Recently, the folks at The Home Staging Channel (in concert with a prominent social media PR firm, Expansion+) launched a Ning-based social space for home stagers. Check it out here.

http://community.thehomestagingchannel.com

Ning (ning.com) is pretty good at creating and sustaining social networks that might need to scale quickly.

Someone over at Kinetic Knowledge (who apparently doesn't want to be identified) published this justification for not having a thorough and dominant index of content in search engines. If you base your service on technology that is unable to create and sustain a deep and thorough of everything published, this is an expected justification.

While quality typically trumps quantity (no disagreement there), it's important that we recognize the debate was never [solely] about quantity; at its root, it is about thoroughness, and at a higher level, it's about size because without size, you can't achieve a sustainable marketing model for leveraging the long tail. Having a thorough and complete representation of all your content in Google is far better than having only a fraction of your content in Google, regardless of whether the pages are focused on whatever axis your subject expertise happens to align with.

"While having a large Google index might feel like something to brag about - take a step back and ask yourself if those pages are bringing you a return of value." - Kinetic Knowledge Author

There's one thing that's certain about this statement - if content cannot be found, it certainly won't provide any value to you or your prospects. ;-) But I have to ask - if you have pages that you've published, and they aren't in the search indices, why did you publish them? Furthermore, you don't get to decide with ones get indexed and which ones get passed over - what if many of the pages that aren't indexed are key value pages that you want prospects and future customer to find?

Unfortunately, the writer of this article bypasses any discussion of (or requirement for) creating a sustainable marketing model that depends on the shear number of posts that [each day] capture a few long-tail hits on every post, thus creating a continuous flow of new people to your brand. If you're blogging to reach the long tail, by definition, you must have lots of ways to reach the many markets of few in a way that will sustain the effort for doing it in the first place. A small index footprint is unable to achieve this - a large footprint makes it possible, but not a certainty. Suggesting that it's okay to not achieve a thorough and sizeable index footprint dismisses the guidance (outlined here) from an array of SEO experts that have studied this exact requirement.

The writer also fails to embrace a growing and serious implication of poor indexing performance - custom search. Google's CSE (custom search engine) solution depends on your pages being in the Google index, otherwise, like Google [worldwide], your own search engine will always be an incomplete version of reality. When visitors use your CSE, they expect that it contains 100% of everything you've published. If Google (itself) is unable (or unwilling) to index 30% or 40% of your content, your search engine will provide a fraction of the benefit. Perhaps one of the pages that aren't indexed is the difference between getting a new customer and not.

In my view, I don't think it's wise to advise anyone that anything but comprehensive and thorough indexing is a key business objective. Indeed, as the author concludes, nothing is perfect, but tolerating anything less than what's possible and reasonably feasible, is simply an excuse for not improving the SEO craft.

Google opened up Knol to everyone this week and I have a hunch this will be an important idea. Knol (unit of knowledge) is like Wikipedia but with some subtle differences. It will likely become an important player in the knowledge publishing space because ...

1. Google has great search technology, and no information has any value until it can be found.
2. It's an authenticated publishing model; like the scientific community, experts can peform checks and balances on other "experts".
3. The smaller or mode discrete a knowledge artifact is, the greater its value. Knol accomodates this idea.

Create an account and tie your business content into it and vice-versa. I suspect this will generate some interesting visibility benefits for your expertise.

Recently, a client with an integrated Google CSE contacted me and said - "Hey, my search engine is busted; it won't bring up a post that's in one of my blogs!".

This client is using MyST Blogsite as well a few other blogging platforms and he also uses our newsest product MyST/VS, integrated custom search solution powered by Google. It turns out his custom search engine is fine; but what *isn't* fine is the content he was searching for is not in the Google index.

Many people believe that the simple exercise of creating a custom search engine (CSE) for a blog or collection of web sites automatically causes all content in the domains of the CSE to be included in search results. This is not the case at all; a Google custom search engine can only perform as well as the content that exists in the Google index itself.

As many of you know, I'm a big proponent of a large and dominant footprint in Google. I won't rehash my viewpoints on this matter except to point out that with the emerging importance of second-tier search, deep and thorough indexing of our content is even more important. If every bit of your content isn't in the Google index, you will experience an ever-growing competitive disadvantage.

