{"id":3075,"date":"2008-05-09T12:33:58","date_gmt":"2008-05-09T19:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=3075"},"modified":"2008-05-09T12:33:58","modified_gmt":"2008-05-09T19:33:58","slug":"thinking-myself-out-of-business-a-lone-real-estate-agent-faces-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3075\/thinking-myself-out-of-business-a-lone-real-estate-agent-faces-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking myself out of business: a lone real estate agent faces the future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"loner.jpg\"\u00a0Agents get leads from different marketing strategies, both offline and online, but where will most of the leads come from in\u00a0five years? Looking ahead I’d have to say leads will come mainly from one source — Google.<\/p>\n

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,\u00a0vital to success in the real estate business.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0working 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\u00a0will 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\u00a0consumers learn to trust and depend on the net more and more.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Agents get leads from different marketing strategies, both offline and online, but where will most of the leads come from in\u00a0five 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,10,19],"tags":[153,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-3075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-marketing","7":"category-real-estate","8":"category-realty-reality","9":"category-technology","10":"tag-google-placement-for-real-estate-agents","11":"tag-real-estate-trends","13":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":789,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/789\/maybe-we-need-more-salaried-agents\/","url_meta":{"origin":3075,"position":0},"title":"Maybe We Need More Salaried Agents","author":"Doug Quance","date":"December 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been running some stats on advertising, Google rankings and agent performance over the last couple of days. One of the top agents in Atlanta has not had a selling-side transaction all year. Very unusual for this agent. Another top agent - who ranks very high in Google and has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9331,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9331\/is-activerain-selling-loan-officers-an-exlusive-opportunity-or-just-selling-their-real-estate-agents-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":3075,"position":1},"title":"Is ActiveRain Selling Loan Officers An Exclusive Opportunity, Or Just Selling Their Real Estate Agents Out?","author":"Mark Madsen","date":"July 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've received a few emails and calls from my loan officers this week about some new exclusive opportunity that Activerain.com is pitching to the mortgage industry. Apparently, Active Rain is cold calling mortgage professionals who have an AR blogging history and offering them an \"extremely rare opportunity\" to pay $299\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dirty Laundry"","block_context":{"text":"Dirty Laundry","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/dirty-laundry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"active_rain_making_money_off_the_backs_of_loan_officers_by_using_agents_as_a_carrot","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/active_rain_making_money_off_the_backs_of_loan_officers_by_using_agents_as_a_carrot.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15573,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15573\/real-estate-brokerage-models-jeff-browns-dad-and-dead-cats\/","url_meta":{"origin":3075,"position":2},"title":"Real Estate Brokerage models, Jeff Brown’s Dad, and Dead cats.","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"January 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have never read what Jeff Brown writes, STOP. Go read it. Seriously. Go to the right sidebar, scroll down to the Bawld Guy and click the archive link. Ok. ;-) Jeff's recent post brought up some good conversations that I want to shed some light on from my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9567,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9567\/real-estate-branding-post-google\/","url_meta":{"origin":3075,"position":3},"title":"Real Estate Branding, Post-Google","author":"John Rowles","date":"August 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Do real estate brands mean anything to homebuyers post-Google? When the MLS was printed in a binder that brokers hid under their desks and consumers had to shop for an agent first, brand mattered to buyers. Now, buyers come armed with a list of properties that are relevant to them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1216,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1216\/skewer-you-jack-youre-the-guest-of-honor-at-a-feeding-frenzy\/","url_meta":{"origin":3075,"position":4},"title":"Skewer you, Jack! You’re the guest of honor at a feeding frenzy","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"FBS Blog:Think about this: Trulia\u2019s brand is trumping the franchise brand, requiring payments to Trulia, and the franchise brand is trumping the brokers\u2019 and agents\u2019 brands, requiring payments to the franchise. At the same time, the brokers and agents in the field are building the business relationships that form the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17107,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17107\/the-news-is-not-that-zillow-is-going-to-have-agents-its-going-to-have-newbies-for-agents\/","url_meta":{"origin":3075,"position":5},"title":"The news is not that Zillow is going to have agents. It\u2019s going to have newbies for\u00a0agents.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Housing Wire: A Zillow spokesperson told HousingWire that these people are already employed with Zillow, and will be getting real estate licenses. Zillow said it will not be recruiting for these positions. It's a boiler-room job \u2013 in the same article, George Laughton says Zillow still won't be getting its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "iBuyers"","block_context":{"text":"iBuyers","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/ibuyers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/austin-distel-97HfVpyNR1M-unsplash-480x320.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}