There’s always something to howl about.

Thinking myself out of business: a lone real estate agent faces the future

loner.jpg Agents get leads from different marketing strategies, both offline and online, but where will most of the leads come from in five years? Looking ahead I’d have to say leads will come mainly from one source — Google.

Unless something changes, Google has the lion’s share of searchers. As more and more home buyers use Google to search for area information and sites where real estate listings can be found, it becomes obvious for listing agents and buyer agents that search placement is, and will be even moreso in the future, vital to success in the real estate business.

Before I go any further, I’ll address opposition to this statement by saying that some agents will continue to be successful using marketing methods outside Google search, but I’m talking about the majority of agents working in the real estate business full time. I’m excluding the mega-agents who attract buyers and sellers through their star status and obviously superior abilities of attraction and promotion — the majority of agents will not be stars. Plus, even the offline efforts that give an agent exposure might be eclipsed after someone gets online to begin searching — an agent’s name might appear in a magazine, or a billboard, or through the mail, or a flyer in a store, or on a “for sale” sign on the street, but when the buyer goes back to their computer to search, another agent who has mastered the art of placement will pop up and lead the buyer in a different direction. I predict the online presence will become more valid in the buyer’s mind than offline presence as consumers learn to trust and depend on the net more and more.

I don’t believe Zillow and Trulia will be major factors in lead generation. If they survive, they will be a draw for those curious about real estate in general, but searchers will be more sophisticated and agents will be smarter about SEO.

It’s my opinion that the majority of agents will need to get good placement on Google in order to be successful. Google placement won’t be the ONLY way to market, just the most effective way to market. I won’t argue about other marketing strategies, and I will amend my proposition if it’s proven to be incorrect. There wouldn’t be so much effort expended on SEO if it wasn’t the best future way to market real estate services — and even though other search engines exist, Google is king and it seems they will hold on to that position for quite some time.

With thousands of agents in most good sized areas, this presents a problem with limited positions for placement. Large real estate companies will most likely compete for the highest placement, although they have other means of marketing themselves through media sources. A few large companies, or association of companies, will most likely get smarter about branding asnd distinguish themselves from the pack. This battle of companies of get good placement will make it difficult for individual agents to get noticed. Agents will most likely feed off the branding of the large companies.

The individual agents who can get good Google placement will be a rare breed. It could happen that it is almost impossible for individual agents to get top placement, unless Google algorithms become even better at making fine distinctions and offer results that are really based on quality.

I know Google prides itself on quality results and has conquered the search engine field because its results are pertinent to the users needs. If they improve then individual agents might have a chance to be noticed, IF they are indeed the best local real estate sources a user could find. This will be difficult for Google to determine if “important links” is still the main criteria for top results — the large companies will have more resources available to “appear” more important to Google.

So, how will individual agents be able to get top placement in five years? There are limited placement spots that are productive. Even if agents paid a large company for exposure through the large company’s SEO efforts, you still have the same problem — the large company could only provide productive exposure in a given area to a limited number of agents — the rest would be lost among the many. If agents started bidding for the most productive spots, the costs of exposure would be expensive.

The Super Team/Super Company may be an answer whereby teams of ten within a company could share the Google placement for specific areas to all their advantage. Local within local, zeroing in to areas of business. The overall SEO would be managed by the Super Company positioning Super Teams for focused areas. It seems to me this is the best way to win the placement battle, through focus (again with the personalization and context). The only sad thing about this solution is that it would eliminate people like me. But looking at it objectively, it appears to be a viable strategy for a real estate company in the coming years, if it’s true searchers are getting more sophisticated and zeroing in on specifics in an attempt to design their lifestyles.

Perhaps Zillow and Trulia would get placement for general results for looky-loos, but the Business 2.0 purpose of attracting true leads (transactions)through search engines would be served through specific results (condo in urban setting with view of park + city state condos). The Super Company would hire the experts necessary to get the placement which deemed best for ROI, not necessarily traffic. The teams would get leads which are zeroed in on their area of concern. This would be a great marketing tool to get listings once you can explain it in a way sellers understand.

Just more thoughts as I wait for an appointment. I’m making myself obsolete, but it’s all about transpanency. 🙂 I guess I could join a team — nah, I’ll just keep battling them all.