Author: Eric Blackwell (page 2 of 8)

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

The last 48 hours has been kind of a blur for me. My friend Gary Lundholm, who is a broker with about 160 agents in a couple of offices in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA emailed me on Monday am with an unexpected need. (I am going to tell you more about Gary in a future post…he is a Bloodhound and his office is thriving in this economy).

The SEAL Team that was killed in the helicopter crash in Afghanistan was based in his area. Among the agents in his office are many Navy Veterans (Gary is as well.) and spouses of active duty personnel. He wanted to do something to help the families.

He purchased SEALKids.com and wanted a site built so that his agents could all help gather donations from the local community as well as the real estate community for the children of these fallen warriors. Their goal is lofty. $100,000 for the kids of these fallen soldiers. Starting tomorrow morning, they will be sending this online to their friends locally.

If you know Gary at all, this is exactly the type of thing he is known for. (He’d never admit that, which is further proof.) So for the last couple of days on and off, we put together a site to help be a collection for funds to be donated to the Navy SEAL Foundation which will go to aid the families, who often cannot ask for help because they need to protect their identities. It is a close knit community.

It has been an honor to donate some time to work on this. I have cried often as I thought of my own kids and as I have thought of these families’ sacrifices.

I am not asking for donations unless you have it and want to give. I AM asking that you share this around with others so that those who can and want to give have the opportunity. I gave. I would not have posted that unless I had. My family and I decided together that it was something we needed to do.

One more thing that I would ask Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Just a passing announcement that Google today officially ended Real Estate listings on Google Maps and Place Pages for individual property listings as well. For those playing the home game, here is the relevant information.

So what does this mean? Not much in my opinion. The reason Google dropped these ventures is that they simply were not generating traffic to the map searches. So, the corresponding ripple effect now that they are ceasing to exist will be equally small.

My take is that if a tree falls in the forest and it is a really small tree (traffic wise at least), then there won’t be a very loud noise. 😉

Thoughts?

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Super busy, but wanted to share…What the Nativity Story might have looked like in today’s internet / Google / social media world…

Merry Christmas to one and all.

best

Eric

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

Now granted, I am not a big fan of Inman News all of the time (I really don’t like people charging for news..I think it is a tired model, but that’s just me and my own bias)..and I am and always have been a big fan of Kris Berg and what she writes.

Why? Because often I find myself just wishing I had pushed the publish button a bit earlier on something and then I find that she writes it with a lot more clarity and humor than I can.

When I grow up, I wanna write like her. And I am sure I am not alone.

Take this post for example.

I am officially tired of people crying foul about Zillow’s reviews. Not because I liked them, but because if you did not want Zillow, you should not have BUILT them (Zillow). And make no mistake, we (collectively as REALTORS who sent our listings to them) built them.

We built REALTOR.com and got pencil sharpenered. (old Russell Shaw reference that you need to Google – grin)

Many of us warned the industry that when you supplant your own online presence by giving your online assets **cough**listings**cough** to others, that one day the chickens would come home to roost and they would do something with that presence (like charge you, review you, sell you zip codes, sell ads on their site to people you find objectionable,etc) that you might or might not agree with.

Whether people like the person they woke up with in the morning is irrelevant. The fact is, they found them attractive at 2 am.

You can always vote with your feet.

So note to real estate industry: If you don’t like reviews, do something about it. If you are ok with it, be sure that you are ready for more of the same. More will be coming.

Note to Kris Berg: Beautifully written. (seriously). Merry Christmas to you and yours. 😉

(Further observation…I think the reviews are a pretty lame idea and my guess is that they will die under their own irrelevant and easily spammable weight, but time will tell.)

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

I just posted a quick note about this blog post that was posted by Roost on Real Estate Industry Watch, but wanted to throw in a quick observation or two as well.

First the facts, then my opinion. Roost has decided apparently to shift 100% of their effort away from generating “blind internet leads” (their words, not mine) and towards their social media efforts. Ok. That was the facts part.

Here comes my opinion. 😉

I am sure that there will be a fair amount of folks saying “You should defend what you do! (search engine marketing)”. Actually I think they made a very calcualted and shrewd business decision. There are too many agents in this business. There are too many brokers. And there are too many online lead generators. 😉 (in my opinion). They decided to try and pick a fight they could win. (Probably a good call.)

As for the search marketing vs social media arguments…they are two DIFFERENT games. They have two different sets of rule. In any given city you can win at either, neither or both. If your game is to see how much you can sell to how many agents, social media is a more attractive play. It is warm and fuzzy and has the bright and shiny objects that so many agents are mesmerized by…

If you are in the search marketing business, it is a play for less agents, because you really are better of being the lead generator for only one or a couple or two in a given town. You just need a person you trust and who is gifted as a closer to close the leads.

