It’s 2010.
Real estate is an odyssey.
It’s time you took your Web users for the ride of lifetime.
How it was, still is
In the old days, you picked a real estate Website off a vendor’s shelf. Chose a color palette. A layout. Slapped on a logo. Got the IDX paperwork signed. Switched the DNS and you were good to go.
These boilerplate solutions were never optimal. What they told the world is how much you don’t understand the Internet, how little you care about your image, how you can’t effectively market yourself, let alone some stranger’s home. They screamed cheap. Unprofessional. Directionless. All the things people too often associate with real estate.
These products placed your value in the back seat. Or worse, buried it in the trunk under a dirty spare.
You could have done better then. You can – and must – do much better now.
Circumstances dictate a completely different Web strategy today. One that substantiates you as a local expert, a fabulous merchandiser of property, an articulate representative of your community.
Given the content users now search for, these fossilized Websites, replete with SEO smegma on the home page and ubiquitous “tips” stuffed inside like sausage fat, offer the user little by way of substantial value. What good is being seen at the top of the engine when your site is viewed as the bottom in value?
Video, images, and user generated content
Take this $50 shoe. Its detail page with images, video, fluid description and user generated reviews provided my 13-year old with enough decision support to narrow his choices down quickly – then order. Had the content not been there, he’d go elsewhere to find it.
The cynic says “shoes are different than real estate.” I agree. Shoes sell for $50.00. Homes for 10,000 times more. At the very least, homes ought to be merchandised the same. If not 10,000 times better.
As marketers continue to create better online consumer experiences, the pressure is on for real estate to do the same.
Opportunity screams
Go to Flickr. Search your city. How many images here are yours? If the answer isn’t more than anyone else… change that. Who better than you to document every street, neighborhood, hiking, jogging and biking trail, sunset and sunrise vantage point, vista, mesa, valley and alley in the area? And once you upload images to your account, your developer will have what they need to pull those images into your Website via Flickr’s API.
With only a handful in real estate doing this, opportunity screams.
Go to YouTube. Repeat the process. Granted, shooting, editing and uploading video requires a different skill set, so scour the WellcomeMat directory, locate local videographers and, while there, create your own branded video repository and integrate this content into your website.
With only a handful in real estate doing this, opportunity screams.
Go to this simple property site. Scroll down to the comments box. Even something this simple provides users a way to interact and the listing agent something special to present the seller beyond an analytics graph.
With only a handful in real estate doing this, opportunity screams.
DYI
Old prevails in real estate. Mediocrity, its strange bedfellow. The bar, set low so all can reach.
Throughout real estate, static sites filled with yesterday’s news are operated by those who thrive on the can’t, won’t and never will. They’re the lifeblood of the legacy Website vendor.
But wildflowers of gorgeous new sites are popping up here and there. Created by individuals doing it themselves. Their brokerages have become media companies, broadcasting the hits local users want to hear, watch and read.
Real estate is face to face.
Mine staring at yours by virtue of your great content.
It’s where interaction begins today.
Local, Mobile, Social and the future of real estate
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I’ve been in the middle of overhauling my website for a long time. Too long. Things are finally starting to come together but still not working fast enough.
Since I went independent and now work 100% from my home office my realization is that my site IS my office. I need to make it a place that people want to come to, stay awhile, and come back to.
My goal, eventually, is to make it a community hub … Where folks can come to get info on events around the city, market info, local news, etc. Like I said … I’ve got a long way to go.
I decided not to have an IDX but went with RealBird so people can still do a property search. If they want up-to-date info they will need to register. Even with the limited use I’ve implemented so far, it’s been pulling in some leads. I’ve got a neat overhaul in the works and I look forward to taking it live sometime this week.
I agree with you on the concept with Flickr, but I believe using your photos for commercial purposes is against their TOS. I plan on doing what you’ve said, but hosting the images on my server. It will be part of my community pages.
I started photo blogging through posterous and having them fed back to my site. I’m thinking that if I host the photos locally it will be better for my SEO so I’m working on a solution to eliminate posterous.
So much work, so little time.
James
You can acquire the rights to use your own photos. Many of our clients have already successfully done this.
Okay, but my question is this … is it not better to self-host your content in one location and have links back to your own hub rather than spread your content across multiple sites?
Hoping this fuels some redesigns, and new sites! Pouring effort into customer experience can yield an impressive ROI. Choosing a market niche can help differentiate an agent in any market, and actually make maintaining a truly custom site easier.
Was that $50 pair of shoes for your teen on a site where one may also find $400 high heels? And if so, do the featured item pages look the same? Is service or price a differentiator in their market?
