Fixing the Agent Search Problem

The vast majority of consumers begin their real estate searches online. They are not only looking for potential homes but also searching for real estate professionals that could help them with the sale or purchase. Googling a real estate agent's name will most often return their social network profiles and industry profiles on the first page of the search results.

Agents do a fair job of updating their social profiles. However, they don't even score a passing grade at keeping their industry profiles up to date. Take a moment and do an agent search on your company website. Imagine a consumer doing this same search. Do you like what you see?

Usually the answer will be no. You will find missing photos (or the infamous floating grey heads), poorly written bios (if any at all), missing or broken links to personal websites, phone numbers and emails may or may not be found and may or may not be correct. If you are feeling adventurous, try comparing your company website's agent profile to the one found on Zillow or Realtor.com. You have a better chance of winning the lottery than finding a match with this comparison. Photos, bios, and contact information rarely match up across these sites.

If you are a consumer, you'd have to wonder that if these professionals who are supposed to navigate every detail of the home buying and selling process on your behalf can't keep their online profiles consistent and up to date can really manage what is likely your largest financial transaction for your family. It wouldn't be a stretch to answer 'no' to that question.

For agents, this does seem to be a more difficult task than we would expect. Some do better than others. Ultimately, for broker/owners, the agent search results on their company website are the most valuable. The agent profiles that feed these searches also seem to be the most neglected.

Upstream has created a solution to this problem. With Phase 2 launching, we've extended rosters to include firm record information (offices, etc.), team information and organization, agents and even staff members (non-licensed team members like office managers, listing coordinators, etc.). We'll be extending the profiles so agents have a single place to store their profile information and photos. Integrated vendors can access a firm's entire roster across all MLS regions, allowing the agent profiles to be shared to multiple locations. This means your agents don't have to log in to multiple websites to manage their profiles. Across all the websites where profiles are maintained, Upstream can ensure a consistent agent profile for each one of your agents.

The benefits of Upstream's agent profile management include:

• Consumers find current photos, bios, and contact information on all your agents, no matter where they are searching.
• Broker/owners need not police or manage where and if agent profiles are up to date.
• Your company website's agent search pages will return complete search results. No more grey heads and missing contact data!
• Improved brand experience and image for your company.
• Individual agent SEO results will improve as the Google algorithms find consistent information on the agent in multiple locations online.

To view the original article, visit the Upstream blog.