Oh crud…I would LOVE to stay and explain more about the differences between the two, but I am actually really busy getting business CLOSED off of the internet… 😉

I wish the folks at Roost the best in this change of direction.

PS – Jeff Brown is right…his last couple of posts are really well written…ah heck, his stuff is almost always great. (grin)

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

For those who want the Campbell’s Soup version of this post:

Not Really. It actually makes keyword research a little EASIER. 😉

For those inquiring minds who want to know why I am saying that, here’s my take. Google Instant does one thing and does it pretty well. As a person enters in a keyword phrase into Google, it suggests possible phrases based on the most common searches that have been done to date AND it shows the relevant results for that search on the fly. Here’s a screen shot or two of what I am talking about.

and then this one:

Okayfine. Let’s look at the finer details. I asked more than a few people to go to a search engine and start looking for a home in the Louisville area. Here are some things that I found out that they typically do. Mind you, I told these folks IN ADVANCE that Google had made a change and was suggesting phrases (and providing results) as they typed them in…

The results? The main behavior difference among them was that they would stop after a WORD and look to see what Google had suggested. NOT after a letter. That makes sense to me. So when someone starts typing “Louisville r “into the search bar in pursuit of Louisville real estate, they see Louisville Riverbats (our AAA team). When they type in the complete word Louisville real, it shows them the search results (and they REMARKABLY similar to Louisville Real Estates’ results)

So this would tend to suggest the effect that Chris Johnson indicated in his comment on John’s post…heading for shorter, more expensive KWs for those doing PPC. For those optimizing their site this is WAY too micro of a thing to worry about. The one percent of folks that truncate their search isn’t going to make or break more than a few clicks at most and CERTAINLY nothing in my opinion to sweat.

Let the dogs bark, the caravan moves on.

Another observation leading to this conclusion. Try typing in your city followed by homes. IF you hit the space bar AFTER homes, you will likely Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

My latest couple of projects have involved a pretty intense look at the state of real estate listing photos. I have been working on some hyperlocal stuff in my brokerage where the listing photos have been a PRIMARY component of the site. I have also been working on a fun site with some friends that celebrates the best and worst of real estate listing photos. (Note to Athol Kay – not sure where your blog went, buddy…but I enjoyed it so much back in the day that I had to get some friends together and do something similar)

Ahh…back to TMI. Have you ever noticed that REALTORS often find that the most difficult picture to take is the bathroom? If you have a listing with a KILLER commode (and a professional photographer) like Christi Dennison (a REALTOR in our brokerage..) you can get results like this:

But for most of us, a) the “John” is nowhere NEAR that nice and b) the camera we use merely captures the top of the toilet tank and a sliver of the side of the shower. 😉

So WHY take the photo? Our listing photos are what attracts folks to see our listings, not unlike Match.com, Chemistry.com and eHarmony.com. Would you get a picture of your LEAST appealling ass-et and put it up there? Did not think so. 😉

I am seeing so many folks take listing photos like they are more of a disclosure of property condition than the “come hither” invite that they should be.

The bottom line?

So I have come to the conclusion that it takes a REALLY GOOD bathroom shot to beat NO bathroom shot at all. It is simply TMI.

Thoughts?

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

I have been buried in 18 hour days lately. My frist inclination towards anything that comes my way has been. “I’m buried. Leave me alone.” or “I will get back to you on it.” But this story tugged at me a little. Enough for me to take action.

See, back in the day here on BHB, Brian Brady put up a post about Ashley Dupree, the person who made headlines with Elliot Spitzer, the then governor of New York. It was more of a lark than anything, seeing how much irrelevant traffic could be generated from a post and from Greg’s being in good graces with Google. Brian’s post proved the power of serch marketing pretty handily.

It is wild to see how this story would affect the life of a fellow REALTOR.

Carolyn Capalbo is a fellow REALTOR in Northern Virginia who shares her name with Ashley Dupree’s mom. Can you see where this is going? Online Reputation Management Trainwreck. Let me have her tell it to you in her own words. You can see at the bottom of the post that she is asking for anyone to help her regain her credibility in Google. Every time someone Google’s her name right now in relation to a real estate deal, they get stories about Ashley Dupree…and pictures. Nice.

RealEsetateWebmasters started an Online Reputation Management contest to draw awareness to the issue. I have had my head down working on code and did not see it until an email crossed my desk. I am far more interested in simply doing a good deed for this fellow traveler than worrying about the contest. (Morgan did throw in some huge prizes to get it going – nice work!). I decided to throw in a prize or two of my own for anyone showing up on the top three pages of Google.

so the goal is REALTORS UP – SMUT DOWN. Pretty straighfordward (grin).

