Cathy and I spent about four hours with the incomparable Russell Shaw last night. We recorded around two hours of our discussions for podcasts I will be putting together in the coming days.
I have been planning for a week to do a podcast on the movement toward local content among real estate websites, but I hadn’t gotten the job done.
Fortuitously, Brian Brady phoned yesterday afternoon, and one of the things we talked about is an idea he has for generating locally-focused content. In the course of talking to him, I addressed almost everything I had wanted to cover, so I’ve chopped out a chunk of our phone call. Brian is very quiet in that section of the call, but it’s okay because I barely let him get a word in anyway.
A signal defect of audio and video, in the weblogged world, is the lack of links, so if you want to click through to the sites and pages discussed as you follow along, these are those:
- Teresa Boardman at the Real Estate Tomato
- Localism.com
- MyHouseKey.org
- Jay Thompson and Val Vista Lakes (I was wrong; he has four hits on the first page)
- Searching Google for zillow.com (we’re second today, sometimes third or fourth)
- Me on the idea of pursuing local interest to generate local leads
I haven’t even begun to sort out the recording we made with Russell last night, but I think it might break out into three chapters: I. The Horatio Alger Story, rags to riches. II. Why anyone committed to success in real estate can achieve it. III. A colloquy with Russell on hi- and lo-tech real estate marketing.
In the latter section, we’re going to come back to this same point: There is nothing you can do with passive marketing that will repay your efforts as well as active, person-to-person marketing.
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Brian Brady says:
The aforementioned idea:
http://activerain.com/blogsview/37991/Dominating-Your-Market-on
January 24, 2007 — 9:26 am
Greg Swann says:
> The aforementioned idea:
> http://activerain.com/blogsview/37991/Dominating-Your-Market-on
And there is this: Whatever happens in the long-run, a strategy like this should do well in the short-run. The challenge is to be nimble enough to have something new on tap when this idea rams into the law of diminishing returns.
January 24, 2007 — 9:50 am
teresa boardman says:
My blog is not about Minneapolis St.Paul. I do meet people through it and build realtionships with them. The audio content here indicates that you understand what I am trying to achieve but have a different understanding of how and why it works than I do.
January 24, 2007 — 10:33 am
Greg Swann says:
> The audio content here indicates that you understand what I am trying to achieve but have a different understanding of how and why it works than I do.
Stipulated on all counts. I also freely concede that I might be wrong.
Congratulations on the Trib and Realtor.com coverage!
January 24, 2007 — 10:37 am
teresa boardman says:
I have been told that I am wrong since day one. It doesn’t slow me down. Maybe someday you could interview me for a different take on this.
January 24, 2007 — 10:51 am
Jeff Turner says:
Greg, I hope people take the time to actually listen to the entire snippet of your conversation. I found it refreshing.
January 24, 2007 — 10:52 am
Greg Swann says:
> Maybe someday you could interview me for a different take on this.
Sold! Bless you. I have a ton of Russell Shaw to prep — on top of my real work — but I want to jump on this opportunity very soon. Thanks!
January 24, 2007 — 10:53 am
Jeff Turner says:
Greg, I think we’d all love to hear Teresa’s take!
January 24, 2007 — 1:56 pm
John L. Wake says:
Greg,
I think the money is in the Teresa Boardman approach.
I love your blog but it’s inside baseball for Realtors. I suspect it will be more effective in generating referrals from out-of-state Realtors/readers than generating clients directly. (Although you should be able to send some juice to your “public” pages.)
I think Jay’s Val Vista Lakes post is terrific because it’s helpful and will attract clients who appreciate that help (and they are the nicest clients to work with), it helps establish Jay’s expertise and expertise is one of the top criteria prospects use for selecting a Realtor, and it’s evergreen and should rank well for years – no joke, years.
January 24, 2007 — 6:12 pm
Greg Swann says:
Hi, John,
Give the podcast another listen. I agree that Teresa’s approach is correct. We are not pursuing leads here. As for long tail searches for real estate, the problem is that they are too easily overwhelmed by similar posts from other weblogs. Jay will be fine for now, but how about a year from now?