Many people on ActiveRain have challenged my philosophy about thorough indexing in the past; they handily dismissed the benefit of a large Google footprint as a business requirement. With the importance of comprehensive second-tier search, this subjects emerges again; the consequences of a partially indexed body of content are clear - visitors aren't given an accurate set of search results. Missing pages in search results are lost opportunities to provide a complete visitor experience that offers up all your content. An incomplete picture of what you've written may mean the difference between a new customer, and a prospect that wanders off.

Can you Overcome This Problem?

Yes. Fortunately, Google engineers count on the possibility that your content architecture isn't designed well enough to achieve deep and thorough indexing. You can use the Google Sitemap capabilities to submit your unindexed pages directly into your CSE. But, this requires that you know all the URL's of your unindexed pages - a task that could take a fair bit of time to complete. This is not ideal though because you'll have to babysit this process time-and-again to make sure it's kept up to date.

There are some other tricks that can help, so if you're interested in learning more, feel free to contact me.

I was having lunch with a few of our customers last week and one of them remarked that it was a pain looking through all the free content sites for images, articles, and stories that can be reused for blog posts and articles. I had also experienced this - the Creative Commons directories are wonderful, but not as friendly as good'ol Google's format and layout. And the new Creative Commons filters in Google are excellent, but your searches include the entire web - not always ideal if you're trying to narrow your scope to professional produced images, videos, and text.

Sooo... I decided to build a comprehensive aggregation of all the great content sites that are free (or mostly free) and host it at GimmeFreeContent.com (Note: the DNS may still be propagating). This search engine is still a youngster with plenty of room for growth, but like the content it recommends, it is free to use so spread the URL.

I also have plans to add more free content directories and lots of other resources related to helping you blog faster and better. Be sure to submit your suggestions and comments - I'm sure this could be greatly improved and I'm confident many of you know of some great resources.

I've never been a big fan of using free content for blogging, but I've changed my tune after researching this arena. I was amazed to see the number of sites and catalogs that offer great images for free and open use in blogs and websites.

Enjoy. Cheers! --bf

My last post was about unifying search across multiple domains to create a better search experience for your visitors. It’s no secret that real estate businesses typically have multiple domains, so I thought it fitting to write about the challenge of unified search here at Active Rain. However, any business with two (or more) domains is challenged to create a unified search experience, so this series of posts is important to every business segment.

At MyST we spend more time innovating than any other activity including selling; our CFO reminds us of this all the time. But we’re on a never-ending quest, and our recent research into custom search engines has uncovered some startling revelations that will change how we think about search.

Background

Until recently, our research and product development has focused primarily on helping business and marketing professionals create a sustainable and dominant presence in search engines and other Web 2.0 systems that help people find information. Our objectives have been constrained to produce content optimized for discoverability in Google (worldwide). I use the term “worldwide” to indicate the entire Google index; the one most people on the planet look to for recommendations.

As I mentioned in a previous post, few months ago we started to see a pattern; website (and blogsite) visitors that were increasingly dissatisfied with the second phase of search; this is the search process that begins after Google (worldwide) has recommended a handful of domains based on a given query.

The Two Phases of Search

The topology of the web has been slowly transforming into a sea of domain expertise nodes – clusters of smart and very focused sites created by individuals, teams, businesses, governments, clubs, social networks, etc. Blogs, websites, and social networks are the predominant implementations that enable domain expertise to surface on the web rapidly and become more findable. But the emergence of clusters representing focused expertise has created a new challenge – with all these loosely-coupled information silos, how do we manage the ability to search across multiple [disparate] applications without including the entire public web?

The search process is typically a two tiered experience; for most people it starts with a generalized search that includes more than 100 billion pages on the Internet (and growing). People have learned that to get close to what they're looking for, they must focus their keywords and use more of them. But the results generally point to pools of content that are likely to contain answers. The second phase of the search process begins once a pool of information is recommended; typically this requires a deeper search within a company's domain. But (as noted above) the definition of a “company’s domain” has shifted with the advent of multiple domains and loosely-coupled information sources. This is where the trouble begins and the visitor experience may suffer.

