Note: this discussion has moved to the Point2 Agent Message Board (link).

Those of you who have been told by your boards not to use the term MLS on your Web sites or in your domain names may be interested in this petition: http://www.freethemls.com/petition-to-nar/

OK, let me state right up front that I'm not a REALTOR(R) and know little about the inner workings and politics of MLS boards.  I am hoping to get some advice for my clients as well as satisfying my own curiosity.

I have two clients who've been strung along by their MLS Board for over a year. They're in a major Western metro area. The board has been telling them that 1ParkPlace IDX service would be available in their area in a few weeks or months. Both agents need 1ParkPlace to do certain types of searches on their niche-targeted Point2 sites. Last year, it was supposed to be available in November. Then January. A month ago, it was supposedly to be available by mid-August. Then late August. Now, not until the new board president comes in at the end of the year because the current president can't or isn't allowed or won't sign the agreement with 1ParkPlace. If it's not available until then (and who seriously believes that it will be), then it will have been at least 1 1/2 years that these two agents have been strung along by their MLS board.

What would you do if you were in either agent's position and your Web site business were being crippled by your board's failure to serve your needs? How would you go about exerting pressure on the board to serve your needs as well as those of other agents in your area?

Do any of you have experience marketing vacation home rentals with your Point2Agent site? A client for whom I designed a non-real estate web site has come to me for another web site. He has an almost new custom-built 2-bedroom home in the NC mountains that he wants to put on the vacation rental market. Though his home is in a very small mountain resort town, his new site will compete with several established sites for search engine position. I wonder how much Point2Agent's syndicated advertising might help generate both rentals and traffic to help his SEO.

One of my clients wants to know if Realtor.com's Showcase options is worth the extra cost. I would appreciate your opinions. I occasionally do Flash ads for Realtor.com but otherwise no little about it. Thanks.

With his permission, I am posting a message that RealEstateWebMaster's client Marc Rasmussen posted on ActiveRain this afternoon:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/131121/Excessive-Reciprocal-Linking-Google

Google is the most widely used search engine. Rightfully so since they provide the best search results. A well ranking website in Google can provide a tremendous amount of traffic. When a website links to another website Google views that link as a vote. The more votes or links a website has the more popular and important the website is in Google's eyes. You can read about how they like links here. With all else equal, website A with a higher number of quality links will rank better than website B with a fewer number of quality links. Notice I said quality links and not quantity. If you search long enough you can find a website with a few quality links outrank a competitor website with 1000's of average or low quality links. Here is a good article about this.

I get reciprocal link exchange requests daily. Before being penalized by Google I was #1 for a bunch of phrases pertaining to Sarasota real estate. So I was a big target for people who wanted to trade links with me. I would get at least 10 link exchange requests from Realtors a day. It seems people, especially in the real estate industry, are obsessed with getting links to their sites. That is understandable. Look at the number of people posting in Active Rain or other social networks. A large percentage of them are not just nice people who want to share their knowledge for nothing in return. Most of them are looking for the link juice back to their site.

Realtors need to be careful with excessive reciprocal linking. April 15th, 2007 a number of Advanced Access sites were hit with penalties from Google for having state pages filled with reciprocal links. May 9th, 2007 many real estate webmaster (a web design company) websites were hit with penalties.  I was one of those sites. Myself and a handful of others have been penalized for over 45 days. It is the equivalent of being banned in Google. I am at least 4 pages down for any and all search phrases. I might as well be on the page 998.

Matt Cutts is in charge of the Google spam team. Check out the 2nd video on this page around the 5:30 mark. He comments on the real estate webmaster thread describing the Google penalties and how they have their eye on the real estate industry. They have only attacked a small number of websites. I would be willing to bet that there is more to come.

You don't want to get penalized by Google. It is no fun. Follow this webmaster guideline:

    * Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

 

Bruce Cole has begun a great conversation about Web site "stickiness" elsewhere on Reliberation. I would like to take exception to the notion that stickiness is important. The end goal of a Web site should be converting visitors to clients, not stickiness. Would you rather have a Web site visitor who spends an hour digging around in your Web site or would you rather have a visitor who is so taken by your home page that he or she simply calls you on the phone?

That's what happens when a Web site is so emotionally engaging that the visitor immediately realizes that this is THE Web site for that visitor. All that's required is one great Web page. Who needs "sticky" when one page will generate phone calls?

I encourage my prospective clients to take a workshop with "Mr. Internet(R)" Michael Russer because he helps his students figure out how to make a Web site emotionally engaging. The key is target or "niche" marketing: figuring out specifically who you are talking to -- which target audience -- and using a Web site to engage and interact with that target audience. The answer is different for every agent, because each has different interests and passions and because each geographic market is different.

Successful advertisers use target marketing techniques all the time, because they work. For REALTORS(R), the approach is actually rather simple: find a niche that you are interested in, knowledgeable about, and passionate about, then position yourself as a specialist in that niche.(Chances are it will be something that you are already heavily involved with.)