@James
Do both. Populate the major socials sites with content as these site are heavily utilized. Use their API’s to bring the content placed there back to your company website. Finally, you can also use platforms such at Tumblr or Flavors to create niche site featuring a best of your content based on the themes you create for these site (e.g neighborhood niche site, condo site, etc., with images, video, blogs, etc.
@Lee, Yes. Zappos features both $50 shoes and $400 shoes. Zappos appears to be in the process of building every page, every shoe, every product with images, video, description, reviews, etc. These things are not segmented by price. These things are provided to enhance the users experience. To them a user who buys a $50 shoe is equally as important and deserves the same content as the user who buys the $400 shoes. In the end, all that effort creates sales.
Realtors blog all day, just not with their computers.
Probably the most often recommended social network advice given, and ignored, is to start a personal blog. Despite consuming copious amounts of media, Realtors still shy away from this idea; too foreign, too much work, no promises for reward”
I’m always impressed with the knowledge many of the realtors I speak with have to offer and what great conversationalists they are. These are the characteristics of a great blogger, especially when the topics are of interest to potential clients. In addition, one of the greatest benefits of blogging is that it forces you to do your homework. It forces you to organize your thoughts on any particular topic far before you have to talk about it or take action.
Potential clients want to have an authentic experience with you before they call.
Put yourself out there; share information and your experiences. The realtors that figure this out will develop a community or at minimum have a great place to send potential clients, especially if you’ve blogged about a topic of interest to them.
The sites they make for Realtors are among the ugliest on the internet. I finally got rid of mine last year. it got almost no traffic. My blog gets a ton of traffic but I decided that Realtors are just supposed to have web sites so I made one that is . . well kind of weird on WordPress. It gets about the same amount of traffic as the site that i was paying $50 a month for and it is costing me about $20 a year.
My flickr account may actually have the most photos of St. Paul.
I think my blog has about 3K photos and I started a photo blog just to have a place for the excess. People love to look at pictures.
[...] Online real estate opportunity screams – are you listening? – Why is Marc comparing a house to a pair of sneakers? Read it and find out, then chances are [...]
Right On.
But for reference purposes, yes that shoe cost $50, but they sell 100,000 of them.
I have seen things I really like, the Movoto property details page. It includes a nice mashup of data from different places, like school data, area reviews, maps, photos. Trying to replicate that on my WordPress site has been challenging. There are really only two; Local Market Explorer the Phoenix Real-Estate plug in.
If you know of some good content providers for WordPress I’d sure like to know about them.
@ Barrett
“But for reference purposes, yes that shoe cost $50, but they sell 100,000 of them.”
Which equates to the sale price of one average lux home in California of which few ever get merchandised quite like a sneaker.
In fact, I’ve seen plenty of products merchandised on eBay better than homes are by “sales” professionals.
You know, this suggests a distinction worthy of discussion = the difference between a “sales” professional in real estate and one who is a master at merchandising their wares or inventory.
It seems there is a definite desire among brokers and agents to defend their “sales” moniker but I wonder out loud – what is it that you are really selling and what are you doing really to make that sale? If you aren’t merchandizing your services and inventory that what you are doing and is it all just talk?
I would argue that Teresa for example doesn’t sell things. She merchandises and that includes herself as well through her written word and her photography. In a sense those things sell for her.
This is the distinction I believe is worthy of conversation. Or better yet, of doing. Creating video. Snapping thousands of images, blogging, building niche sites and migrating these content assets to Tumblr, Google Profile, Flavors, etc., is, IMO, way more far reaching, way cheaper in the long run, far better for capturing interest and great for business development and branding.
And honestly, Zappos didn’t come out of the gate selling 100,000 shoes. They got there by merchandising wisely from the start.
@Teresa,
Your site is so nice!! I have that Agent Press site on WordPress. It gets the job done, but more visit my blog. You have motivated me to upload my TONS of Houston pics to Flickr.
Thanks!
Agree with Teresa. Am going to work my blogsite to do both RE and RE blog. Have a RE School and intend to do same thing. Will keep the domain name but will be dropping the web service.
Have you looked at Jay Thompson’s blogsite? http://PhxREGuy.com It is the “today” RE site.
Real estate folks: Feel free to post your Blog, Tumbler, Posterous, Flavors, URL’s to share with others for inspiration.
Vendors: Please restrain from pitching products.
SedonaKathy – thanks for your kind comments on my blogsite. That thing represents at least a couple of thousand of hours writing content, taking photos, etc etc. Yes, it’s a “blog” but the vast majority of clients that visit it don’t know (or more importantly care) whether it’s technically a blog, web site, or whatever.
