Kirby Slunaker, CEO of Denver Metrolist found out first hand how hard it is to get a local real estate agent that specializes in the area when he was searching for a home on Zillow.

Larry Hotz posted an article of an interview he did with the CEO and it appears that the Denver Metrolist will start delaying listing syndication to Trulia, Zillow and even Realtor.com in the near future.

I talk to agents all the time that are frustrated with having to compete with the big portals for their listings. At 7:50 into the interview Kirby made a very good point about having to compete for your listing that you’ve worked hard for, possibly even negotiating reduced commission or agreement to a large ad spend or photo package only to have to compete for the lead from a premier agent buying space on one of these portals.

I know in our small area here in Southern Colorado many time listings in the Pueblo area will show an agent out of the Colorado Springs marketplace. Those agents in Colorado Springs most often have no clue about the local area and most of the agents that show up aren’t even member of the local Pueblo board.

I’ve never been a fan of syndication but there are ways to capture leads from these portals without having to pay for their service.

I’ve noticed a trend happening where prospects are obviously sitting in front of homes and the first thing they do is type in the address to find more information. Often times these large portals come up first. We’ve designed our real estate websites to compete with this however and are seeing success where our clients listings are beating out the major portals. See this blog post Fully Indexable IDX Systems for more information.

Will the listing syndication debate continue? For sure. Will agents and brokerages ever wake up to the fact that listing syndication is taking money out of their pockets and causing undue grief and do something about it? Maybe.

But, having an indexable idx solution in and of itself is not the entire strategy as many would lead you to believe. We offer a proprietary solution that maximizes the benefits of the indexing, and the good part is we do all this automatically for your website as part of our comprehensive virtual assistance support.

In the graphic shown, the complete idx details is the first entry, and the 2nd entry is the featured listing of the same property that we enter and submit to the search engines on your behalf.

And since our idx solutions are now responsive, they look and work just as well on mobile phones and tablets. One url for the desktop, tablet and mobile phone.

I ran across this handy list of 100 top blogs to follow in real estate.

While some on the list are industry heavyweights like the Zillow, Redfin and Biggerpcokets I find it kind of odd that other major blogs are missing, namely some industry news sites, the National Association of REALTORS® and Trulia.

The post doesn’t say how or why this list was created but that’s not the point. I have spent some time and will continue to do so with the links provided because the list is mostly made up of real estate agents. I am finding that these sites do have quite a bit of activity in the way of blog posts (I call them articles myself) and I am finding that I am getting quite a few ideas to help my clients market their website.

You might do well to spend a few hours looking at these sites, making notes, printing some screenshots and creating a real estate strategy on how you could implement some of the ideas your sure to see.

I know the experts tell you that a blog is suppose to engage your community, allow for the extension of the conversation and create a sense of connection with your audience.

If your taking the mindset of  a very well know real estate broker/blogger/speaker you might disagree, but time tells all (see the accompanying graphic). In the beginning this person took a throw the rocks at the industry approach and it served them well. Agents from all across the country would chime in and post comments because they were taught (or sold a lie) that if they communicate on blogs and post their name and company website it would provide them with critical back links needed so their websites would rise in the rankings. What these poor agents didn’t realize is that their is a tag used in the coding on the website that said “hey search engines ‘nofollow‘ these links. The broker got what looked like lots of engagement on his website but the style and comments were mostly about how screwed up other agents and the industry is. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t seem very prudent to air your complaints and dirty laundry in public, especially about the very profession you belong to.

Think about it for a moment… you pour blood sweat and tears into writing blog posts to show what an expert you are, how in touch you are with the community and no one comments. Now put yourself in a prospects shoes. They come to your website and start reading your blog posts to get a sense of who you are and what you represent and your knowledge of the industry and your community. Then on each and every one of your blog posts you have that big fat 0 comments just sitting out their for them to see.

Face it, real estate is boring, it’s not a topic of conversation that elicits ‘community’ or a sense of connectedness with an audience. The whole premise of writing blog posts, or as I like to say writing articles about the industry that imparts your knowledge and understanding just isn’t going to illicit a lot of comments. Sure you might get some comments, but it’s going to be very specific to that individuals needs and if that individual feels that after reading your articles that they would like to pose a question to you then it will normally happen with a phone call or they will fill out a contact form and ask the question.

Think about it this way. You walk into a restaurant and there is no one in the place. All those empty seats are like blog posts with no comments. Would you have confidence that the restaurant serves good food? I realize it’s a perception question, but one you should seriously consider.

By the way, the graphic shown, 2 of those comments are from agents in the very office of the brokerage that posted the blog article, one is from a 2% commissioned competitor and the rest are spam.

The purpose of blogging or writing articles for your website is to address questions that your potential clients may be interested in. By doing this, they get a sense of who you are and what your capabilities are. From there the contacts and leads will happen.

With all that said, it does make sense and evidence is increasing that using social share signals on your website is becoming more and more a factor search engines are using to determine relevance.