Here are some examples of how niche targeting works. To take the high tech mystery out of it, let's talk about simple classified newspaper ads instead of Web sites. First, stop thinking like a real estate agent and put yourself in the prospective client's shoes:

Next, imagine yourself as a "horse person" looking to buy an equestrian property in Kentucky. You look in the Louisville newspaper's classified ads and see two small ads:

Ad #1:

"Louisville's Top REALTOR(R)". I sold $10 billion last year and can help you find your dream home."

Ad #2:

"REALTOR(R) Specializing in Equestrian Properties. 2005 Kentucky Show Jumping Champion."

Or imagine you are a golfer looking for property in Pinehurst, NC and you see these two ads:

Ad #1:

"Pinehurst's Top REALTOR(R)". I sold $10 billion last year. I can help you find your dream home."

 Ad #2:

"Pinehurst's Golf Course Homes Expert. Call to receive your in-depth video guide to Pinehurst area golf course homes with interviews with Pinehurst's top golf pros."

If you are a golfer, who are you going to call? If you have horses, who are you going to call? In either case, the decision is a no-brainer, isn't it? The problem with each of the first ads is that neither addresses any target audience and, as a result, chances are that neither ad will result in many calls. Instead of focusing on the prospective client's interest, each focuses on the REALTOR(R). And frankly, Miss Scarlett, who cares about the REALTOR(R)? Prospective buyers and sellers aren't buying real estate agents! They are buying or selling homes, so to engage their interest, you've got to convince them that you are the most qualified to meet their specific needs.

Why don't more REALTORS(R) do target marketing? First, because many are simply not aware of it or of its potential power. Second, because many are afraid that by addressing one specific audience, they will miss out on all those elusive "other" people. Or as Linda Jeffersion of GoArmyHomes.com eloquently stated, "I was afraid that if I targeted the military, I would miss out on all those other clients I wasn't getting anyway." Since her targeted Web site completely turned around her business, Linda has gotten over her fears so well that she is now planning to change the name of her brokerage from Jefferson Bentley to Go Army Homes.

Linda's military focus is just one example of successful target marketing. The options are only as limited as your imagination. Another example is a broker who is opening a new office in Portland and whose BIC contracted with me for a new Point2Agent Web site. The broker and, until recently, just two other agents, focus on ranch and hunting properties. They operate in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon and North Dakota in association with Cabela's Trophy Properties. With only 3 agents, the brokerage has $80Mil in listings!!! I haven't finished the new site design for the Portland office, but you can get a sneak preview here:

http://steventarnovsky.point2agent.com/

Keep in mind that usually you can only address one target audience with one Web site. Trying to address more than one audience with one site will always dilute your message. When choosing a target audience, think narrow, not wide. "Baby boomers" are NOT a target audience! Atlanta Metro is NOT a target audience!

I feel so strongly about the benefits of target marketing that I offer a sign-up form that allows real estate agents a discount price for Michael Russer's great "Clicks to Closes" 10 week teleconference. Visit my Web site to contact me if you would like me to email it to you:

 www.SuzStephens.com/contact.shtml

Check out the new "Street View" feature for Google maps. It allows you to walk around San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami with a 360 degree view.

http://maps.google.com/maps

I just drove by the advertising agency office where I used to work in San Franscisco, then headed across the Golden Gate Bridge towards my former Marin County home. No bridge tolls. No $3.50 gallon gas. No traffic. No fog. No cold San Francisco summer weather. This is just too much fun!!! I felt like a virtual tourist.

 If you are selling real estate in any of the cities covered by this neat tool, maybe you can find a way to use it.

As a designer, I've used and loved Macs for years but because I do Web site design, I have to also have a PC to cross-platform check sites and to work on Point2Agent sites. With my PC laptop on a steady decline ever since the cat knocked it off the desk, I recently bought an Intel Mini Mac. A couple of weeks ago I installed Parallels and Windows on my Mac. I'm amazed at how easy they were to set up and at what a great solution this has been for my work. I especially like being able to create, edit and upload graphics to Point2Agent sites without having to move them from one computer to the other.

Literally the only problem I have is remembering to Command Copy in the Mac OS, then Control Paste in Windows. It was easier for me to use the correct keyboard commands when working exclusively in one environment or the other, but copying and pasting back and forth between the two OS's on the same keyboard and monitor is trickier. In fact, simply grasping the notion that I can do that has been challenging!

The most fun part of this experience was seeing my husband's doubletake the first time he walked by desk and noticed the Windows screen saver running on my Mac monitor!

If you're a dedicated Mac head like me but forced to used a PC for your real estate work, I highly recommend this awesome solution.

 

 

Though I don't provide SEO services professionally, I try to stay on top of SEO issues. I've decided there's only one absolute truth that can be said of Google: as soon as you think you know how it works, they change the rules again.

I picked up a little tidbit recently from a study by a German company,  Systrix, that may be of interest to any of you who optimize your content area titles. It appears that Google no longer reads keywords in <h1> tags, though they still read the other <h> tags. Since content titles are formatted with <h1> tags, you may want to adjust your coding and SEO strategy accordingly.