2009 November | Active Website Enterprise Network Blog

The Magic Still lies in the Long Tail….

November 25, 2009

Filed under: Active Website,Content,Enterprise Network,Real Estate Technology,Search Engine Optimization

A fantastic SEO blog we follow regularly at Active Website, is by SEOmoz.org. This week, SEOmoz referenced a post by Bill Tancer from Hitwise, who spoke at our conference in October, regarding the long tail of search demand. For those who don’t know, the search demand curve is a way of assessing the ranking of keywords. For example, you will notice in the chart SEOmoz created, there are 3 main sections. The Fat Head section is reserved for the top keywords. If you searched for “Denver Real Estate” it would fall under this category.

This section contains the highest amount of searches. Many people feel this is keyword gold, but actually we need to bring the focus to the Chunky Middle and Long Tail sections. Here you will find searches for company names, addresses, agents, as well as geographical searches, but more niche specific. This is where the traffic lies! While it’s important to rank high on searches for “Dallas Real Estate,” we need to keep in mind the percentage of these searches that direct to your site is minimal. The high quality unique searches in the Chunky Middle and Long Tail are what matter. We need to instill in our clients the importance of this data.

We used the chart SEOmoz presented in the blog, Illustrating the Long Tail, and modified it to fit our data for the real estate industry. Below is the chart of the Search Demand Curve for one Enterprise Network Member.

The Long Tail makes up 59% of the traffic that directs users to the site compared to the Head Terms that are only at 5%. These numbers are consistent across the board for all Enterprise Members. The amount of traffic in the tail is almost hard to comprehend.

Additionally, leveraging this traffic resource has an extremely low cost-to-benefit ratio. By simply writing a blog article about a featured property and using the address as a link back to the main site (not a rebrand), the majority of that traffic-heavy long-tail source is covered. Bear in mind, MLS data is shared along dozens of sites that compete with you in the search engines, so making your content in the property details pages unique is important. To get the best result for this page, try replacing industry-specific language with the longer, more descriptive terminology and add a sentence or two about the property (starting a property description with ‘WOW!!!’ or ‘AMAZING PROPERTY!!!’ is useless for both the user and the engine and doesn’t count as a sentence).

The importance of ranking well for the property address is a search engine strategy often lost in the shadow of the primary terms, but the satellite view of search traffic shows that mastering the art of long-tail searches for your area will bring a higher visitor volume than the top position for all your primary terms combined.

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Using Content to Increase SEO

November 24, 2009

Filed under: Active Website,Blogging,Content,Enterprise Network,Real Estate Technology,Search Engine Optimization,The Kentwood Companies

Last week, we focused on the importance of unique content and how it helps engage our customers. We’d like to switch gears a little and focus on how content is crucial to increasing your website’s SEO. Not only does quality content engage your readers, but it helps to increase search engine ranking and traffic to your site. Remember to incorporate your keywords in your text as well to help drive up SEO.

Your chances of receiving organic search engine traffic increases based on the quality of your copy. If your keywords are not related to the content it doesn’t help, so make sure you are not only writing good content, but relevant copy as well. Doing this will also help with your standing on search engines.

Ori Staub, Enterprise Technology Director at Active Website, spoke at our conference about generating relevant traffic to our sites. One example he gave for this was using your blog to your advantage. Blogs are great SEO tools because the content is continually changing and gives your customers a reason to keep coming back to your site. However, your blog will only benefit you if you use it the right way. Again, stick to the three basic principles of quality, relevance, and uniqueness to keep growing the popularity of your site on search engines.

To showcase how this works, Ori presented a couple charts to show the difference between a good blog and a bad one. As Ori stated during his presentation, SEO through blogging is more sensitive to quality than quantity. One quality post per month beats 20 irrelevant and duplicated content posts. Below is a chart that showcases an inefficient blog. This company posted 20-30 blog posts a month, but the content is not original and had 40-120 referrals into the blog.

Now here is an example of good blogging. This company wrote keyword rich unique content with only 5-10 quality posts a month. But because the content was original and relevant, they received 150-250 referrals into their blog.

Search engines make up a large percentage of incoming referrals. So remember, by including keywords and links into your quality content, your can help promote your company’s SEO as well. It’s the difference between showing up on page one of Google, or getting lost in the abyss with the thousands of other businesses trying to entice users to their sites.

Again, here is an example of a blog that is using keywords and linkage to their advantage. Enterprise Member The Kentwood Companies out of Denver is including multiple tags for “Denver Real Estate” to help increase SEO.

