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Three Secrets Third-Party Aggregators Don’t Want Brokers to Know: 08/15/2012
Three Secrets Third-Party Aggregators Don’t Want Brokers to Know
An article from RISMedia
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There's a battle raging between brokerages and third-party aggregators that compile real estate listings online and collect sales leads in order to sell them to agents and brokers. Several large brokerages are so unhappy with aggregators that they've turned off syndication in an effort to "get control" of their listings. But what's really at stake in this debate?
Is it about preventing aggregators from using brokers' listings as a means of generating advertising revenues? Trying to stop aggregators from selling leads on a broker's listing to competing brokers? Eliminating outdated listings information and inaccurate home valuations on aggregator websites?
All those issues are at the surface of this debate. But at the heart of the controversy is a problem that's more far-reaching and integral to the long-term survival of brokerages than just bad data.
This is a high-stakes, winner-take-all war over search engine visibility. It's a battle for the attention of millions of consumers who routinely use Google and other search engines as the starting point in their journeys to buy or sell their homes. Real estate sites that are found at the top of organic search engine rankings are the early birds who get the worm. They get the first contact with prospective customers, and the first opportunity to build a relationship and beat out the competition.
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,Listing Syndication
Three Secrets Third-Party Aggregators Don’t Want Brokers to Know
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A well-planned and executed SEO progam for a local business actually has the advantage over an aggregator.
Here's a thought for brokers and agents. Stop applying low-ROI time spent on social media, and start improving your SEO practices, with that same time.
If you haven't done that, then you get what you get in this battle.
Regardless of what all the gurus and social marketing consultants want you to believe, lead generation from good SEO is still the big kahuna in this online game. It dwarfs social media. Always has, and probably will for a while.
I used to be a full time SEO serving mostly real estate clients. This was 2002 through 2009. I just did a check of some old clients and they continue to do well. Some are still at the very top of the rankings. Many more are in first page, near the top positions. This is without much effort expended over the last few years. "Get there and stay there" has been what I have seen for many (not all) ex-clients.
I cannot use my ex-clients as examples, but I can show you three serach term cities where locals (who were not my clients) outrank aggregators on Google:
phoenix real estate
nashville tn real estate
dallas real estate (position 2)
Just try the game with any city and you'll find more.
When we got new clients and there were NO local sites ranking well in their market, we called that a huge opportunity. It was relatively easy to boost a new client to the first page in that environment.
I will say that getting them there is step one. Converting to leads is step two. Following up is step three.
When done right, the ROI of good SEO and conversion far exceeds anything else you can do online, by a huge margin.
Nevertheless, very few agents or brokers do it right. Probably less than 2%.
These days, due to the constant drumbeat from online marketing pros who are looking for ongoing billable services in the social media realm, most agents are mesmerized with Facebook, Twitter, and other stuff that takes enormous time and creativity to manage it correctly. Sure, it works, but at what cost in time.
As well, the successful agents who do it are put forward as examples. Nobody ever questions the time spent on social media, compared to good SEO. Rarely does anyone dare question the ROI of social media. Instead, the answer is "if you don't get it, then I can't explain it to you".
When you have no other point of refernce to compare, then you follow the herd over the cliff.
But hey, I guess that some agents and brokers are just more savvy than others when it comes to this stuff. If I were an agent, I'd much rather collect and convert real leads from people who are IN THE MARKET NOW than constantly chase "friends" and "followers", where most are not.
From my experience, brokers and agents who complain about aggregators in SEO need to look at their own SEO and lead conversion program first.
The aggregators are just doing what they need to do, as far as SEO goes. I am not here to defned them or their other tactics, like re-directing, obfuscating, and old listings, etc.
I am just saying that from an SEO perspective, the business owners who do this correctly usually (not alwasy) can beat them, and substantial rewards for doing it.
It's been that way for many, many years.
Dirk Johnson
Online Communications Manager
NVAR.com
T
(Dirk here, not Jill, sorry for the confudsion)
You have a huge advantage in the SEO fight. It is not at all about volume of content. Google could care less about how big you are.
Unfortunately, the SEO world is rife with bad actors and bad advice from people with limited experience and skill, or, most often, they have a axe to grind based on a service that they sell. So they put out all kinds of "do this-not that" kind of advice.
The SEO industry is so full of bad actors that I am very glad to be out of it. Factual, results-based tactical information was drowned out in favor of scare tactics.
So it comes as no surprise to me that most business owners glaze over when discussing this subject. It's a real mess.
But that is another discussion.
Unlike the aggregators, Terry, you have the opportunity to build custom pages for specific search terms that you want to compete for (like MyTown real estate, MyCity Condos for sale, etc. on and on), then fill them with genuine content about your local real estate market (to prove that YOU are the expert here), and then promote it (i.e. get valid genuine links to it).
If you do that, you will most likely beat the aggregators. No joke. This is not rocket science or wizard-behind-the-curtain stuff that most SEO consultants want you to believe. This is almost clerical in it's simplicity. It really is that simple, in most cases. But for some reason, most site owners in real estate can't get a grip on it.
Like I said before, most sites that I worked with that did that are still getting good rankings, years later.
Dirk