A 20 lb Sledge Hammer and Other Observations

Because I still can't seem to get caught up enough to finish any worthwhile posts, I thought I would let you know what I have found interesting in my reading and research lately:

Spencer's Post About Realty Times Article on Realtor.Com Draws over 40 Comments

HAR is advertising heavily in Social Networking Sites. I have seen their ads on LinkedIn and Facebook numerous times. If you think social media marketing isn't important, ask someone at HAR why they think it is. In fact, when I get time, I'll do it for you!

Dustin says Outside.In has a chance. I went to the site, not only was my neighborhood not listed, neither was Spring or The Woodlands. Until they get better coverage, I think the jury is still out. There is more to Houston than Bellaire and River Oaks.

The Bloodhound Blog Unchained event wrapped up recently. Tons of videos on their YouTube Channel. Just look at the number of views to find those worth watching, it's a pretty good gauge.

Jay Thompson gives an in depth look at the new web site analysis tool, Woopra. I guess there are just not enough words left in the english language to come up with a start up name that makes any sense any more.

Matt Rathbun has over 22 answers to the question, "I read real estate industry blogs because....." Jump over and add your answer.

We have a new client that is one of the most colorful and genuinely nice people I have spoken with in ages. Is it possible for a client to be more excited about our product than we are? No. But this guy sure comes close. Check out what Connor MacIVOR of Paris911.Com has to say about his new MLBroadcast feed in his blog and on Active Rain (members only). I love the sledge hammer and speeding truck analogies. His feed is the featured MLBroadcast client in the side bar of this blog.

Mike's Corner 2008 Resolutions

This blog was the idea of my close friend and business partner, Mark Basile. At one of our infamous marathon brain storming sessions he suggested the simple title for the blog and the idea that it be a digital version of an informal conversation. It's been 18 months and we couldn't be happier with the results. We've been blessed with awards and accolades that I really didn't envision when we started. I would be a big fat liar if I said I they didn't matter to me. Thanks to anyone who recognized in 2006 and 2007!

We're going to do all we can in 2008 to take this blog to the next level and provide even better content, more stimulating conversations and little levity right when you needed something to brighten your day.

That said, we're going to be making some little changes, some big changes and add some new things as we go. We hope you like them, and if not, we hope you'll tell us.

Plumbers With Leaky Pipes
One of the first things you will see are MLBroadcast video podcast episodes. We've been like plumbers with leaky pipes, too busy to use our own tools to keep our house in order. We have a series of screen capture videos planned that are designed to demonstrate not only our own products, but other tools that can you can use to gain an edge in even the most challenging of markets.

Other Ch Ch Ch Changes
New Name For The Blog
New Regular Contributors
Guest Contributors
New Platform (A very painful switch to Wordpress will take place Q2. Because this blog is in the old blogger platform, it will take a while)
Video Interviews With RE.net Veterans and Newbies
More "Featured Realtor Blogs"

So, there you have it. Thanks to each and every person that has seen fit to add this blog to your RSS subscriptions. We promise to give you a reason to keep coming back!

Cheers,
MP

New Featured Realtor® Blog

I went on a quest yesterday for a new featured Realtor® blog. My travels didn't need to take me much further than the MyBlogLog widget on this site. Hailing from the sunshine state is a Keller Williams team with the moniker, "Every Kid Deserves A Yard". I clicked through to their blog and it met all of the criteria for our new winner.

1.Local content that is "narrowcasted" to a specific audience. This establishes credibility and experience.
2. Clean, easy to navigate design. The blog isn't cluttered by useless elements and widgets.
3. Brand integration. The blog should blend into the overall web experience. It should do a good job of delivering relevant blogging content without self-promotion, with an easy way to get to access to listings or generate leads.

This blog does an exceptional job of establishing community credibility, fits well into the overall web presence and brand and is super simple to navigate. Congratulations to the team at EKDAY for a job well done. ~MP

How Podcasting Impacts Local Search Relevancy

ClickZ has an article today from Patricia Hursh regarding the relevancy of local search. The article breaks down personal decision criteria, proximity and vertical search sites.

Regarding proximity, Patricia says:

"Today, proximity is typically the most important factor in presenting local search results. If a searcher includes a city name, Zip Code, area code, or address in her query, listings are usually ranked according to proximity to that particular location.

Unfortunately, with this approach consumers often have to sift through thousands of returned listings. Certainly not all these businesses are really relevant. Yet they're included in results simply because they have a name, qualified address, and phone number."

It's important when looking at the metrics of your web or blog traffic to identify the keywords and phrases people use in search engines to find your site. (If you do not have a good log file analysis tool, try Google Analytics, it's free and generates great data.) As Internet empowered consumers become more adept at searching in ways that cut through the clutter of millions of irrelevant results, they become more specific in the criteria they use. As mentioned by Patricia, street addresses are an example. We've known for some time now that a well distributed podcast feed provides an impressive amount of direct referral traffic to our client's web sites. In fact, one client receives over 3 times as much direct traffic from one podcast directory as they do from Realtor.Com. That's just the tip of the Iceberg. If you look at the long tail of direct traffic from their podcasting effort, they generated in the month of December a total of 138 direct referrals from podcast directories, 37 direct referrals from the local MLS site and a total of 28 direct referrals from all Realtor.Com sites including realestate.aol.com. (Yes, this client pays for enhanced listings with Realtor.Com) This client has also shown a steady increase in total page views since introducing podcasting from an average of 3,000 to now over 4,000 per month. Pretty impressive.

Now let's take a look at the impact of locality on organic search results in Yahoo and Google. The top referral by far to our client's site was Google organic searches. We know that a large portion of organic searches are the result of the widespread distribution of their podcasting RSS feed.

We decided to do a test using the street name of a podcast as an example of how someone might search. We used just the street name (no numbers) of the listing along with the name of the subdivision or neighborhood in Google. It was absolutely amazing. In almost every instance the search results dominated not only the first few results of the page, in some cases the first three pages generated results from a podcasting directory, or directly to the XML file used for the feed.

Digging further, we started using phrases from the descriptions of properties, specific community phrases and more and we were pleased to find our client show up in the top results just about every time. As I've mentioned before, the underlying technology of syndication that helps make this happen is nothing new, in fact it's been around a long time. It's just recently that it has become an integral part of the web and computing in general.

I've found the "RE.Net"* to be somewhat infatuated with web video lately. And that's great. But most of the fawning is over media that assumes someone is looking at property listing or web content in the first place. Video podcast distribution, when done right, provides not only a means to enhance a listing or content, it provides a a powerful new way to drive relevant, local traffic.

Want to know more? E-mail me. I'll be glad to give you a personal demonstration.

*I'm not sure if it was Greg Swann that originally coined RE.Net, but it sounds a damn site better than "blogosphere", wouldn't you agree?