Comments on: Is Your Website Working Against Your Real Estate Career?

By: Jim Cronin

Jim Cronin — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:32:53 +0000

In case people haven’t seen Uncle Jack’s Interview – It’s a great read:
http://realestatetomato.typepad.com/the_real_estate_tomato/2008/01/how-has-blogg-1.html

By: Uncle Jack (Jack LeVine)

Uncle Jack (Jack LeVine) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:33:22 +0000

I get feedback. I get at least one email a day just to thank me for what I’m doing. I can’t go anywhere in my market area without having total strangers tell me they’ve read me, and will use me “someday”. I’m getting referrals from TOTAL Strangers who read me, and tell someone at work to read me. They call and say someone sent me to your site, and I have no clue who it is that sent them.
EVERY one of my last 15 new listings were “come list my house” calls. EVERY other thing I do that’s not on the internet is only geared at driving traffic to the blog. I have 2 listing in escrow that I’m on both sides of. They didn’t even want to see any listings other than mine.
I spend about 2 hours total a day “doing the blog” .. that’s what JJ calls it. “Did you do your blog yet?” I aim for and have with rare exceptions done 3 to 4 posts a day for a year now. I rarely ever write long posts. EVERY one of my last 15 new listings were “come list my house” calls.
And Jim and the Tomatos taught me so much, and fixed or straightened out or re-educated me about what I had been doing wrong.
March 5 will be the one year anniversary of http://www.veryvintagevegas.com Without having started to blog then, I think I’d be managing a Burger King about now.

By: Faina Sechzer

Faina Sechzer — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:46:27 +0000

Jim, great advice and excellent response to the questions raised. I look at my experience as a blog/website consumer. I respond to value provided, not hype and declarations of greatness. I respond to those who seem to be interested in me as a reader and who want to build a relationship. Your blog is a great example of value – not just a teaser for something the reader has “pay” to get.

By: Jim Cronin

Jim Cronin — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:46:24 +0000

Tom-
Here’s that $50 I promised for the glowing testimony. LOL
And to think, you aren’t even a client.
Love the comment so much, I’ll leave the shameless self promo in there.

By: Tom Townsend

Tom Townsend — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:43:11 +0000

Jim,
Very good article. You and I have had several long discussions RE: Site Design, and if I was not spending all my money on ramping up my own Video Business, I would hire you in an instant to redesign my wifes site. That said, based on the discussions we have had, our site is doing well. We adhere to many of the items you mention in the post, and after review will have to consider giving up on the CMA Request. Can we do better with a custom design…..I believe so, and I look forward to a few months down the road when I can call you for the project
For Joseph Bridges comment about URL’s and Names. When you write your posts and learn how to use the proper keywords etc…the Realtor name will become synonymous with the new site URL.
Example. My wifes Blog is the GreaterTampaBayRealEstate -Blog-
However, if you google her name: Theresa Townsend, you will see that she has top ranking from many sources ALL RELATED TO THE BLOG SITE and or referred directly to the BLOG SITE Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate. This would probably be a good one for Joe too as our site has not been up long,but gets pretty good page rank.
Learning how to create content that gets noticed by the search engines, is one of Jim’s core strengths.
Since my main business is Video Production in the Web 2.0 world, I have spent a considerable amount of time researching BLOGGING and SEO strategies for own business. My core competency is development, creation and dissemination of Video Content to further promote sites. But you need to learn to crawl before you can walk and that is what Jim teaches.
If you want to empower your business and increase your leads I strongly recommend Jim and his product. Then when you are ready to add a video component come visit me over at the Virtual Interactive Systems site: http://www.visin.com

By: Jaco Viljoen

Jaco Viljoen — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:24:12 +0000

Great post.
I wish there were more people like yourself.
I am an estate agent making the transition from web to blog.
Its a little frustrating cause we don’t really get feedback.
Keep up the good work.

By: Jim Cronin

Jim Cronin — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:02:15 +0000

Fair enough… the domain name of your name should be purchased… yes. But the name of your site and how it is branded being BradNix.com? That’s leaning on a logo to me. Forward it to your more pragmatic domain, and you get the best of both worlds. So far as Google goes with your name, you should come up just fine if you post regularly under your real, full name.

