. Read more in CyberAgent now has an Advert Generator Module.

As so many agencies contact us regarding SEO Johan, our webmaster, this month focus on this topic in more detail. Walk the SEO journey with him, From our Webmaster.

2nd Quarter stats! SA’s hottest Province and top 10 cities as well as top 5 cities per Province for the second quarter 2010! These statistics were obtained from over 1000 websites hosted and maintained by CyberAgent.

Good Luck!
The editor

CyberAgent now has an Advert Generator Module.

The idea behind this module is so that the agency can generate its own adverts for newspaper or for distribution as a pamphlet.

The module has 20 templates to choose from.

The templates range from a single listing advert, up to a 30 listing full page advert spread.

Each template has its own top margin, bottom margin, left and right margin images for the agency to setup.( As required by template)

The module is split up in 5 pages.

• Page 1 is a preview of the template(No data just place holder)
  
• Page 2 is Listing selection
  
• Page 3 is arranging the advert per listing
  
• Page 4 is page setup ( includes company log image file and such)
  
• Page 5 is printing the advertisement to screen, printer, pdf or word document.

Each advert campaign is given a name, date published and a template selection.

On the property selection page, you can filter based on certain criteria. You then add the listing to the advert campaign

You can add, remove and reorder the selected listings.

On Page 3 is the advert campaign setup. This includes captions note detail and picture selection

On page 4 is the advert layout page, here you select margin images and company logo if required by template

Page 5 is for printing the advert campaign.

Template 5 with the right images and text input would look something like this

For more information on this module, please contact Support@cyberprop.com

Click Here for printable .pdf file

We provide you with FREE training session in the following areas;

• Gauteng
• Kwazulu Natal
• Western Cape
• and the Garden Route

During these training sessions more information will also be provided on:

• CyberAgent Anywhere
  
• Keep me Informed Function
  
• New developments in CyberAgent
  
• New Update Manager
  
• REEP (Real Estate Evaluation Portal)

A warm welcome to all new Agencies May 2010:

We trust that by now you are well aware of what CyberAgent can do for you. If you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at support@cyberprop.com or phone us at: +27 (0)11 955-9100 or 086 112- 9237

Most Internet enquiries May 2010:

Sandy Walsh, who heads up the Western Cape Institute of Estate Agents training and education division, has put out a warning to those members of the Institute who have thus far ignored their training obligations to get started on qualifying for their NQF level 4 (for agents) and NQF level 5 (for principals). The requirement to complete these courses, said Walsh, will not go away and there is no point in delaying getting started on them. Failure to qualify, she warned, will ultimately result in the person concerned being unable to work...

International Real Estate Agency’s growth blazes a path ahead

In the 2007 edition of the Swanepoel TRENDS Report discussed the likelihood of non-US real estate companies expanding to the United States. Countries that were identified to lead the charge included Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Germany and South Africa.

In an announcement to local media this week, Jeanne van Jaarsveldt: General Manager for Harcourts SA, confirmed that their Australian-based Operation has became the third major non-US based real estate company to enter the US market with the announcement of a joint venture with one of California’s largest real estate companies, Altera Real Estate. This major coup for the Group comes hot on the heel of the local success story of Harcourts in South Africa. With the full conversion of Homenet successfully concluded within 12 months of launch on South African shores, Harcourts South Africa has also manage to defy the odds and added an additional 29 new offices to its national footprint within the first 12 months of launch, with as many as 3 new offices who recently joined Harcourts in June 2010 – all of whom is conversions of existing successful operations.

“We believe that this is the ideal opportunity for real estate business owners to consider the value of aligning themselves with a young, dynamic and growing National Brand, one who is able to sustain a cutting-edge value offering to its clients. At the end of the day, van Jaarsveldt continues, ‘people want to do business with a company they can trust and with a people who offers a strong sense of belonging, underpinned with a on-going focus to an engaged relationship to both agents and business owners to be successful and best of all, enjoy the pleasures their owning their own business.

Real more on the Harcourts Global expansion blog: - http://harcourtsgoingglobal.wordpress.com/

More enquiries: Jeanne van Jaarsveldt, Harcourts SA, +27 83 641 6603

Here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for SEO:

1. Start at the beginning. Have you searched for your own website as a user would? Or searched on key property terms to see what comes up? Can you find yourself? Are you on the first page of results? Assess which parts of your own website have already been indexed, if any, by a search engine. To see how many pages of your website have been indexed by Google for example, type the following into the Google search box: site:yoursite.com (so for this site we would type site:propertyadguru.com). This then tells you how many pages have been indexed. The aim is to get as many pages as possible indexed by the search engine...

[By Fred Johnson of Tysons, Westville]

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.

My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.

My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'

This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally.

Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So ... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.