The fallacy of “going back to the basics” in real estate

I do miss the good ‘ol days of spending most of the day ripping out the old listings and putting the new ones into the 5 x 7 – 3 ring binder.

Take me home Saul! .>)

The postcard will last for two seconds before the prospect throws away. A well written article or blog on your website can continue bringing you business for the remainder of your career.

You hit the nail on the head with this article!

Ines – I actually send those same expired letters and have gotten listings from them. I guess that goes back to last week’s debate of if something works for ya …

The key is prospecting, me thinks, and this is as viable a method of doing it as anything else. And far less intrusive.

Are you saying that you get 100 unique visitors to your blog per day? From what I can tell, your blog doesn’t show up in the search engines. Where does that traffic come from? Also, are you talking about 100 unique consumers or just 100 readers, which could include your friends and blogging buddies?

His blog shows up #40 in Google for “Phoenix Real Estate” and not at all for “Arizona Homes.” Both of those keyword strings are in his page title. If his home page isn’t showing up for the keywords in his title with thousands of links, it begs the question of where he is showing up. Also, as far as I know, it doesn’t matter how many indexed pages a site has. Pages that have 20 pages rank well alongside sites that have hundreds or even thousands of indexed pages. More pages do, however, provide more landing pages. I would also contend that getting 13,800 backlinks requires a TREMENDOUS amount of work, not to mention the work of blogging itself. These web 2.0 strategies are not easy, and they do indeed take time away from traditional strategies. In fact, I would contend that it would be difficult to pursue traditional strategies such as building referral partner relationships and put the time into blogging that Jonathan has put in. There are also only 10 top 10 spots in Google for any search term. If you’re not on page one, you don’t exist. If there is a future wrinkle in the Google algorithm, a particular site or blog that used to rank well suddenly might not rank at all. Putting all of your eggs in the web 2.0 basket is risky. However, traditional strategies such as building referral partner relationships or advertising cannot be taken away in one fell swoop. You may lose one referral partner or a direct mail piece might no longer provide the response that it used to, but it’s not an all or nothing thing like the Internet. Looking into my crystal ball, I see a top blogger crying because he dropped out of the Google rankings. In my crystal ball, he wishes that he hadn’t thrown out the concept of getting back to the basics. I’m all for the power of the web, but people need to realize that there is risk in spending all one’s time bowing to the Google gods. Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you make your living based on Google rankings, those can be taken from you so fast that you can’t even believe it.

I’ll leave it to Jonathan to speak for himself, he is more than capable in that regard.

But speaking as someone whose blog has ranked #4 in Google (currently #11 it bounces around) for “Phoenix Real Estate”, I can tell you that particular search term is somewhat over rated. Yes, I get traffic from it, but searchers using that term often have a very vague understanding of what they are looking for.

Far more powerful are “Long Tail” search terms. If someone Googles “Val Vista Lakes Realtor”, they tend to be either: 1) a Val Vista Lakes resident looking to list their home; or 2) someone interested in buying in Val Vista Lakes.

Blogs can rank *very* well for dozens of those types of search terms, for a long time. My VVL post was written over a year ago, and I get visits from it all the time. I could list dozens of others that do the same.

“I would also contend that getting 13,800 backlinks requires a TREMENDOUS amount of work, not to mention the work of blogging itself.”

I contend otherwise. I have over 80,000 Yahoo back links, and over 4,000 Google back links to my blog. I have *never* spent any additional time or money over and above writing blog posts to get those links. No reciprocal link programs, no link “schemes”, no PPC, nada. Yes, blogging takes time. So does door knocking, cold-calling, mailings and every other form of “traditional” prospecting. And prospecting is exactly what blogging is. Or can be.

Not building referral partners?? I could name dozens of agents in dozens of markets by first name, and find their email / phone number in seconds. Dozens and dozens of agents that I know and trust and understand how they do business that I would refer clients to in a second. And if I may be so bold, I suspect those dozens of agents know and trust me as well. And we “met” through blogging.

I’ll put my list of “referral partners” up against anyone’s “traditional method” list.

To assume anyone (or everyone) that blogs “puts all their eggs in one basket” and “bows to the Google Gods” is a bad assumption.

At this moment in time, I’ve had 824 unique visitors to my blog today. What would it cost me to mail something to them? Let’s see…. 824 * 0.41= $337.84. How long would those 824 postcards last? How long will today’s blog post last? And then there is tomorrow.

