39 tech things to test and try

Flickr photo by JaseMan.

Using tech in your real estate practice often means learning about, testing or trying new things. Sometimes it's tough to know where to begin. So this week, I humbly submit this list of 39 things you can learn, test or try to make your business better.

The list is a mix of things for beginners and advanced tech users. Maybe you've checked off a few on this list already. Pick the ones that interest you and give them a try. Let me know how they work for you.

1. Test the color of the submit button on your contact form.
2. Test the number of fields on the contact form.
3. Test the number of required fields on the contact form.
4. Test putting the search function on the home page.
5. Test a home page that looks as much like Google as possible (all "business," no distraction, just one link).
6. Test a home page that looks as much like Apple as possible (big visuals, minimal text, a primary navigation choice with several smaller navigation options).
7. Test a home page that looks as much like Yahoo as possible (lots and lots of links and text and pictures).
8. Test a real estate search tool that forces users to register.
9. Test a real estate search tool that doesn't require any registration.
10. Test prominent links to your social media profiles.
11. Test no links to your social media profiles.
12. Test paid advertising on Yahoo search.
13. Test paid advertising on Google search.
14. Test paid advertising on Bing.
15. Test paid advertising with your local daily newspaper's online edition.
16. Test paid advertising on the real estate aggregation sites.
17. Test paid advertising with your local arts/alternative newsweekly's online edition.
18. Try to take a panorama photo.
19. Try to shoot and edit 20 seconds of video you're happy with.
20. Try to shoot and edit 20 seconds of video without taking a week to do it.
21. Try to shoot an HDR (high dynamic range) photograph.
22. Try to write a blog post that contains only two paragraphs.
23. Try to write a blog post that uses several H2 tags.
24. Try to write a blog post that is just a photograph and one sentence caption/description.
25. Try to write a blog post that is mostly a bullet-point or unordered list.
26. Try to write a blog post that is mostly a numbered or ordered list.
27. Link a new blog post to a related post you wrote a long time ago.
28. Use your analytics to find out what site people were on the moment before they came to your site.
29. Use your analytics to find out what search phrases people typed into search engines before coming to your site.
30. Use your analytics to learn what pages are the first pages on your site that a visitor sees.
31. Use your analytics to learn which pages are the last pages on your site that a visitor sees.
32. Schedule a Twitter post.
33. Schedule a Facebook post.
34. Schedule a blog post.
35. Schedule a Foursquare post.
36. Attend a "tweetup" (a face-to-face meeting organized using Twitter, not to be confused with TweetUp.com) or Meetup or some other non-real-estate-focused get together in your area.
37. Use Craigslist.
38. Read some blog posts by people in your town who are not real estate professionals or journalists.
39. Register your own domain name.

Gahlord Dewald is the president and janitor of Thoughtfaucet, a strategic creative services company in Burlington, Vt. He's a frequent speaker on applying analytics and data to creative marketing endeavors.

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