Whether to use comments or have the social share buttons is a fine line for sure. It just doesn’t seem to me that real estate lends itself to too much sharing.

On February 15, free blogging platform Posterous says thanks, but goodbye. Posterous a popular free blogging platform whom once went after ActiveRain members when ActiveRain turned their free blog platform into a paid version a couple of years ago is now dissing members as well. In this case, Posterous was purchased by Twitter a year ago and is just simply calling it quits.

The point is simply this. It can hurt your business anytime you take advantage of the lure of free. The internet is full of free.

I won’t go into the search engine debate about how it can hurt your standing in search engines (assuming you worked on back links), or will cause those popular posts (articles) to suddenly disappear. The point is you shouldn’t be branding somewhere else than on your own website ( no matter what your told). Not all roads lead to Rome as they say.

There are strategies that an agent can use with free blogging platforms (and social media for that matter) to enhance their visibility, but free blogging platforms (or paid for that matter) can sometime end up hurting your efforts.

I read with all the excitement of a new father expecting at any time, only to find out the doctor misdiagnosed the delivery date… by a lot.

 Then I ask myself is this really valuable?

Do you really need to be on a half a dozen or more social networks?

Do you really need to have this new widget added to your website?

Do you really want to know how the new “canonical’ tag works for search engine duplication issues?

Do you really think that agent that has 50,000 followers is doing 100 homes a year based on his twitter presence? Or even 20?

Do you really think that agent that has an Internet marketing class that is listed as one of the top 250 teams in the US doing all that much business? I may be spammed for this one, but if the team is 30 people large and their combined sales is 250 transactions, then that is the industry average of about 8 homes a year. There is nothing special going on there. Why isn’t he/she teaching a class on team building you ask? That’s where his real value is.

Do you really want to promote that app for anyone to download to their smartphone when you’ll never get a single lead from it?

Do you really need to read another industry blog post telling you about the newest free piece of software out there with no discussion on how it could possibly fit in your business?

Do you really need to be spending a few hundred dollars every month to be on those national portals where your competing with other agents to get a lead from your own listings? And to boot, putting up their widget to drive traffic away from your site back to them, so they can ask you for more money?

Do you really want to compete with companies that aren’t licensed agents that you so freely hand over your coveted listings to?

Most agents and brokers I talk to really just want a website to generate leads.

 I wonder as a technology company that caters to real estate agents if I can even get my real value proposition (virtual assistance support for all your web needs) across to you without spouting off all the reasons you should buy my new fancy widget.

One thing you know as an agent is that you spend a lot of time on the phone. It’s in these moments that you really earn your money, respect from your clients, rave reviews and even referrals.

For example you’re asked a question that needs to involve another person. This individual could be the person handling the mortgage, an inspector, and appraiser, a contractor an attorney or any number of individuals that can be instrumental in putting a deal together or keeping a deal together.

How you handle these third party interactions is critical to your overall success.

Here’s the game plan.

When asked about something, often times it’s easier to say “you need to call …”.

Instead say this. “We need to call ..”.

Then depending on the situation and in most cases, you should be the one that takes responsibility to make the call, even if you know for a fact that the client would make the call. The only time I can think of where you would want to have the client  make the call is if you think the information they are seeking is going to get too detailed that you might mess up the relay of that information. In those cases, perhaps a three way conference call should be initiated. That way you stay in the loop and you know what was communicated to your client. If you make the call and it becomes apparent that the information needs to be relayed directly to the client, then you need to communicate that to the person you are talking to and try and schedule an appointment for them to call your client. This will hold them accountable. Don’t just ask them to call and leave it up to them. They can be lousy at follow up, they could have a meeting that will take them out of the office for the next several hours and you’re client is expecting an answer. Scheduling a call is paramount.

When you make the call.

So you’ve decided that you will make the call on behalf of the client. You could say something like this… “Mary, let me give them a call and I’ll call you back when I get an answer.” For those calls that you are making on behalf of the client, you’ve probably said something very similar to this hundreds of times.

What I have seen over my years with salespeople is the art of keeping that commitment timely.

 You need to let them know you’ll call them right back. At the very least tell them if you don’t hear from me in the next 10 minutes then you were not able to get a hold of that person. You don’t want them sitting around for an hour waiting for your call. Better yet, you should call them back and tell them you had to leave a message.

 Alan Weiss, millionaire consultant has a standing 1 hour return call. For a little more on this topic read his article “What Actually Constitutes Superior Customer Service“

Riding the Trillion-Dollar Real Estate Recovery Roller Coaster.

http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pqb4dg/2012_real_estate_a) has announced the addition of Borrell Associates Inc’s new report “2012 Real Estate Advertising Outlook: The Long Road Home” to their offering.

This 33-page report details changes in home buying, home-building, construction permits, home-seeking habits and advertising expenditures. It’s our annual assessment of one of the largest advertising segments of all – and the highest category in online advertising (Real Estate is at $13 billion, and Automotive is No. 2 in online advertising expenditures, at $12 billion).