I did put together a Carolyn Capalbo post on EricOnSearch. It is sitting right now at #11…I will be working on that. 😉

So now I am seeing more than a few bloggers start to post entries Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

More than several years ago, I used to snicker at those who were (in my mind) overly concerned about Google OWNING all of the data in their disparate enterprises. “What would happen if they would put all of that data into a large data warehouse and mine it?” folks would ask.

For the most part I thought of that as tinfoil hat stuff. (Did you notice where I said “More than several years ago?” I came to the quick realization that those with tinfoil hats may have a point. And it is not on the top of their heads.

Enter Facebook’s latest privacy debacle. Another site (granted social media vs search engine) that appears to be not NEAR as graceful as Google and dancing on that three way line of conundrums between privacy, monopoly (which Facebook book arguably is…FOR THE MOMENT), and marketing revenue.

I read with interest Louis Cammarosano’s take on the subject. And in very large measure I agree. His take was more bent towards the use of social media in business. But the underlying privacy issues conundrum remains the same. We (consumers) enjoy social media. Heck, it’s FREE. (please remember that NOTHING is FREE-grin). Nothing.

Facebook is making a huge miscalculation (in my opinion) by not dancing as gracefully as Google has. They are giving people an excuse to head for the exits when they had over 400 million people comfortably numb. (That is more than the population of the US and the President only gets around HALF of the vote…and you have to ask yourself…who REALLY is the most powerful man in the world?) It may be more of a footrace between Obama, Zuckerberg, and Page/Brinn than one would care to admit.

Could a President really get THAT many people to waste THAT MUCH time at work??? One wonders.

Although Google has danced more gracefully, that is not saying much.

I guess my wish for 2010 and beyond is this…here’s to competition (it makes all parties better), the lack of monopolies, privacy, and to do that, folks need to be prepared to pay for what they receive in terms Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

One of the things that I admire about Greg is how thoroughly he makes sure that EVERYTHING he can do is done to market a sellers property. Custom signs, coffee table books, the list goes on and on. When it comes to sellers, he gets his money the old fashioned way, he earns it.

One of the quiet unsung Bloodhound heroes of a broker is Cheryl Johnson. If you want to see someone who puts EFFORT into building the best systems for her agents as an independent broker, she has my vote for the best and the brightest. BOTH best and brightest.

One of the tools that she often uses for this purpose is WordPress mu (multi-user). And she graciously left an explanation of how to use it via GoDaddy here on her blog.

In our brokerage, we have quite a few buyer leads coming in. Our agents WANT to treat them to something special, but they needed the tools to accomplish it. So here’s a little (big actually) DIY project using Cheryl’s post that we are just putting the polish on to help our agents treat buyers the way Greg treats sellers and Cheryl treats agents.

We created an ONLINE WELCOME KIT that allows each agent to have a welcome kit **simply a WP blog with EVERYTHING we can think of that they might need** of their own. Here’s one that we did for Stephanie Mattingly in our office. Bear in mind that we are still making changes so you may see a glitch or two as it gets fine tuned. Contact information all goes to the agent directly. It is simply a great way to give potential buyer clients the information they need, including a “Get Hooked Up” Guide to help them connect the dots once they move and a Services Guide to connect newcomers with local services vendors (and connect our agents to them as well.).

If you do the hosting the way that Cheryl describes in her post, the cost is simply a deluxe shared hosting account at GoDaddy. (a few bucks a month across 110 agents…equals pennies for each Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

HomeGain recently published a survey of the Top 10 Most Effective Marketing Strategies For Real Estate Agents. There were some surprises in there. (Mostly for me, the apparently sustained use of print and direct mail.)

But then I got to thinking about it… I started examining how many in the real estate community market their wares and it reinforced something that I have been working on.

Last week I got to go to both HomeGain Nation 2010 and the RE/MAX Convention. In both places I got to talk with SUCCESSFUL agents who are thriving in today’s turbulent times. The common thread among them? That their marketing methods were cost efficient in both time and money in a)starting conversations and b) in bringing folks to a position where trust could be built.

Russell Shaw uses radio. He has a PROVEN system of starting conversations with the leads generated from those advertisements. He knows how to convert those leads into listing clients.

Mitch Ribak knows how to convert buyer leads from the internet traffic generated by HomeGain into conversations and into commissions.

Our source in Louisville? Search engine marketing. Do we have an effective way of converting over 7,000 leads from a status of “not a lead” to a closed commission? We have been working at increasing our closing percentage (so far successfully!) and it boils down to creating conversations. This has been a weak area for us, but I think we are nailing it down now. (And the numbers to date this year back that up.)

The Cluetrain was right. Markets are conversations. Marketing is about generating those conversations. And in my opinion, sales is about CONVERTING off of those conversations.