While Google may find reasons to highly recommend one or two pages in the same domain for a given query, it typically won't consider all related company domains or sub-domains within a given search result. In fairness, Google wants to provide a diverse selection of good recommendations – this is a sensible approach. Imagine a single company dominating the top ten results for a particular query - Google users wouldn't find this behavior very useful. Given the way Google works, searchers may be able to get close to the content they want, but the second phase of the search experience (which begins when they land on one of many possible domains of a company) is typically lacking in many ways.

This is not surprising; search solutions are usually implemented differently from domain to domain, and the variety of publishing, content management, and web applications in use by a company tend to exacerbate search continuity challenges. Few systems have the ability to easily integrate or scope searchable content across specific collections of domains. Visitors [however] have far greater expectations – they expect to find answers within the domain(s) that Google recommends. In many cases, the first recommendation may not be exactly what the visitor was looking for, but most people are patient enough to search one more time using a site search feature. This represents a sizeable opportunity to engage the visitor, but if you want to capture attention and keep visitors from using the back button to go back to Google (worldwide), a unified search experience for 100% of your company's resources is necessary. The more resources you can offer them for easier discovery, the more likely they'll continue to investigate your content.

Participating in the new topology of search will require comprehensive organization of your customer-facing content, and Google is providing precisely the framework to make this possible. Everything you’ve published (website, blogsite, social network, forum, reservations tool, partner content, online catalog, etc.) matter even more. Access to this focused sphere of content becomes more critical the larger the Google index grows (e.g., as the size of Google’s worldwide index increases, the ability to find information [directly] decreases). The trend concerning custom search engines is clear; it's a new extension of a proven idea that will radically shape how we find good content, and it’s already happening – people now search for good places to search for what they truly want to consume.

The Revelation

The second phase of search must be agile and dynamic. In the realm of custom search engines, there are domains, facets, and refinements and each must be configured in a context. Simply stated, if your business content spans five domains, you need a search engine that includes all five domains. But more important – the context may change depending on each visitor’s experience and wants.

To that end, our research forced us to coin the phrase “fluid search”. Before you hop over to Google and type that in, let me save you some time – there’s only 5,700 references; most concerning hydraulic and bodily fluids. Fluid search is a simple idea – create a user experience that possess enough agility to keep your visitors engaged. Here’s an example…

Imagine a visitor has landed on a specific blog post (from a Google query) about a new community being built in your town. While the post performed exceptionally well by ranking high in Google (worldwide), it’s just a start as far as the visitor is concerned; she wants more information and immediately clicks on a new unified search component feature that’s embedded right in the post. It says – “Click here for a deeper search on this subject.”.

With one click the search application provides a list of all posts in the blogsite and website related to the subject that attracted the visitor through Google. In this example, the list of resources is pretty thin because it’s a relatively new community. However, the search application has anticipated the possibility that broadening the scope of the search to include all pages linked to from the blog might produce additional interesting content, and it does.

The originally unified search application has expanded its scope to find three additional stories that were linked to from other blog posts that weren’t closely related to the original query. This is an important point worth introspection –

The search engine has magically transformed itself (on the fly) to consider off-domain pages that the collective businesses’ domains have linked to about the community in question.

This is the definition of a fluid search application. Building a search experience like this is not easy; it requires a bunch of stuff that we don’t have time to go into. Besides, the business requirements are far more interesting to consider.

We’ve learned that our customers want the experience described in the example, and we’ve built the infrastructure to achieve it. More important – we built it in a way that seamlessly integrates into MyST Blogsite services which are easily upgraded across our services. We also designed the technology to integrate with non-MyST blogging tools and web applications. Drop me a note if you’d like to be considered for beta testing this technology.

I've become somewhat of an expert with Google CSE (custom search engine - launched in 2006) and this is one very cool tool. Our clients typically ask for a unified search solution that encompasses their blogsite, website and perhaps other domains such as forums and social networks. Typically, these services are each separate systems designed by separate vendors, so providing a unified search solution is difficult.

Googe CSE's make it possible for anyone to create and manage a fairly comprehensive solution to this problem. Furthermore, you can integrate the search UI and results into your blog, your website, or any other web page you have control over. There are many ways to integrate CSE's - my favorite is to use the Business Edition and take advantage of the XML API. But this is not required if you just want the basic functionality.