The report includes 24 charts and tables that display historic growth patterns in construction and home sales, as well as trending for advertising expenditures. One full chapter analyzes the online phenomenon, including discussion about the Top 25 realty sites and how they’ve been trending. It includes a 10-page appendix of detailed data for each of the business subcategories: mortgage providers, developers, agents and brokers, and rental managers.

The annual Real Estate Advertising Outlook shows that, at $13 billion, Real Estate is now the largest single category of online advertising. It has even surpassed online spending by auto dealers and manufacturers, which is less than $12 billion.

The 33-report page shows that real estate advertising is down about 16% this year despite a mild increase in home sales and building permits. Meanwhile, the online category continues to grow, up 15% so far this year.

Real Estate marketing continues to be in flux. Some of the sites we once thought were “category killers” — Realtor.com, Yahoo! Real Estate and AOL Real Estate — are struggling or in decline. Meanwhile, Zillow, Homes.com and Trulia gain ground as they tap mobile and social media opportunities.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/pqb4dg/2012_real_estate_a

Source: Borrell Associates Inc

Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager.
press@researchandmarkets.com

U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

So what does all this have to do with having a real estate website?

The quick fix.

It’s happenned more often over the past several years, after all the industry kind of stinks right now (depends on who you talk to really), but agents aren’t making money for many reasons… the one I want to address today is it’s not your website’s fault.

There are way too many vendors and companies offering the golden bullet promising an inbox full of leads ripe for your picking. You’ll have so many leads, you’ll have to staff a 5 man team just to respond to all the leads. Let’s hope your attitude towards purchasing and expectations for a website from one of these vendors isn’t the same as many people’s attitude toward their diet. Quite frankly folks, it’s a ploy to seperate you from your hard earned cash.

Just like a long term strategy for loosing weight, you have to eat 3 to 5 small balanced meals a day and excercise 3 to 4 times a week. If you do that over an extended period of time the pounds will slowly come off, with the only difference being it’s a lifestyle change and not a quick fix.

Here’s how a daily conversation goes in my office. Ok, it doesn’t really happen like this but play along with my alter ego on this.

Me: What are you wanting a website for?

Agent: We want a website so we can find buyers.

(my internal dialogue) Fair enough, I think that’s what everyone wants.

Me: So how do you plan on achieving this?

Agent: I don’t know, you’re the expert I’m told, you tell me. Can’t you get me to the top of the search engines?

Me: Sure, I say… how much time are you willing to put in?

Agent: What? Isn’t that your job?

Me: Well yes, but I really can’t do it without your cooperation. I’ll need you to spend time creating content for your site, like writing a weekly article about the industry, answering in writing some of the frequently asked questions so that someone can get a sense of your knowledge, character and demeanor. I’ll need you to submit your information to these yellow page directories (or you can pay me to do it), I’ll need you to get on Facebook and talk to your friends, then we can point your friends to some interesting posts on your website (something as simple as what’s happenning in your community over the weekend), that way they will possibly repost your information, then your friends, friends will get to know you, maybe like you and do business with you or point one of their friends in your direction when the subject of buying a home comes up. You should also do those things you did pre-internet, like advertise and put your website on every piece of paper you produce, and God forbid, create an email signature that goes along with every single email you send that has your name and the company you work for in the from line, the company you work for at the bottom of the email along with your phone number and your website. You might also want to consider having a web chat on your website, so when visitors to your site are looking at properties, they can chat with you. You probably need to go out into the different neighborhoods and take some pictures and write about those areas, then we can link to active listings for those areas. You should probably write up a buyers guide to walk first time homebuyers through the process and offer that up as a downloadable pdf. You need to reduce the intimidation factor for those first time homebuyers. It’ going to really take some effort on your part. Have you ever worked with investors? Do you have a plan on how you find those so we can figure out a strategy to find more?

I’ll update the website with that information, pretty it up, optimize the tags for the search engines, etc. I can’t create any meaningful content for you that doesn’t sound like a boilerplate you can find on thousands of other websites. Should I could go on? I have another 3 dozen proven marketing strategies that I could talk about. I have a list of over 200 ideas to write articles about. That will keep you busy creating content for a couple of years. It’s not going to happen overnight.

Do you have the time, I’ll explain them to you?

Agent: Ahhh, no I really don’t. I think what your saying is that I’m going to have to put in some time to market myself, get out there and create content that people might be interested in, kind of like a citizen journalist, they’ll have to get to know, like and trust me before they fill out that form to request more information.

I think I’ll call one of those companies that keep cold calling me, I think their called, oh I can’t remember, but they start with a Z or T or it’s some kind of advantage company. They said they have all that for me done already.

Me: So you want to look, act and behave like the average agent?

Agent: I think so, I don’t have the desire to work all that hard.

Me: Well good luck to you.

Phew…

I’ll be the first one to tell you that if you think you’re going to earn a good living off your website in the first year of it’s existence your probably fooling yourself. Unless you buy traffic and then there is still no guarantee all those clicks will actually turn into a lead.

I won’t take your money.

Photo courtesy of:  petekraynak