Why does direct mail still work in the eyes of many as indicated in HomeGain’s survey? Perhaps it is because it brings leads to an agent in a fashion where the agent is familiar with HOW to get them from lead to client. All of the leads from online sources matter not at all if no one becomes a client. There is no reason to search engine market anything if you are not able to turn Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

With the announcement today of the fact that the Department of Justice has approved the deal inked last summer between Microsoft and Yahoo, came a flood of e-mail into my inbox this afternoon.

“What does this mean for search?”

“What does it change?”

“Do we need to focus our organic search efforts more on Bing now that they are poised to power the results of Yahoo?”

” Will they be a REAL competitor of Google?”

“How will Google respond…or have they already?”

“How might this play out in the long run?”

Well, the truth of the matter is that I have been studying this on and off since last summer. Ironically, the Microhoo deal was announced while I was on my way to British Columbia to speak at the Real Estate Webmasters conference. The topic continued to be the buzz while I flew on to San Francisco to speak at Home Gain Live Nation. Why is that ironic? Well…I am just now finishing up the details of going to speak at the second HomeGain Nation Live event as well as going to speak on SEO at the RE/MAX convention. Gonna make for some fun times on the panel at HomeGain in the afternoon and some fun conversations at RE/MAX as well. I am stoked for both. But I know that interest will be there and questions will be asked by a lot of folks in the hallways… 😉

So while I have a lot to say about the merger (after all, I am the nerdy “read the patent applications, hiring patterns and etc sort of a search engine enthusiast…hehe), I am going to embargo most all of it until I speak at these events. I will say the following:

1. Competition is good. It inspires innovation and spurs creativity if it is TRULY competitive.
2. Bing has some MAJOR relevance issues with their search results that need to get cleared up.
3. Google has a whopping lead in market share currently will the combination of two non competitors automagically transform them into a competitor?
4. How much leverage does Microsoft’s vast market presence in the PC market give them? Do you Read more

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

I was thinking this weekend about all of the rumors about Trulia and Google buying them and all of that. I was thinking as well about how both Trulia and Zillow are both seeming to be angling to be the next Realtor.com…

What does that mean…trying to be the next Realtor.com….hmmm…my mind hearkens back to a certain Russ Shaw post here in October of 2007…something about a pencil sharpener. When they say they want to replace Realtor.com, they MEAN it! It is about folks standing in line to take money from REALTORS…right? If not that, then what?

If Trulia is not lining up to give us a ..ummm…sharpening (dare I say that?) then their valuations should NOT include ANY REALTOR MONEY. So here’s the contest:

This contest is for someone to explain in the comments below HOW Trulia is going to generate enough revenue to justify a $300 Million valuation (that is an arbitrary number – just guessing here, boys!) given their current burn rate AND

The contest winner cannot allow ANY revenue to come from REALTORS. Revenue can come from current CPM rates for ads on their site, but how much of their site would need to be covered with ads to generate that revenue? Not sure but my offhanded guess is about 125% of the above the fold area. Revenue can come from other creative ideas. Just not from the REALTORS wallet. 😉

The Prize: 1 hour SEO consultation with me.

See- I don’t get it. I wouldn’t pay $150MM for Trulia let alone $300MM or (heaven forbid) $500MM …so what gives?

Please submit contest entries below!

One last thing: The only thing “stoopider” than a Trulia valuation of that size would be Realtor.com’s valuation of $1.81 per share (it was down at $0.89 when Russell Shaw proposed buying them out…)

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

2009 has changed me. It has been a year of struggle, victory, and in the end… of complete thankfulness for all of the good things that I have in life. Living in America is one of those good things. Living with a family that loves me unconditionally is another. One of the lessons that I learned from this last year was to redouble my efforts to pay it forward and to give back.

I received an email last Sunday night from my friend Nancy Schafer that her efforts to host a child from an orphanage in the Ukraine had paid off and that 11 year old Natasha would be flying here on the 16th of December for an 18 day stay and hopefully to find an adoptive home here in the USA.

My mind raced back to my own family and then directly back to Greg’s Ramblin Gamblin Willy story about Anastasia. I am not a guy that likes Latin much and this to date was my favorite post that Greg has written. If you have not read it yet, please do. If you have, it is worth another read.

“Do your worst. I will not kneel.” has become a mantra that has stayed with me. And now when I thought of an 11 year old flying over 24 hours straight with no parents to meet an unknown person (as great and kind as I know Nancy is, she is an unknown to Natasha) I knew that I must try to help out in my own small way to make her stay here more enjoyable and hopefully help raise enough awareness so that she might enjoy the blessings that I have:

Living with a family that loves her.
Living in a free country.
Being free from the restraints of a caste system so that her dreams can in fact become a reality.

For those who may not think that America is truly the land of opportunity, I would simply contend that we build fences to keep people out while others build those same fences to keep people in. People are dying to get INTO our ‘hood. We Read more