January 24, 2007 — 6:46 pm
John L. Wake says:
Whoops! I didn’t hear the very end the first time through because I lost the audio when I clicked “Comments” and, of course, the end was where you summarized your view.
Nevertheless, I believe Jay’s post will indeed be evergreen.
Just for fun I’ll bet you a cup of coffee that Jay’s post will be on the first page at Google for “Val Vista Lakes” on January 24, 2008.
And by the way, I loved the audio! Well done!
January 24, 2007 — 7:42 pm
Kris Berg says:
Great podcast. I personally think that there will be tremendous long-term value in both national and local blogging for those who embraced it early and with commitment. It is the definition of “value” that seems to differ among bloggers. I have always held that the best marketing is intangible in its results, and I think most of us will readily admit that our blogging efforts will not ever result in tangible lead generation. Like any good farming effort, however, it takes years to cultivate an image, an audience, credibility and success. I’m still bullish.
January 24, 2007 — 9:30 pm
John Lockwood says:
Teresa, of course you’ve been told you’ve been doing it wrong. Whether blogging, farming, cold calling, or anything else, the best way to succeed in this business has traditionally been to look at what other agents are doing and then do the opposite of that.
I promise that you’ll do beautifully now that the quality of your heckling has improved. Twelve months from now your success in the St. Paul market will have given your detractors something to really complain about, and I predict you’ll be crying all the way to the bank.
January 25, 2007 — 1:53 am
teresa boardman says:
John- Thanks for stopping by,I love your comment about doing the opposite of what other agents are doing. That is so true!
January 25, 2007 — 4:33 am
John L. Wake says:
Kris Berg wrote, “I think most of us will readily admit that our blogging efforts will not ever result in tangible lead generation”
Not ever? Why not?
Blogging is still evolving. Where it is going is unknown but the future is probably right under our noses.
Looking at what is successful in the regular real estate web sites, it is certain that the most important factor for successful lead generation is good ranking in the search engines… or a cost effective search engine advertising program (good luck with that).
Jay’s page shows that ranking well in the organic search results is very doable for low traffic search keywords. Heck, Bloodhound blog and Jay (and myself) already rank “okay” for monster search terms like “Arizona real estate,” second and third page.
An advantage that blogs have over the regular real estate web sites is that blogs are better at showing off the expertise and personality of the agent – two super important factors for people when they are selecting an agent.
So, at any given search engine ranking, I believe a well designed real estate blog would generate more closed transactions than the traditional real estate web site.
Now, I certainly understand that generating leads with blogs does not interest everyone and that’s terrific.
I’m just saying that it will eventually be done very successfully.
What it will look like exactly, I don’t know.
January 25, 2007 — 12:51 pm
Jim Cosgrove says:
I guess we’re lucky that here on the coast of Maine none of our competitors has thought of blogging yet but it’s only a matter of time so I guess I should start to think about some of the issues you raise. But one thing you didn’t mention that has happened to us is that folks feel like they know us after they’ve read our posts. We actually have people that come in and ask how so and so is or refer to something we’ve blogged about. They have a familiarity with us and we’ve made a connection with them that makes it easier to do business. We may never have met them but they already feel like we’re friends. Our blog is like a window into our office and they develop a comfort level with us.
We’re not selling real estate, we’re selling us!
January 25, 2007 — 8:10 pm
Greg Swann says:
> We’re not selling real estate, we’re selling us!
That’s exactly right. If you can make that work for you, you have no competition.
January 25, 2007 — 8:26 pm
jf.sellsius says:
I agree with John L. Wake. SEO success in the “short run” can be a long time since know one knows how to measure its duration. Take the short run Jay, it beats no run.
January 26, 2007 — 8:30 pm
Condo Hotels says:
SEO is the future, so donot keep it aside, content matter tht wht it is called heart of the website, seo helps to grows the size of visitor (vertically), and helps to go to that extend where u cannot expect…
February 27, 2007 — 4:19 am