By: Brad Nix Commercial Real Estate

Brad Nix Commercial Real Estate — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:44:31 +0000

Jim:
You know I am a huge believer of many of your teachings. This is a great list of do’s and dont’s. But does the URL really matter? I mean most agents are only recognizable by their name to the public. The public is much more likely to Google “Brad Nix” than any of my other URLs for blogs and websites. Why does it really matter if your URL is bradnix.com?
As agents, our names are on signs, business cards and every ad we run. Most answer the phone announcing their name. Why not continue that brand to the URL? I agree the content better be relevant and your Wired tips must apply to the site itself. And definitely tired of the cheesy name logos, but a name as a URL still has value (in my opinion).

By: Joseph Bridges

Joseph Bridges — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:08:55 +0000

Jim,
I think agents really do miss the boat on their websites. In a review of agents business cards(that my brother and I sampled from an event) we found that well over 90% of the agents had their name as their web address as you said. Agents need to be reminded constantly that it is not about them (as you said) it is about the information they provide and it must be relevant information not static information.
In response to the post by Joe Brooks. I would say that your 1.0 website could do much better. My brother and I closed over 44 transactions last year between the two of us without our teams production and we did over 80% of those from the Internet. My brother and I have been in the business 5 years and have closed well over 250 transactions and over 80% are from the Internet. I don’t believe that Jim is saying abandon what you are doing but that agents need to look into staying at the forefront or they will be left behind. You can do this with blog sites or a website that you keep updated frequently. Blogsites do make it easier to update for the agent which is why they are good for agents.