“Like most major metropolitan areas around the country, the Denver real estate market has had its share of highs and lows over the years. During the past several months, record foreclosures have been in the headlines, and the luxury home market is not immune to this distressing situation. On the other hand, this recession-fueled scenario has created some very exciting homebuying opportunities for move-up buyers and those relocating to the metro Denver area.”

Ar the time I wrote this blog, if you type “Denver Real Estate” into Google, Kentwood has a spot on page one. Not only is Kentwood bringing traffic to their site by tagging Denver Real Estate into their blog, they are also doing a great job of using linkage to bring readers back to their homepage. To finish reading this blog, visit The Kentwood Companies at www.realestatedenverblog.com.

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Content is KING!

November 19, 2009

Filed under: Blogging,Content,Enterprise Network,Real Estate Technology,Residential Properties Ltd.,Social Networking,Video

At our conference this year, Tom Flanagan, Director of Information Technology at Residential Properties, spoke about the importance of unique and engaging content. According to Tom, last year 200 of the top Real Estate sites accounted for 95% of the real estate traffic online. Because of this, it’s crucial to find ways to set yourself apart from the competition.

By providing sticky material to our websites, we are able to enrich the user experience as well as improve our company’s SEO. Today, we’d like to showcase Residential Properties and a few of the ways they’re reaching customers through various platforms and reinforcing the importance of content.

Earlier this week we posted a blog discussing the need for telling a story in regards to our property listings. We showed a great example of how good writing can increase SEO and create an emotional connection with consumers. At Residential, they’re taking this a step further. Below is a video posted on YouTube that provides a great description of not only the property listing, but the community as well.

Yet another way Residential is providing content to consumers is by hosting a radio talk show called, Real Estate Insight. Every Sunday morning at 10am Eastern Standard Time Sally Lapides and her team discuss today’s hottest real estate topics. By going to their website, you can listen to the live show or catch a past airing in the archives section on Podcast. This not only allows users to hear more about the world of real estate, but is another way Residential can keep people on their site. You can also find a more in-depth discussion on the show’s blog, www.realestateinsight.com.

Finally, we’d like to mention what Residential is doing to get the entire company involved in the process. Every Season, they hold an internal photo contest and everyone in the company is encouraged to submit a photo they have taken of the community. The winning photos are then displayed on their homepage slide show as well as the blog. Your blog is a great publishing platform and is a vital way to engage your consumer. Click here to see this year’s spring winners.

So take these examples as advice for advancing your company’s website. Social networking, blogging, and contests allow for dialogue with the consumers and are just a few of the ways you can reach them. The longer you keep a user’s attention, the better your odds that they’ll remember you!

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The Importance of Telling a Story

November 16, 2009

Filed under: Blogging,Content,Marketing,Real Estate Community,Search Engine Optimization

As we’ve stated in the past couple weeks, it’s important to find new ways to reach our consumers and one aspect of this is focusing on our content. The most powerful item we have as marketers is the ability to tell a story and is there a more compelling story to tell then of home ownership. Last week we focused on sustainability and how to market this to our consumers, but it’s only effective if our content is relevant.

As I think about the importance of relevant content, it makes me think of the house I grew up in as a kid. The family dinners, Christmas morning, and all the other memories over the years give me a sense of home. Yet when I go online to read about a potential home purchase, I get a dry description that doesn’t give me any emotional connection. Here is one example of a million dollar home for sale in Denver with a description that doesn’t even begin to tell a story.

“ABSOLUTELY AMAZING HOME. EVERY AMENITY YOU COULD EVER HOPE FOR. MASTER BDRM IS A DREAM. 500K DOLLAR ADDITION TO THE HOUSE WITH POOL ENCLOSED RV STORAGE ON THE PROPERTY. UNBELIEVABLE MOUNTAIN VIEW FROM THE UPPER LEVEL PATIO DECK. A MUST SEE!”

What about the neighborhood? What makes having this indoor pool so amazing? There are so many different directions this company could have gone to tell a compelling story, but it requires more than just a couple vague sentences.

This reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Rounders, when Teddy so elegantly describes what it’s like to play poker with Mike McDermott. “Just like a young man, coming in for a quickie. I feel so unsatisfied…” This is how I feel after reading some of the dry property descriptions.

After thinking about this for some time, I found a link for a blog that did an incredible job telling a story about a home and the story behind a zero energy home. Check out the blog article here.

Notice when you read this post that there are over 33 comments at the time I posted this blog. That’s over thirty people engaging in a discussion over this property listing. I am sure any seller would love to see this kind of activity. As I dug further, it wasn’t just one post but a series of posts that left me with a feeling that, as marketers, we need to work with our agents and sellers to capture more of the essence of the homes we represent.

