Establishing the best online presence
Inman Community brief
By Inman News, Friday, September 19, 2008.Editor's note: The following is a member comment originally posted on the column, "Staying local on the Web."
"I can see the appeal of establishing an online presence through the above-mentioned methods. However, the concern I have with syndicating content through national sites is that you end up competing with yourself in the search engines. Perhaps this could be seen as a win-win situation, but I know my preference is for people to find me through my primary (and only!) blog. So, I've put the brakes on syndication for the time being to see if I can detect any negative results in the search engines. It's up to me to provide the type of content that attracts the attractive!" -- Lauren Mitchell
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Submitted by Brett Young | Real Estate Keyword Tool on September 19, 2008 - 1:53pm.
Lauren is right that there exists a dilemma. The fact of the matter is that the success of national sites is fueled by our listings. Without our listings, these websites don't exist.
When we provide our listings to the national websites we are, in essence, competing with our own websites. I see paid ads for Realtor.com and Move.com appearing in the margin of Google results next to mine.
On the flip side, in some cases where national sites are found more readily, syndicating listings means more exposure.
The bottom line is if each broker or agent aggressively marketed online, they probably would not need these other websites. However, there is still a large percentage of agents who do not care to learn how to market successfully online, so these national websites are not going away anytime soon.
Brett Young
Real Estate Keyword Tool
Submitted by Tim O'Keefe on September 19, 2008 - 3:07pm.
-On competing with yourself in the engines-
With so much syndication we have to look at the idea that we have multiple "fronts" that lead to our home base or branded site.
Back in the old days black haters would create doorway pages on their site that would lead people into their money pages.
The idea is valid, where it was wrong in the engines eyes was where it was cloaked or was complete jibberish.
But grabbing traffic from other sites is the way to use others sites SEO or traffic building to get you visitors to your site.
Where the confusion happens is that many want juice from these sites. Well these sites are smart and are often times blocking link juice to your site.
However, you can get their traffic. And even in some cases set yourself up for an implied endorsement.
Tim O'Keefe
http://www.houseblogger.com
http://www.spiderworkz.com
Submitted by Judy Peterson on September 19, 2008 - 4:29pm.
The discussion seems to have morphed from "content" to listings. I don't think they are synonymous. If a website doesn't have valuable content and access to listings, it won't matter whether you syndicate or you don't. Seems to me that the best interest of the Sellers have to be foremost and that means syndicating listings to the broadest marketplace.
Judy Peterson,
Realtor
Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors
610-889-5509
www.MainLinePaToday.com
Submitted by Adrian Sherwood on September 22, 2008 - 3:59am.
Sending listings to multiple sites is economical suicide. How does syndication help your listing standout when a qualified buyer is comparing your listing to another? It doesn't. This goes back to the question "why am I paying you thousands ?" and belies a broken logic that wreaks of failure. There are basically three phases of operation:
1. acquisition( you're hired)
2. performance( place listing in MLS /syndicate)
3. retention ( refer or hire me later)
A group of people got together and used one piece of information from phase 1 to command 30% of your commission; the CMA.The same thing is happening in phase 2; your work is benefitting someone else ( more content = more traffic = higher ad fees = more revenue). Forget phase 3 for now. Syndication equals placement not presence. A psychological connection has to take place in order for a presence to be established. So, the question is "What must my content do to establish an emotional connection"? If you're demanding to be paid like a pro then your actions must support that. How does posting the same picture to multiple sites( something an 11 old can do on myspace) equal professionalism?
Submitted by Peter Petridis on September 22, 2008 - 7:25pm.
I think the more you expose yourself to the search engines the more you can establish your web presence and maximize the exposure of your listings. If you update your content on a weekly basis you will see an increase in traffic to your website.
Pete Petridis
Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors
http://www.southjerseyshorehome.com
http://www.southjerseyshorehome.com/blog