Many real estate professionals across the country did in fact heed the advice of Mr. Internet and purchased domains that contain the acronym “mls” - short for Multiple Listing Service and not to be confused with Major League Soccer, who happens to own the trademark. Now, it’s important to note that Major League Soccer has never complained - at least to my knowledge of the use of “mls” by real estate professionals.

Enter the National Association of REALTORS again who changed the language of Article 12 of the Code of Ethics which essentially allows for local MLS boards to independently decide whether or not the local members will now be allowed to continue using “mls” in their domains. Now, without getting too deep into search engine marketing, suffice it to say that the age of the websites domain name, or URL, plays an integral part in helping a website rank well for particular terms so if you are forced to lose it, you stand a significant chance of a loss of income and a severe one at that.

Enter Marc Rasmussen, a member of the Sarasota Association of REALTORS. Marc purchased a website, thesarasotamls.com back in 2003. Marc worked tirelessly to become an internet marketing leader in his area and has been ranked number one for Sarasota real estate, sarasota mls and various other search terms for years because of his efforts. This work has paid handsome dividends in the form of business he has been able to generate from his website.

The Sarasota Association of REALTORS has put an end to Marc’s ability to use his website with ethics hearings and a ruling from ICANN so now Marc has had to start over. It seems that the very people (NAR) who should be helping Marc and others like him are the ones who have now put him in the position he is in right now and they are also the very people who recommended the practices Marc employed because of the change in language to Article 12 of the Code of Ethics which now gives local authorities to take away what the National Association of Realtors once explicitly stated was good practice. Should their not at least be a grandfathered in clause for all agents who currently own and operate websites with “mls” in the domain? The relevant language of Article 12 is here:

“1) REALTOR® firm websites shall disclose the firm’s name and state(s) of licensure in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.Websites of REALTORS® and non-member licensees affiliated with a REALTOR® firm shall disclose the firm’s name and that REALTOR®’s or nonmember licensee’s state(s) of licensure in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.

2) The obligation to present a true picture in representations to the public includes information presented, provided or displayed on REALTORS®’ websites. REALTORS® shall use reasonable efforts to ensure that information on their websites is current. When it becomes apparent that information on a REALTOR®’s website is no longer current or accurate, REALTORS® shall promptly take corrective action.

3) REALTORS® intending to share or sell consumer information gathered via the Internet shall disclose that possibility in a reasonable and readily apparent manner.

4) REALTORS® obligation to present a true picture in their advertising and representations to the public includes the URLs and domain names they use, and prohibits REALTORS® from:

a. engaging in deceptive or unauthorized framing of real estate brokerage websites;b. manipulating (e.g. presenting content developed by others) listing content in any way that produces a deceptive or misleading result;c. deceptively using metatags, keywords, or other devices/methods to direct, drive or divert Internet traffic, or to otherwise mislead consumers.”

Marc has had to purchase a new domain to market Sarasota real estate and we here at The Grapevine will certainly do our part to support him by linking to him wherever possible. I’ve written another article about this here and many others have written about this as well. Search the web and you will find it.

Ryan Ward, REALTOR. Atlanta Real Estate - 404.630.3187

The study picks homes from an area and tracks the sales of the same home through the years and excludes townhomes, condos, new construction and distressed properties.

Maybe I am somewhat biased because I am a contributor on HomeGain’s blog and I think that Louis Cammarosano happens to be an extremely intelligent businessman and someone that I respect and speak with from time to time, but, I’m also being quite honest with my assessment that of all of the vendors that we interact with as real estate professionals, HomeGain stands alone at the top at creating mutually beneficial relationships with us. HomeGain’s latest venture, Agent View is yet another example of what happens when a real estate vendor thinks of ways to improve their own business by first helping to improve the business of someone else. There is no reinventing of the wheel here. Just straight up exposure for real estate agents on a platform that is already in place and has the tools and technology necessary to do what few agents would be able to do on their own.

For some real insight into the power of Agent View and more about Louis’s background, I invite you to take a couple of minutes and read a point of view about Homegain and Agent View from Notorious R.O.B. Now, I don’t know Rob, but rarely have I come across someone who has the gift of the written word in a blog like he does. His insights and information are spectacular and the comments in the post are certainly worth taking a few minutes as well.

R.O.B., I will be reading your blog.

Old:

And here is the new photo with the added lighting:

What’s more is that the first photo was actually shot using one, but, not both of the halogen lights. Without the halogen light, the back wall was barely visible because it was so dark. Here is another example”

Old:

New:

Again, even the first photo was shot with one of the halogen lights, but, without the halogens, these photos were completely washed out.