I think it’s time that, as an industry, we think more about the conversation we can build around the property. With a good story we can engage our potential customers and get them talking which is so important in online marketing.
So let’s all get creative and think how we can create good content that people are much more likely to read, link to, and share with friends and family. If we do this, we can create a true viral effect which is where the real search engine magic is found.

Here are a couple blog links I follow. Each of these blog’s focus is different, but you’ll notice the content is alive and engaging.

www.apartmenttherapy.com
www.littlediggs.com

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People in the Network Making a Difference, Rob Ewing at Charles Reinhart Company Realtors

November 14, 2009

Filed under: Agent Training & Education,Charles Reinhart Company Realtors,Marketing,Real Estate Community,Real Estate Trends,Sustainability

We’d like to end the week with a Q and A session featuring Rob Ewing, a realtor at Charles Reinhart Company Realtors, for our next installment of People in the Network Making a Difference. With over a decade worth of experience under his belt, Rob, an innovator in the real estate industry, has found a new way to educate consumers on the importance of living a sustainable lifestyle.

Driven by his environmental background, Rob made the decision a couple years ago to become eco-broker certified. This program was established to provide environmental education to real estate professionals so they are better equipped to inform their communities of the advantages of energy efficiency and environmentally sensitive design. This is the first green real estate training program and will help agents spread the word on how to reduce your carbon footprint. Completing this program required Rob to take a 60 hour course, but the results were worth it- he found a new way to market himself to potential clients. To find out how you can become eco-broker certified visit www.ecobroker.com.

Read the Q and A session below to find out more about this inspiring realtor and what he’s doing to increase awareness to consumers.

Name: Rob Ewing
Title: Eco-broker
Company: Charles Reinhart Company Realtors
Website: www.robertewing.com

Why did you want to become eco-broker certified?
I originally came from working in the outdoor industry and have an environmental background. I wanted to follow both a philosophical bent/belief by promoting it and further my background in how construction get’s done. In this case, “Green.”

What impact does this have on your clients?
I am able to help educate them in the advantages of energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality in their home and ultimately to save them money (and maybe make the earth a better place to live in is always a perk). I might add that it dovetails well with the extensive knowledge that I have in home construction.

How are you using this certification to market yourself to potential clients?
I use the eco-broker logo in my ads and offer my buyers an energy audit after closing at no charge to them. This is a $425 value that comes out of my pocket, but if I can help bring awareness to the importance of living a sustainable lifestyle, then the benefits outweigh the cost. And while it’s still early in the process for me to know just how it’s changing my client base, those who are aware of what I’m doing are usually very appreciative.

What are some misconceptions customers have about buying an eco- friendly home?
Cost is still an issue for a lot of people, although most homes that my customers purchase do not require a lot of money to make them more efficient. New homes & full remodels are a different subject. For the moment, that business is subdued to a great extent although I am working with people in the industry to jump start it. The more demand there is for these products, the more the prices will decrease over time.

How can agents address these concerns?
First, get educated. That’s where eco-broker type programs come in. Also, get to know others in your community who are focused on this same goal. Whether it be construction companies or home re-modelers in the area, you can work together to continue to learn and educate others.

Why do you feel it’s important for customers to become more aware of sustainability efforts?
Money is number one. It’s the difference between driving a car that gets 50 mpg and a Hummer that gets 8 mpg. The fact that we are now leaving more resources for future generations by building & improving existing homes in terms of maximizing energy efficiency & sustainability makes good sense to me.

Can you give us some examples of how to make your home more energy efficient?
Start with the basics, caulk, insulation etc. But most important is a home energy audit which should yield a report prioritizing where you are losing the most & what it is costing you on an annual basis. It creates a road map for home owners of the quickest way to greater energy efficiency.

How are consumers saving money by turning to these green initiatives?
Here is a great example. A builder that I represent built a 1950 square ft. ranch to LEED Platinum standards and the Energy Star report showed a heating & cooling estimate of $142 per year. When a person can easily have a bill that costs this much a month, this is a substantial saving and shows the benefits of green living.

By becoming eco-broker certified, you’re setting a great example of how the real estate industry can meet the demands of this new age consumer. What future plans do you have to continue the growth of this market?
I am moderating a panel of local experts specializing in wind/solar, insulation, energy rating, green building techniques, & more at a local high school physics program which will reach 400 students. Part of their homework assignment will require interaction with their parents and is yet another way I make a difference in educating my local community.

Rob is setting a great example of how the Real Estate Industry can make a difference in their community. To visit Rob’s website, go to www.robertewing.com.

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