It seems that any substantive discussion these days about real estate is focused on one subject: Marketing.

How does one get attention and the right kind? Well, you can blog, Twitter, Facebook, join social networks, use LinkedIn, buy leads, post your listings everywhere, participate in Trulia Voices, optimize your blog or web site for SEO, buy EZ ads on Zillow, subscribe to HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator, Buyerlink or AgentView, engage in pay per click on Google or Yahoo, use lead “capture” or not etc. The marketing debate rages on the blogs and on the panels at the major conferences.

While marketing is important, it seems to have reached the point of an obsession with a diminishing return. Continue reading this post

HomeGain’s Blog School has been in session for 8 weeks and I have seen a great improvement in the content being produced on the real estate agent blogs. Several agents have had their posts rank on the first pages of Google for their market keywords.

Regardless of Google ranking, agents are writing useful content for buyers and sellers, content they can share with future prospects and clients. Blogging to create an archival real estate information reserve is a relatively untapped methodology. If a prospective client asks an agent a common question — what are my closing costs? — the agent need only email their blog post on closing costs.

I have encouraged bloggers to write on topics which reflect common buyer and seller concerns. They are of enduring value.

Here are a couple of examples. Mitchell Feldman in Brooklyn, who has a great conversational tone, wrote “Buyers Guide to Closing Costs in Brooklyn” and “Negotiating Tips for Sellers in Brooklyn (or anywhere else)” (love that title).

These reflect typical consumer concerns. And because of his personable writing style, the reader gets Continue reading this post

One of the things that I find fascinating in the real estate business are referral fees. I hear REALTORS upset about them and always trying to lower them. I know, with the financial pressures of today’s market, this may sound weird, but I LIKE THEM.

Before you throw something at the screen, let me explain.

In today’s buyer’s market, EVERY buyer side that you have is a result of someone or something. It is the result of a marketing channel that you have invested in. Maybe it is your internet presence. Maybe it is HomeGain. Maybe it was the time you spent on a press release that attracted a buyer or investor. Maybe it was a radio ad.

Whatever it was, you invested in it in one way or the other. I find it amusing that REALTORS often do not pay THEMSELVES a REFERRAL FEE and use it to build up their market presence.

Even if you invested time instead of money into your lead that turned into a buyer, the only way to get more time is to eventually use some of that money to buy back the time either in that market channel or in another one that you deem will generate more ROI.

How do I know this works? Our brokerage did it. Continue reading this post

My first real effort at blogging occurred almost two years ago on ActiveRain—and I was immediately hooked.

I loved the real estate blogging community with its running stream of commentary, sense of humor and predictable disagreements. We were all gifted with the opportunity to openly develop our voices and emerging blogging skills—and shared immense chunks and tidbits of knowledge.

We also discovered pretty quickly that Google and other search engines were following us closely—and sometimes loosely.

We learned about the power of the long tail, or how obscure information in the content of blogs and websites gets stored on the search engines—with some potentially interesting results. Let’s say someone searches the term “rimless shower doors” on Google.

In late 2006, there were Page One results for a listing (with rimless shower doors) we had described on our website in 2004. Today, a blog article I wrote in May 2007, Drag a Long Tail and See What You Catch (describing the rimless shower door finding), now sits on Google Page One results for that term.

I never intended to become a rimless shower door expert, but Google doesn’t know that. Nor, I doubt, did HomeGain blogger and Phoenix Realtor Jay Thompson ever intend for Continue reading this post

1. Read Before You Write

What I always advise real estate professionals interested in getting started blogging is to go out and read other real estate blogs. You’ll have no trouble finding them. Just Google “real estate blogs” or type in your market followed by “blog”.

Reading other blogs will give you a sense of the topics discussed, the presentation, and the various writing styles of bloggers. The more you read the more you will know what folks are saying, and how they’re saying it. Some bloggers write short posts, others expound into treatise length. Many use images and video, some do not. Some are heavy on facts and figures, others heavy on opinion and their experiences. When done right (and I use that word loosely), the blogger’s voice -— their personality -— comes through the writing.

And that’s what you should strive to do -— find your voice and get it out there.

Besides, reading blogs gives you the visceral feedback of what you like and what you think sucks. (Avoid the stuff you think sucks.) Continue reading this post

I’m a research person. I love having lots and lots of research to back up my statements and decisions.

So, let’s first take a look at the blogosphere as a whole, how it began, how it grew and where it is going.

According to Dave Sirfry’s April 2007 report on the blogosphere, Technorati currently tracks 70 million weblogs. The report shows that 120,000 blogs are created each day with 1.4 blogs created every second.

Since October 2006, there a slight slowing in the growth of the blogosphere which was expected as its previous growth rates were staggering having grown 60 times what it was in 2004.

In 2006, the blogosphere saw 1.3 million postings per day or 15 posts per second, whereas in 2007 it grew to 17 posts per second. Interestingly, the percentage of blogs in the top 100 reached approximately 25% (22 blogs). Also, interesting is the consumer perception that blogs are just as good a news outlet as main stream media sites like the New York Times.

The breakdown: Continue reading this post