Indiana Jones and the Google ranking
Letters From the Home Front
By Kris Berg, Wednesday, July 16, 2008.
I accidentally used a keyword yesterday. I'm pretty sure I didn't accidentally use a meta tag, because I don't know what that is. But if I did, I'm sorry. I promise to clean it up. If I am not careful, I might find myself Googleable, and everyone will want to list their home with me! Or so, I'm told, they should.
My local paper runs a weekly column on real estate written by a local broker. It is a different broker each week and is usually the office manager, president or owner of one of the big boys. This week the article was devoted to blogging and the author chose to go with the Indiana Jones theme. Now, I totally get the nexus between the tale of a death-defying adventure hero and the real estate blogger -- that's just too obvious. What I am having trouble with is the message. The "ark," it seems, is a page-one search result from Google. Moreover, this page-one ranking is "the greatest treasure an agent can give their clients."
No, the greatest treasure I can give my clients is superior experience and service.
Whoa, there, adventure girl! "If you are on the front page of Google, then aren't you maximizing exposure of your client's listings, thereby potentially maximizing their results?" you ask. I don't believe so. What I am doing is maximizing my own exposure. This is good, of course (good because I like keeping the lights turned on and because my mortgage lender enjoys receiving regular mail from me with checks inside), but let's be honest about who exactly is the recipient of this finest of fine treasures. It's me.
And we wonder why people tend to distrust Realtors.
"It's a great time to buy." This tired phrase has made us the laughing stock of countless water-cooler conversations over the years. In this market, where one could argue it is not a great time to buy in each and every circumstance, I still see these words trumpeted from agent marketing materials across our great land. Instead of trying to generate demand for the product we sell, shouldn't we be focusing on generating demand for our services in successfully delivering this product should you decide to buy? And, isn't this what we are doing when we blog?
Maybe one reason people tend to distrust real estate agents is because we aren't always scoring high on the honesty meter. Page one is not the greatest gift I can give my client; it is a gift I give myself and my business. Even then, I personally question the extent of this value for me. I question the value because I am a small-time independent contractor who will always -- if not today then eventually -- be outgunned online by bigger brokerages or third-party vendors and aggregators. I question the value because the core of my business is still and will always be within a 30-mile radius of my office and rarely dependent on successfully nailing a page-one search return for "San Diego home prices" (or, in my case, "rabbits in my backyard San Diego") delivered to a 20-year-old college student in Fort Bend. For me, I prefer hard clicks. These people are visiting me on purpose, but I digress and will save the rest of my misguided search-engine optimization discussion for another time.
The point is that my blog is not going to sell your home. My Web site might, but my blog is not. My blog, if successful, is going to sell me. It will show that I know the difference between a possessive and a plural, and I therefore stand a fighting chance of writing reasonably coherent and compelling ad copy for your home. It will demonstrate I know a little bit about this business, and I just might be qualified to represent you in a purchase or sale. It will suggest that I have done this real estate thing a few times, and I might possess the experience to navigate a challenging escrow and protect your interests during a contentious transaction. It will imply a level of commitment and time investment in the business, suggesting that real estate just might be both my job and my "other job" as well, and I am not serving cocktails or lattes on my days off.
So, let's say a buyer finds me on page one, stumbles onto my blog and even sees your home featured. So what? What they really stumbled across is me. I liken this to the open-house argument. Absent the open-door policy on a particular Sunday, the real, motivated, checkbook-in-hand buyer would have seen the home eventually. The buyer would have seen it with an agent or found it online or noticed the yard sign in your gazanias while trolling this, their neighborhood of choice. The open house, then, tends to mainly showcase the agent. A blog is no different.
Your buyer may find your listing on my little ol' blog, but the reality is that if they were looking they would have still found it, and probably found it first, on one of the dozens of larger online sites where your listings are placed or fed by me and my broker. Or the buyer would have found it through an agent. I could argue that first-page placement will position me as the neighborhood expert and go-to guy for your keywords and therefore your home, but that's a benefit to me, not you. If another agent controls the buyer, that's just a matter of agency. What is important to you is that I have exposed your home as broadly and professionally as I possibly can. And I have. Even if my blog is safely tucked away on page four.
There is value to you, the consumer, in my blog. Hopefully it informs, educates and even entertains. But, my blog will not sell your home. My blog, if done right, will sell you on me and on the fact that I can sell your home. That's the truth.
Kris Berg is a real estate broker associate for Prudential California Realty in San Diego. She also writes a consumer-focused real estate blog, The San Diego Home Blog.
Berg will speak at Real Estate Connect in San Francisco, July 23-25, 2008. Register today.
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Submitted by Hanh Brown on July 16, 2008 - 4:13am.
Hanh Dang Brown
http://www.investorsloungeonline.com/
Well said! Visited your San Diego Home Blog and enjoy reading that as well!
Best of luck
Submitted by John Rowles on July 16, 2008 - 5:12am.
You are right, "San Diego home prices" is not the kind of keyword you should be pursuing, despite what it says in all the spam email the SEO guys send you.
You are better served optimizing for Long Tail keywords that are specific to the attributes of your actual listings. If no one has bored you to death with an explanation of how that works, I'm happy to be the first and take a chance on being the next blogger you skewer for advancing an inept theory...
John Rowles
Managing Director
MainRhode LLC - Google-powered IDX Search
jrowles@mainrhode.com
Submitted by chris frerecks on July 16, 2008 - 6:06am.
