Lazy, cheap and dead in the water

In 1997, when I started using the web to aid in my relocation, I viewed hundreds of California real estate websites. Many of them were identical to one another.

Back then, I thought Genstar was a brokerage. Little did I know they were the website developer hosting so many of the sites I visited.

You would think most of those sites would now be retired to some desert junk yard like half century old Vegas neon.

Not true.

Too many are still floating in the ether, the worst from the class of '97. And their owners are still lost.

I never quite understood why a real estate person would sooner co-brand with a website company than their broker. And become part of this electronic house of mirrors where every agent, every broker who uses these products look the same.

There's plenty of reasons to love template websites:

√ They are cheap
√ They are a "set it and forget it" product
√ They are, generally speaking, reliable
√ They contain a ton of content
√ If you need to make changes, the big companies can usually make them happen within days.

This is what their customers will tell you. But these are the reasons why they I don't like them.

Cheap does not necessarily mean good. Or even cheap for that matter. If a $50 per month site doesn't rank, doesn't draw inquires, looks like crap and requires $1,000 in SEO surgery, our respective definitions of cheap differ.

"Setting and forgetting" means lazy. It may not matter when roasting a chicken, but you can be certain it does when it comes to how you present yourself online. 

Reliability. Granted. But most of these well established companies offer platforms created a decade ago. The site might be "reliable" like a '71 Ford F-100 on the Autobahn. 

Wealth of content. Yes. All of it boiler plate displayed on every one of their sites which does little to support your claim of being special. 

Making changes. Is 48 hours fast enough for you? How about 24 hours? How about 12? How about instantly?

Lazy, cheap and dead in the water

Maintaining your web presence adds more work to a busy schedule. But it pays huge dividends. It's where your customer is. It's the cover they judge your book by. 

So what does your cover say? Well if it never changes, looks like 100,000 other covers, is obnoxious to navigate it probably says, "I am lazy, cheap, and don't really care much about my customer -- in other words, dead in the water."

Blogs

It was inevitable that these simple self publishing tools would one day grow up to be fully functioning websites. They are nimble. Customizable. Google loves them. And they are cheap -- or free.

Granted, you must manage these sites, breath life into them. And that's what you need to do today if you have any plans to compete with the agent and brokerage next door already doing this.

Options abound. And new ones emerge all the time. Just this week, Michael Rahmn, who ran IT at Windermere shot me a link to his new product, a branded broker blog product that looks great.

In 2008, there is no excuse for failing to create a site that tells your customer: "I will stop at nothing to deliver you a great experience. I'm invested in my company and I am an independent thinker."

My good sense tells me, people are attracted that.

- Davison

Comments

[Alexander Wilkas]

A great observation and 100% true. It is also amazing the number of agents who are "too cheep or lazy" to have there own domain name and instead use @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com or @aol.com for there business email. Godaddy only charges around $10 a year for a domain

[Michael Rahmn]

Good point about agents not co-branding with their broker.

I think that mentality is born of the (well-founded?) belief that their broker *is* their vendor. In an effort to prevent 'vendor lock-in', they perceive value in using a 3rd party platform (so one can switch brokers with the least pain).

That, and most broker provided solutions a) in fact, suck b) or, are simply the same vendor solutions re-skinned with a % kick-back to the broker as an incentive to sell it to the agent. Thinking agents see through just as they do the 'benefits' of using the brokers affiliate title company (what, better tasting donuts?). If you act like a "vendor", you'll be treated like one.

If brokers want to create a true partnership with their agents, they need to *act* like partners and bring value to the table (much more than they have). One clear way to do so is to leverage one of their key assets: the network effect of their group.

By using a multi-author platform, offices can create an environment where agents can participate in the company blog without having to become a full-time writer. This can address one of the great challenges of blogging - creating enough timely content to be relevant and gain critical mass. Grouping together reinforces the both the agent and the company brand. It does however require a "float all boats higher" mentality that is sorely lacking in many companies.

Not doing so leaves the door open for non-brokers to fill this same need and results in another lost opportunity for brokers to enhance the value of their brokerage.

On the pure mechanics side, the beauty of building a solution on top of open-source (WordpressMU in our case), is that there is no vendor lock-in. One-click on 'export' and your content (and equally important your site structure, meaning permalinks - important for maintaining PageRank/SEO) can be ported to another vendor or theme.

Thanks for the mention and the great article Marc. You are sparking a conversation I hope many brokers will participate in.

[Doug Humphrey]

I have to agree with Michael. The notion of using WrodPress as a CMS is by far a better solution than the templated systems. If an agent uses a "theme" with one broker and moves on, they can use a different "theme" depicting the new broker's logos, contact information, etc. The smart agent defines niches they want to "own" and should have several web sites each addressing the niches. One niche could even be their farm area displaying recent solds, activity and community info. All this could be linked back to the main broker site and cross link with feeds and info. I'm looking at several specific sites so when someone googles a keyword search, my site comes up on the first page. Lot of work but if you do FTHBs, golf course homes, lake front homes, etc. you should get better results than #1 expert in Pismo Beach. I also think google is more receptive to blogs than the templated sites.

[Diane Cohn]

At Chase International we've used Ning to create a social network that functions nicely as corporate blogging platform. It's so easy to use, most agents pick it up right away after a demo or two. If they have their own blog, they're welcome to blog on Chase Nation and link the rest of the story onto their own online asset to drive traffic there. it's a win-win situation.

[Marc Davison]

A great example Dian, of brokers and agents working together. I commented on this a while back found here if anyone wants to follow up. http://www.1000wattblog.com/2008/04/chase-internati.html

[Jim Cronin]

We have had incredible success with our Broker Blog 1.0 and 2.0 models.
Both are built on WordPress MU, but differ in philosophy.

1.0 is beast under one domain where the agents are collectively riding the SEO for success: see http://blog.ewm.com

2.0 is the conglomeration of agent blogsites, resyndicating back to the company site for greater exposure and unity. See: www.BuzzAboutRedding.com

Both versions have an internal private blog for the agents to blog amongst themselves, and for the office to hold court and make announcements and offer training (on blogging!).

We love the flexibility of WP MU and have really stretched it, yet still see so much opportunity for growth.

[Marc Davison]

This is actually another great example of what a newfangled broker site could be like along with Chase Nation and others like it.

These are not necessarily meant to replace sophisticated websites with deep back end integration, mapping and advanced search features as there are several very good companies building those products as well.

A site like EWM creates a partnership between agent and consumer. It taps into the voodoo of a group blog.

And it says something significant to the consumer. Its says, we're alive, we have something to say, we're vibrant, we're young, we're medium, we're seasoned and we get it.

Why are these things so much in the minority? It's time to move off the old an into the new.