For giggles, I created a CSE for Vail Valley, Colorado - check it out. If you have questions, feel free to ask - happy to provide additional guidance and insight on this

I'm amazed there are so many business people that believe they should try to monetize their weblog or website by selling ad space. Apparently many businesses are so dissatisfied with the benefits and performance of their online marketing strategy that they feel they must lower the total overall cost of this activity by going into a different business altogether. This is just silliness.

I was on a panel at NAR this week with the folks at Blogging Systems; they're clearly bright people - they've written a book about business blogging. But they're misdirected. David Crockett, the panel moderator and owner of a community blog by Blogging Systems, suggested that it was a good idea to go around to your community members and try to sell them ad space on your blog for $75 per month. What? Did I hear that right? I thought he was a real estate professional? This suggests he's building an online portal to sell ads - isn't that Yahoo!'s gig?

Consider the hidden costs of engaging your company, your time, and your brand in this activity.

Your Brand Focus - You risk brand confusion by placing ads for other products and services on your pages. This is just one more way to show people how to leave your site or become interested in something besides that which you sell. Nothing says web site success like a bunch of links to another business.

Your Company Focus - Ads suggest to customers and prospects that the advertisers must be more important to you than your own prospects and business focus, otherwise you would use that space to your own advantage.

Your Message Focus - Exchanging valuable web page real estate for a banner or AdSense ad robs you of opportunities to say something important to your prospects. Consider the opportunity cost because it's a double whammy - not only are you bluring your marketing message, you are foregoing a chance to capture prospects by sending them elsewhere to buy other goods and services.

Your Time - Why would any business spend their valuable minutes each day to even ponder this idea? It requires time to establish new revenue models - ad selling, contracts, negotiating, banner placement, responsibilities, ad changes, etc - all these tasks represent costs, and the revenues are miniscule compared to your own time-value.

Think about it this way - if you could say something to a new prospect in the same place you put a banner ad, what would the value of that message opportunity be to your business? Placing a Goggle AdSense or banner ad might net you 15 cents per impression. Are you willing to forego using that space to say something important to your next web visitor in exchange for something that's valued less than a stick of gum? Anyone that would tell you this is a good idea is blessed with economic illiteracy.

You might get $100 per month for a local ad, but that's only $3.33 a day, and for what - the chance to create a diversion for your audience? I put this into the you've-got-to-be-kidding-me class of business ideas. This is a fine strategy for people that write content for a living - indeed - people that are bloggers and have few options to monetize their content. I believe people like Mr. Crockett are simply misdirected by the booming voice of "bloggers" that believe business people should become "bloggers" and use blogs exactly as they have. In my view this is the first step to losing focus of what you sell, and why you blog for business objectives.

Here's some advice - if the value of a new customer is at least as valuable as two month's total ad revenue, consider this a really bad idea because there's a good chance that greater marketing focus and a stronger message will net you at least one additional customer every 60 days. Another way to look at it - would you rather have an extra $900 or 6 more customers next year?

************** update *************** 

I rarely update a post once I publish it, but since so many folks are beating me up on the premise that their own ads have actually increased credibility and improved user satisfaction without any risk or cost, I thought it would be a good idea to bring in some research that helped shape my own philosophy of ads. With specific regard to credibility, consider...

There's a really useful site called the Stanford Web Credibility Research center for understanding all this techno-mumbo-jumbo about credibility and web sites. Below are some anecdotes that relate to the true cost of hosting ads.

"If possible, avoid having ads on your site." - here

"Although banner ads are often said to be ignored, they are not transparent to users. Ads can reduce Web credibility in varying degrees." - Stanford-Makovsky's 2002 Web Credibility Study

Given that online marketing initiatives such as blogsites and websites are specifically intended [by most users of these technologies] to enhance visibility, it goes without saying that credibility is one success factor of that endeavor. Why would you purposefully do anything that erodes your credibility? Many sites do, but I sense they do so without factoring in the true cost. And to be clear, there is a context where you might answer this affirmatively - when the net revenue from ad serving is greater than the loss in percieved credibility.