Last month I had 26,209 visitors from all 50 states and 110 countries.

Let’s see, 26,209 * 0.41 = $10,745.69 — to get each of them one postcard.

Those 26,000 visitors used 12,565 different search terms. You can have “Phoenix Real Estate” and “Arizona Homes”, I’m happy with the other 12,563 terms people used last month.

Interesting strategy … “I have no real point or argument so I’m going to assail the writer of the post.”

Google “Westbrook Village Real Estate” and tell me what you see, Wade (nice use of keywords instead of your real name, incidentally. Congrats on the hard click to find out who you are.) Now change it to Westbrook Village and tell me how that looks. I’m assuming counting to three isn’t a taxing exercise.

No, I’m not on the front page of Google for Phoenix real estate. No, I don’t consider that a defeat when I rank 40th out of 2.2 million search terms. The long tail seems to be working just fine for me.

If you doubt my traffic, ask me to prove the numbers and I’ll happily pass them along to you. But don’t make yourself look foolish by implying that I have any reason to lie about the traffic to my site. It only goes to prove that you yourself haven’t read a word to find out who I am.

And incidentally, having “realtor buddies” reading the blog isn’t so bad … I’ve picked up quite a bit of referral business that way. But I guess that happens when you engage in conversation rather than looking to pick a fight with a losing argument.

Adieu.

I agree with Saul- this whole “internet” thing is a fad… it won’t last.

I wasn’t trying to pick a fight, and I certainly never intended to imply that you were lying about your numbers. I was just trying to better understand the point that you made in your original post, which didn’t make sense to me. I will bow out of this conversation because I never intended for it to go in this direction.

Firstly, let me thank you for a great blog. It’s great to learn how cutting edge agents are starting to think about marketing differently.

I will say that I mostly agree with you. Being in newspaper and online sales (focused on real estate), I do still believe in the power of more traditional methods, and I really think it depends upon your market. (Although, working at an alt. weekly paper, we’re hardly “traditional.”)

I live in a small city in a rural state. Sure, tons of younger folks are using Facebook, CL, blogs, etc to get their real estate information (like me, for example) — and you better be reaching the younger generation if you want to have a job in five years — but I think you also have to reach out to non-techies thru more traditional methods that reach folks in the country. In the same way that a postcard is wasted on many people, so is a blog entry. I think it’s best not to shun any marketing avenue — it’s about being smarter with your mailing list, efforts and budget.

Question for you… once you have a blog and an innovative site, what methods work best for marketing these endeavors?

I think Joseph Ferrara has the right approach; mixing old school with new school. I’ve made this the cornerstone for expanding my business in 2008. I love the idea of the brochure pushing the Blog. If you want to market to Generation X and Y, you had better be Linked.In, on Facebook and other major social online networks.

I have no issue with what Saul has to say in his video. In the end, you do want to market yourself, your services and your listings. And I know, as one who completed the e-PRO course, that he supports the ideas of web 2.0.

Regardless of the approach, to differentiate yourself from the crowd, one must offer value to the consumer and the content they are searching for.

Linda said, “. . . but my methods still work. . .”

And that my cross-country friend, is what really matters.

I think the “back to the basics” phrase does hold true in today’s market – with 1 caveat: its back to the basics of giving your clients what they expect/want/need – and exceeding them, and doing it within whatever framework that they are most comfortable in dealing. Whether it be through an online internet presence/marketing, traditional print media, etc – you need to serve your clients.

Does anyone here track numbers? How many listing appointments/buyer inquiries does each blog post, each facebook entry, etc actually generate?

I do.. I can also say I stopped sending out postcards to my sphere monthly for over a year. When I re-started this year, I noticed I was averaging 3 listing appointments and referral appointments and one listing per mailing, and this was with 200 people on my list,

I’d like to know, specifically, what your numbers are. What the SEO and Google
Gobblyleegook numbers are I don’t care; I want to know listing and buyer appointments are. I’d like to know so I can learn what I should do to make the high numbers like you guys and gals..

I can tell you mine.. Since blogging in late 2006, I made zero sales from blogging, two listing inquiries from Activerain, and two from Facebook. I started Facebook a year ago.. No sales yet.. From Postcards, which I re-started in May.. I have 4 sales and more coming..