Well put Kris. Findability is important [long & short tail], but it only goes so far with empowered consumers. Blogs offer a broader opportunity to demonstrate your enthusiasm, knowledge and trustworthiness :-)
chris frerecks
realestate blogsites/ kinetic knowledge
chris@realestateblogsites.com
Submitted by Rob Aubrey on July 16, 2008 - 6:23am.
I have found that the seller really only want to know two things from an agent and the rest are sub-questions of those two.
1. How much am I getting?
2. Can you get it?
What is your marketing...? Is a sub?? of #2
How much do you charge? Is a sub?? of #1
Submitted by Lenn Harley on July 16, 2008 - 6:29am.
It's all about synergy. Just keep working it and an agent will show up on page one of Google SERP.
I agree. I don't believe that a buyer will focus on info about one single house from a Google search. However, they will focus on an agent's web site that has a "search listings" or similar feature.
Lenn Harley
Broker
Homefinders.com
http://www.homefinders.com
Submitted by Mike Simonsen on July 16, 2008 - 7:42am.
Those Berg-ian headlines snare me every time. And, I'd argue, that a human-compelling headline will beat a keyword-optimized headline every time.
Submitted by Suzanne Gantner on July 16, 2008 - 9:05am.
You are right on many points, I think blogging helps people get to know you prior to them coming to an area or prior to them buying or selling a home. Blogging is a great way to market yourself and an area in which you specialize.
I would like to believe that my homes would sell from a blog. I certainly know that after I blog about a property the Virual Tours counts go up so ultimately it may help some.
Submitted by Mary Bargteil on July 16, 2008 - 9:50am.
What do any of us do when we want to check someone out? As the consumer, I meet with two or three listing agents before I decide who will sell my house, listen to their listing presentations, gete references from them. And before their car is out of the driveway, I will have "googled" them. So your blog becomes the extra weight on the scale, tipping my decision to go with you or not.
Kris, your blog is one of the ones I send our agents to review before they set up their own. Well done.
Mary Bargteil
Director of Communications
Champion Realty
Submitted by Jay Thompson on July 16, 2008 - 1:59pm.
". . . I'd argue, that a human-compelling headline will beat a keyword-optimized headline every time."
A-freaking men Mike!!
Kris - another stellar column. "Blogging" continues to be a big buzz word, with people jumping on (and off) the blog-wagon daily.
The simple truth is, it is marketing. Marketing for YOU.
Search engine results are nice, traffic is nice. Both tend to stroke the ego. But they are not (despite what MANY say and feel) the ultimate *property* marketing tool. Blogs are, in my humble opinion, the ultimate *agent* marketing tool. They are, by far, the single most powerful way to display your expertise, and your personality -- the two main factors in why someone selects and agent to help them buy or sell a home.
Jay Thompson
Broker / Owner
Thompson's Realty
Blog: www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
.
Submitted by Kris Berg on July 16, 2008 - 5:02pm.
Thanks everyone for the comments. As a point of clarification, I am not questioning the value of SEO, just the value of SEO to our clients versus to ourselves. If we are to embrace transparency and deliver honesty, which is really what our clients want, then it seems more than a little ludicrous to suggest that my blogging is anything but personal marketing. The on-line consumer may find my blog, and may even return because they find value or amusement, but they will do the serious shopping elsewhere. My goal as an agent, therefore, is to inspire them to want to work with me when the time comes.
Jay - Nice icing on the comments cake. Well said.
See you all in San Francisco!
Kris Berg
www.SanDiegoHomeBlog.com
Submitted by GA-agent.com on July 16, 2008 - 6:24pm.
Great post Kris...I would only hope to have you as my agent!
James Coogan
Georgia Real Estate Directory
404.660.6153
Submitted by AJ Johnson on July 16, 2008 - 10:52pm.
You are right on. "Tenacity is not learned. You are born with it".My opinion.A great quality.More success will come your way:)
AJ Johnson
Sr. Loan Officer
Suburban Mortgage, Inc.
Phoenix, Arizona
Submitted by Missy Caulk on July 18, 2008 - 4:43am.
The face to face meeting is where it all happens. But, how they get to me is critical to get that face to face meeting. Some say they see me all over the place, and that gives confidence to them that they are interviewing the right agent. It all works together. Taking a guy out on Sunday, from CA who read my blog on a local community, he throught I would be the expert from that one piece alone.
Missy Caulk
Ann Arbor, MI
Missy@MissyCaulk.com
www.AnnArborRealEstateTalk.com
www.SearchAnnArborHouses.com
Submitted by Steve Simon on July 18, 2008 - 4:43am.
I think I enjoyed reading the post mostly for the level of honesty that was obviously inherit in it.
I lived my life doing what I thought was the right thing for clients, students, and family for over 5o years.
The reward for self comes along the way if you're lucky.
The reward is not only absent sometimes, but in its place is punishment for doing the right thing...
That is how life works, and you must remeber it can always be worse. It usually is not as good as you think it will be, and it isn't usally as bad as you think it will be; but I digress!
Blogging and the like are self-promotion, period. To Blog is to place yourself in front of people for the purpose of either entertaining them for traffic, or informing them for traffic or some similar mutation of those thoughts. That is self-promotion, a particular type of marketing. It may as a byproduct slightly help some key client, but its main thrust is geared much more towards helping the Blogger.
Honesty is the right thing to strive for. You can Blog, and or sing & dance, but at least be honest as to why!
I enjoyed the post...
If the answer to a complex problem is very simple, it is usually incomplete...
Steve Simon is the lead instructor at the Steve Simon School of Real Estate www.stevesimon.us
Submitted by Darren Capps on July 19, 2008 - 2:39pm.
you sold me on you, which is nice...
www.bannedinhollywood.com