"Sponsorship provides an interesting lens through which to view Web credibility. Sites that were advertised on the radio or other media were reported to get a moderate credibility boost (mean = 0.77). Asking about advertising from a different angle, our study found that the credibility gained by using targeted online ads was nearly negligible (mean = 0.22)." - What Makes Websites Credible

An understanding of sponsorship (i.e., using banner and text ads) really compelled me to think carefully about the question of ads. If we think about how the sponsors of a web site affect credibility we can state with almost certainty that sites that have ads that match the topic you are writing about, will produce a .22 mean credibility advantage to the site itself. To get a persepective of what this really means - consider that if you advertise your site on on the radio or other old media outlet, you can expect a .77 mean boost in credibility - or about 3.5 times more credibility over [just one] hosted ad that is specifically about your content. A .22 mean increase is not bad, but as the study found, it's very close to negligible.

"For the most part, our respondents reported that advertising damaged a site's credibility. Simply having an ad on the site led to a slight decrease in credibility (mean = -0.60), while pop-up ads were regarded even more harshly, seriously damaging the perceived credibility of the site (mean = -1.64). Finally, sites that made it difficult to distinguish between ads and content were reported to be the least credible of all; the mean here of -1.90 was the most negative score in this study."- What Makes Websites Credible

But the data is equally compelling and underscores a risk factor when you consider a site with an ad on every page - the mean credibility loss is -.60; simply stated, with almost absolute certainty, we can predict that any site with an ad on every page has diminished credibility - not much, but absolutely a non-zero amount that is functionally equal [but opposite] of the credibility benefit of advertising on old media outlets. A pop-up ad will net you a mean loss of -1.64, and blending ads so that they're difficult to pick out will create a negative credibility score of -1.90.

In my comments below, you will see my assertion that hosting ads typically comes with a cost - a potential net loss in percieved credibility is indeed [one] component of that cost.

I just finished Mollie Wasserman's new book, the same title as this post. It's an ideal book for someone like me - I'm just an ordinary consumer in the world of real estate. I do have a little more insight into this industry, but not enough to give me any significant advantage; perhaps just enough insight to be dangerous.

This book is a ripping good reference that consistently reminds you how important a complete working knowledge of real estate is if you want to be a successful homebuyer or seller. Mollie explains in no uncertain terms how valuable a good real estate professional can be - no rational person could read this and ignore her insightful advice.

I like Mollie's style - very down-to-earth; she makes the entire subject of real estate more approachable for the average consumer. I especially liked the section about the four financial potholes to steer clear of and I won't spoil her book sales by revealing them here. ;-) Overall, a very enjoyable and quick read that exposes a number of hidden aspects of real estate that serve as excellent guideposts for everyday homeowners and investors alike.

This may be another one of those topics that I know least about - the impact of the Web on the use of print media in real estate. However, I'd love to get a better understanding from people that know a good deal about the use of magazines, newspaper ads, and other print media for advertising homes. I'm particularly curious about the relationship between print media and the Web today, and in the future.

The following dialog with a friend started me wondering about this tenuous relationship between the Internet and print media. Please read it and lend me your thoughts - my friend's comments are in quotes - my observations are italicized. I'm not suggesting any outcome is either good or bad - I'm just pondering what the future holds for print media.

"... most realtors have highly visual websites ..."

This is the stuff of Web 1.0 - an era when only humans trolled the web. As such, visually appealing sites that were designed for people and relatively simple in functionality, met the exact requirements for businesses and its customers.

"Blogs aren't necessarily as visual as traditional websites."

Correct - the success attributes of a Web 2.0 site must factor in the machines (i.e., the crawlers, agents, bots, and every manner of non-human arbitration possible). To be successful they must be "visually" appealing to machines and humans, but machines have a different definition of "vision" - a definition that is largely based on business rules and content topology.

"If home buyers & sellers are all searching online first and blogs generate SEO then why would any realtor need print?"

Precisely the symptom of a coming disruption. When it becomes cheaper and more efficient to communicate without paper, paper will become irrelevant. Looking at it from another angle - when it becomes cheaper and more efficient to find and select homes without obtaining paper pamphlets, the internet will be most relevant. It's easy to speculate that the tipping point is near - 77% of all real estate quests begin online. This might correlate with a slow but constant drop in print effectiveness which we seem to hear from time-to-time. But is the growth in online search really the harbinger we assume it to be?

We can see parallels in other industries. When was the last time you actually read a paper prospectus? Or stopped by your travel agents office to select from a wide array of travel pamphlets? When was the last time you paid an accountant to use a pen to fill out your tax return? Print (and paper) is almost meaningless in these three business sectors. Why would the future of real estate be any different?