The content gets it found in Google, and gets people to visit. It’s the resonably good IDX solution that generates most (but not all) of the contacts from potential buyers and sellers.
And while there is no question that neighborhood info is something people are looking for, a remarkable number of our clients have told me that they appreciate both the personal articles and real estate industry articles I write at least as much, if not more than the local stuff.
While it’s targeted more towards MLSs, Kevin McQueen wrote a good paper on key things to include in a real esate site:
http://www.kevinmcqueen.com/pdfs/MLS_Consumer_Websites_Focus_Forward.pdf
Item 3 of is particular interest, and many of those features can be offered even by small, independent websites.
Nice kick in the butt!
Great call to action. I am going to be exploring your suggestions.
To share:
Web: http://www.averyhess.com
Blog: http://www.averyhessblog.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AveryHess
Twitter: @Avery_Hess
[...] not convinced? Check out this great article on the 1000Watt Consulting blog, Online real estate opportunity screams–are you… Share [...]
This is a great article. I’ve been trying to do this with my Indianapolis News, Events and Information Blog and my Indianapolis Photos and Pictures blog. I’ve been working on this for about a year and have $100,000 into it. The blogs are just now starting to position for minor keyword terms. Hopefully, I’ll get more inbound links to the content as time goes by.
I never thought about putting the photos on Flicker. Would my company benefit from doing this? If so, how?
Anyone have a suggestion?
[...] Online real estate opportunity screams – are you listening? by Marc Davison 1000Watt Consulting [...]
Okay, I’ve got the framework *mostly* complete. Now adding the static pages (search, etc). I’ve got a couple of pages live if anyone cares to take a look and let me know if I’m headed in the right direction.
http://www.theJEMgroup.com
James:
A few quick thoughts (minutes before I pack and leave for a week)
In the header, the cursive signature is hard to read. Also, consider including your SM icons with links
NAVIGATION BAR
Remove punctuation marks (question, exclamation)
Rename Nav items and use more conventional nomenclature. For example: What is SHOP? If BUYING points to getting a Loan – then change the nav button to APPLY FOR LOAN. Same with SELLING.
Change that to VALUE YOUR HOME.
Place COMMUNITY INFO in the nav bar. Seems a waste placing it only at the bottom of the site.
PHOTO BLOG
This doesn’t need to be in the Navigation Bar. Make that a feature box on the site
ABOUT
Neither item in this tab makes sense. Place privacy policy on the bottom of the site using a text link and make CONTACT it’s own Navigation item. About should point to a page about your company
This is subjective but I get confused at the 2 columns of additional blog posts. I prefer a simple descending vertical arrangement similar to how we do it on 1000watt.
SEARCH THIS SITE
Move it way up. Top of the right rail.
PROPERTY SEARCH :
There doesn’t appear to be one. Since you are in California and in REO, considering using Foreclosure Radars FLX search. http://www.foreclosureradar.com
WELCOME TEXT
There isn’t any but there should be one so visitors to the website understand that this is more than just a blog. Something simple that says who you are, what you do such as: JEM GROUP is a Palmdale, Ca based real estate company specializing in REO’s. We’re boutique. We’re specialized. We’re fun to work with. Then add a LEARN MORE button that links to a page with more info
RECENT PHOTOS
Use the word press widget in tandem with Flickr API to show the photos. That will inspire more click throughs.
Ok, gotta run traveling all week this week. Hope this helps.
Marc
[...] you need more perspective for the online world, read this blog entitled “Online Real Estate Opportunity Screams — Are You Listening?” also by 1000 Watt. If you don’t have a Facebook plan, maybe it is time to start thinking that [...]
Marc: Thanks for your input. Actually, some of your points are already on my list. The site is far from done, so I’ll revisit your suggestions as I work.
[...] 1000Watt Consulting’s Marc Davison summed up the argument for agents using Flickr in a recent blog post: [...]
Marc
Great info and insight. I really enjoy coming to your BLOG. I always leave with something valuable–thanks!
Team rehava
If you are really running your real estate practice like a business then your websites are a constant work in progress. Blog, blog, blog, update and add new content constantly, add more and more link backs, sigh…it never ends. Nevertheless it is all worth it in the end. The internet levels the playing field of all Realtors. You can compete head on with people who have been in the business for years.
[...] search tools. Of course, accomplishing all of this means a better consumer experience, which is the future of real estate portal success. So, I spent a few minutes comparing the consumer experience on the beta site to the current [...]