By: Jim Cronin

Jim Cronin — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:20:41 +0000

Joe – Here’s the comment response I promised:
My responses a preceded with #Tomato# and you comments and questions with #Joe#.
#JOE# I can appreciate a lot of what you have said but to be honest with you I have looked at a lot of real estate blogs and this is what I have observed:
#JOE# I see a lot of work being done by a lot of agents who have written a lot of articles that have gotten 0 comments.
#Tomato# Comments are no measure of a blog’s success. They just mean that you have found an audience that likes to contribute. This is not an indication of your site’s effectiveness. Comments feel good, sure, and they are encouraging that someone is reading, because they took the time to be heard, but comments don’t make offers. That said, I have poked around our client list, and see that our graduates (those whom have taken the 13 hours of training) are in fact reaching an audience that likes to contribute. But if it is comments you are looking for, maybe a few hours a day around real estate’s largest water cooler (ActiveRain.com) is the remedy.
#JOE# I have seen a lot of blog home pages with 0 Google PR.
#Tomato# Google PR does not happen progressively; it happens suddenly, when Google decides to the make the updates. PR is mostly generated by inbound link weight. Newer bloggers (within 6 months in most cases) are not going to have a PR. We were a PR0 here at the Tomato for at least 4 months, maybe longer. Then a PR3 suddenly. And now after 1.5 years of blogging, pushing a PR6.
Again, a PageRank does not bring in offers.
#JOE# I have read the titles of a lot of blogs and Googled those keywords and have not seen those blogs appear anywhere in the first 10 organic search results.
#Tomato# Specific examples would help for sure. But I can tell you that I just decided to test your concern on one of our newer graduates: Sandi Bauman from ChicoHomeSearch.net – and searched: New FHA Limits. These are words from the title of the article she just wrote TODAY.
#Tomato# The results I got: She’s #2. See for yourself: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=New+FHA+Limits
I don’t know who’s blogs you are checking, but the first test I ran on our clients worked out pretty well.
#JOE# I have seen blogs with the same search features and featured listings as I find on “canned” websites, just in a different place on the page.
So…. I am not really sold on dropping all other marketing practices to spend all of my time and budget on a custom real estate blog.
#Tomato# Custom sites incorporate the standard tools you find on canned sites because they are the standard. IDX is one of those 3rd party standards, for example. A custom site is not going to improve on this 3rd party tool. What our clients receive from us is a custom designed, from the ground up, full featured real estate blogsite. We design it from scratch, to your exact specifications, and power it using the best-in-the-business CMS blog engine. Just ask the NYT or the WSJ. They are using the same stuff we do. But, we’ve tailored it specifically for our real estate clients.
#JOE# I will grant you that most offline marketing practices are dead, but there are still a few practices that I think are useful and do incorporate those into our marketing mix.
But I get the feeling that you are trying to get us to believe that a real estate blog (particularly hosted by your company) is some kind of silver bullet.
#Tomato# Tiger Woods could beat me at golf with a blunted broom handle. Ultimately it’s not the tool that has you winning clients, it’s your understanding of how to communicate that you are the solution to their needs. That said, just as Woods has his woods and irons custom made to make every contact sweet and true, we custom design your blogsite to have each of your articles shine beyond the words. From there, we train you to be a smarter blogger and a confident blogger.
#JOE# “Your method is great and everyone elses is not” is the feeling I am getting from the post that you just wrote.
#Tomato# There are a ton of great services out there for agents to embrace. The point of this article was to get them looking for the right tools and recognizing what is no longer going to be working for them. I know that what we deliver works; Tomato bloggers tell me all the time. They are very excited about what we have helped them accomplish and they are more jazzed about their career than ever, all during what for their peers has been defined as a slump.
#Tomato# This gives me the confidence to continue to post with the tone with which I do. This is not snake-oil. But I’m also the first to tell you, that it is not a silver bullet either – why? Because successful blogging takes a lot of work. A lot of work. But for those that apply themselves with focus, clear goals and that hard work… we get them where they want to be faster – and in style.
#JOE# I am no blogging guru. I know a bit about it, but not a whole lot. I certainly don’t want to slam something just because I don’t understand it or can not see the bottom line.
#JOE# So….
#JOE# Can you point me to some case studies on your blog that indicate to me:
#JOE# 1. How long the client has been using the blog as a real estate marketing tool.
#Tomato# All of our clients have Archives that illustrate how long they have been blogging.
#JOE# 2. How many closed transactions can be directly related to the blogging activities.
#Tomato# I don’t track this. But I know you can call or email ANY of our graduates and ask them. They are happy to talk with you about it. We have nothing to hide. And if you get some juicy testimonials, please let me know so I can add them to the long list.
#JOE# 3. How much time that person spent working on the blog to generate the lead that led to a converted closed transaction.
This is impossible to answer.
#Tomato# Blogging is a marathon. Not a sprint. Approaching it as the latter will have you failing, for sure. The thing that non-bloggers don’t recognize is the quality of leads that are generated through good blogging. The leads I hear about (and it is a small fraction of what is being generated) are already in a relationship with the blogger. This is not the case when you are just culling leads with lead generation forms on a brochure style site. The leads come in as clients, if you know what I mean. They are ready to work with you. They are already sold because they know you and trust you from your blogging efforts. These leads can take days or several months to incubate. I’d be a fool to make any other claim.
#JOE# If I could see some hard data like that it might help me determine about what roi I could expect to see and how fast my cash would be returned to me.
#Tomato# Blogging is not a hard data tool. It is a relationship tool. That’s like asking how long it is going to take to “get lucky” *wink* if I get some new, fancy clothes and take an etiquette class. Blogging is the tool to get you in front of potential clients and their questions. It is the tool to help you answer their concerns and challenges, in turn building trust and relationships… which lead to business.
#Tomato# Blogging is not the silver bullet. But when it is done well, it can positively change your life, career and income. I don’t know that any Pay-per-click campaigns can still make such claims.
#JOE# And by the way, my wife and I work together and the only thing I blog is a weekly market update for five cities. We have a semi-custom website that I toy with and it uses my wife’s name for the url, the home page has a Google PR of 2. We have been in the real estate business for going on 10 years and we closed 35 transactions in 2007, about 1/3 of those deals came from our antiquated 1.0 website. We have closed over 400 transactions since starting in the business with about 1/3 of that business coming from internet leads.
#Tomato# Congratulations. Sounds like things have been pretty good for you and your wife… I also glad to hear that the site is pulling business for you. You can certainly take the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, and not got the blogsite route…but I prefer to look at your situation in a different light.
#Tomato# If you are having such results from the current state of your online presence, imagine just how effective things would become once you started pumping out 100’s of pages of relevant, juicy content that was geared to be of service to your audience allowing you to build relationships with them.
#Tomato# The internet has been changing to a Content Driven environment, and the audience that uses this internet is looking for answers and and relevant resource. What has been working for you, in my opinion, will continue to work for you, but ultimately less. Your audience will need to see what you have done for them (lately), before they are going to be willing to reveal to you their needs.
#JOE# Please stack me up against some of your clients and tell me specifically how many of them did better than we did in 2007 and let me know exactly how much of their business could be attributed to their blogging efforts.
#Tomato# This is going to have to be an effort you make, and a judgment call you decide. We have clients that sell $20-30 million a year and others that got their license 6 months ago. I am concerned that they all understand how to embrace the blog as an effective (and handsome) marketing tool. From the feedback I have received, and the comparative browsing I do, I am confident that we are the best in the business.
#JOE# If I see a solid pattern then I will be knocking on your door!
#Tomato# I look forward to hearing from you.