Another technique to improve photos dramatically is to you the small light somewhere out of sight, deeper in the picture such as in the room at the far end of the photo. This will help to add a tremendous amount of depth to your shot and really bring the room to life. For a larger home, this is essential if you want both agents and buyers to see your listing for what it truly is.

Homegain - In my opinion, Homegain is hands down a third party vendor that we as agents and brokers can appreciate and not only live with, but use effectively to position ourselves as powerful agents in our markets. (Full disclosure, I am a contributor on the Homegain blog). They work with agents by providing a source of leads for agents - very simple; they have leads and agents need them. I don’t see anything wrong with this business model. Leads aren’t free to anyone and if you need them , Homegain has them. They have excellent customer service, a proven track record and they work on the side of the agent, not in a competing format. Louis and Jessica have done a great job connecting the real estate community with the Homegain real estate blog.

Zillow -Zillow has made great strides in recent months as they have recognized the importance of working with the real estate community. Like Homegain, Zillow came up with a model that is theirs alone that actually brings something to the table that is unique with their zestimates. This is another example of how zillow brings something unique to the table for consumers. Not too long ago, I wrote a post about the zestimate for a city that I work in being not too far off the mark. While I believe that they are working hard to me more a partner with Realtors, using some of their capital, SEO and expertise to give something back to the real estate community, I am still a bit sour with some of where they started. I am a believer that there should and will always be a place for professionals practicing real estate.

Trulia -My feelings for Trulia are fairly well documented as they are in many other areas of the web so I won’t rehash any of that here. If you are interested, you can read about it on the Bloodhound Blog here and here, my blog here, the REW blog and more here. It’s not so much that I dislike them, in fact, I admire their use of technology. It’s just that they don’t actually bring anything new to the table that is theirs or unique in any way. They have a slick website with minimal content and a big wow factor for the look and feel. There big push is SEO - outrank the sources to force the sources to make them a source. It’s that simple. I don’t care for that and it can be spun as consumercentric, but it is not.

So really, what I base my opinion on here, is whether or not these companies bring anything to real estate professionals that is useful, contributes to the careers of agents or brings new information to consumers. Homegain and Zillow do that, Trulia does not. Looked at another way, if I ask myself if we would be missing anything if these companies instantaneously vanished the answer you be: Homegain? Yes. Zillow? Yes. Trulia? No.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

Above is a screenshot of one of my custom sites and a link to it if you want to see it. I am going to be offering these available for free to download to anyone who wants them in the next couple of weeks complete with a list of the necessary plugins. I’ll also offer them in a few different colors.

So now let’s get to what she said and why I think what she said was bad advice. I urge you look at the results for yourself to see. Let’s start with some background information.

Single Property Websites Can Rank Quickly and For More Than Just the Property Address

Got it? Let’s have a look at where this site ranks in Google for the entire subdivision, not just the home’s address. How about homes in Haynes Landing (That’s the name of the neighborhood)? That would be #1 and #2. How about homes for sale in Haynes Landing? that would be #5 and #6. Same goes for a few additional terms. I don’t think anyone who might read this will have any doubt from here forward that single property websites can and do rank well as they are intended and for important terms.

The truth is that it is only a very few terms that will take a long time to rank for. Like “real estate”. Another fallacy is that you need new and fresh content. From the looks of this example, you can see that there is little to no content on the homepage. Yet somehow Google is still smart enough to know that it is a relevant result for these search terms. Keep in mind that this website has been up for only a couple of weeks.

So How Do you Get Yours to Rank Like That?

It’s not that difficult really. You will just need a little creativity. Instead of buying the property address for the domain name, buy something more useful - maybe with the neighborhood in the name. This way you can reuse it over and over to sell other homes in the same neighborhood. In between listings, you can change it to indicate how it helped you sell the listing and maybe use it to get and sell more listings in the neighborhood

So you have a good domain name now. Go market the home online. Do you have an Active Rain account? Do you post about your listings there? Be sure to add a link back to your single property website when you post about it online. Do you have your own blog? Do something like I have done on my Atlanta real estate blog - check the sidebar where I have added my single property sites. This gives them more links. More links –> better rank.

And don’t worry about bleeding your pagerank or get caught up in SEO tunnelvision. You are building these for business, not for search engines and that is exactly the type of behavior that you will be rewarded for in the search engines. So you have some links pointing to it and you have a good domain name. From there you can easily do replicate exactly what I have done with this site.

If you set one of these templates up one time, you can duplicate the process over and over again relatively quickly for the potential return on your time and investment of resources. Remember, there is more here than just the single property website. You can and should think bigger. Think neighborhood, but, don’t think too much bigger or you will be competing against bigger, older and stronger sites. Know the largest niche and fill it with one home that is scaleable and can be used over and over for other properties. For the price of hosting and a about 3 hours to set up the first one, you could be well on your way to owning the neighborhood.