Realtor.com Marketing Blog By BrianCanHelp

Inside the NEW Realtor.com Beta - Your new listing details.

Brian Horan (Realtor.com) — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:12:23 -0500

Hello Everyone,

We've recieved a lot of great feedback on the new site since the first beta release, but we're always happy to get more. In this post I will be delving into the anatomy of a new Realtor.com listing. If anyone could recommend a good screencapture program for mac, please do. I would love to take you all on a video tour of the site to show some of the more robust new features.

Here is a picture of a new realtor.com Showcase listing that has been reduced in size to show the majority of the listing:

The main change to the listing details is that we have eliminated many of the "tabs" and text links present on Realtor.com "Classic." The effect of this is to create a page that is more intuitive for consumers and will encourage them to engage the Realtor who is hosting their listing. We are still adding some functionality, but here are some visuals on the other key changes.

1) New "Gallery View" of photos and "Integrated" Contact Information

In the past, only one photo was shown at a time, with others displayed as thumbnails along the left side rail. Agent Contact Information was previously "floated" off to the right side. This view does a better job of tying the agent to his/her listing, making the listing seem less like "advertising" for the agent.

2) Agent's Other Listings displayed with a Photo.

3 of the agents other similar listings will be displayed with a photo. These listings are selected based on geographical area and price.

3) Integrated Map and Contact Form

This is another elimination of the "tabbed" parts of the old Listing Detail Pages. We've found that more consumers respond when the form is included on the listing page, as opposed to having to click a text link or skip to another tab. This is designed to encourage more communication between Realtor and Buyer, which has been one of the most pressing issues for Realtors in the current market.

I hope you are all as excited about these upgrades as we are. Please respond with any thoughts or questions. If you would like to take the Realtor.com Beta site for a test drive, please visit http://beta.realtor.com.

How do you measure web traffic?

Brian Horan (Realtor.com) — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:10:04 -0500

Hello everyone,

I've been talking to a lot of people lately about "traffic" and everyone seems to have a different answer for what it is and how to measure it. Is it Unique Users, Site Visits, Page Visits? It it measured by time on site or pages per user? I still don't know what the majority of agents are using to chart their traffic, but I thought I would share some of the resources I've found to be the most helpful.

1) Alexa.com - This site is owned by Amazon and is a recognized leader in traffic rankings. It simply ranks the most visited websites from 1 to infinity. Not all sites register on their list, but all of the major real estate portals do as well as mid-size brokerages and some agent sites too.

2) Compete.com - This site measures unique users, however I haven't been able to get my site to come up in their results yet. Probably because i'm in the hundreds in UUs per month rather than the thousands. Still it gives you a snapshot of the UUs for the last full month on almost any website.

3) Quantcast - This is the last site that I found and I don't know much about it, but it seems to give the best info in terms of user demographics and similar sites. I didn't check out any of the smaller sites (like mine) but it did pull pretty comprehensive metrics on the sites I did try.

Does anyone have any other good resources? I like these but want to make sure that I'm not missing out on any others. Also, I hope this helps others who hadn't even heard of the above mentioned resources. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

Realtor.com Launches NEW Beta Site - Take a test drive!

Brian Horan (Realtor.com) — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:38:35 -0500

Hey Everyone,

As I wind down the week, I wanted to take a moment to share some very exciting news. As of yesterday, Realtor.com has launched it's new Beta site. It incorporates many new features and an updated look and feel. This site is available to the public through an opt in link at the top of the realtor.com classic home page or directly at http://beta.realtor.com.

Classic:

Beta:

What are some of the key differences?

For Consumers:

Realtor.com Basic listings will now include the first 4 photos from the MLS.
Consumers will be driven from the Home Page to the Search Results with no Interim page
Consumers can search by list view, map view and new gallery view.
Listings are viewable on most PDAs/SmartPhone Devices
Most MLS systems will update every 15 minutes on Realtor.com

For Showcase Members:

Photo gallery will incorporate images that are 119% larger than basic.
Agent and Office branding integrated into listing details as opposed to "floating" on the right
61% increase in Agent name and brand recall (based on March '08 study)
Your listings will now display information on 3 of your similar listings with first photo.
Your listings are 20% larger on the search results page.
More than 60% of searchers now see Showcase homes as "nicer homes" (based on March '08 study)
No more tabs - Neighborhood Info, Lead Capture, Mapping are all integrated into the listing page.

For Featured Home Members:

Featured Homes now appear at the top of every search page.
See Previous Post

Those are just a couple quick highlights. I invite all of you to test drive the new Realtor.com and tell us what you think. If you do not want to comment, feel free to email me directly at brian.horan@realtor.com.

Regarding Featured Homes on Realtor.com

Brian Horan (Realtor.com) — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:39:11 -0500

This is a post that dovetails from George Anton's original post in February. I was hoping to address some of the negativity surrounding the Featured Homes marketing system on Realtor.com.

For those of your who don't know, featured homes on Realtor.com are an upgrade to showcase listings. They are purchased by zip code, and each zip code has 8 spots total. These spots link people directly to your enhanced listings from a placement on the interim search page before consumers are actually looking at search results. This is why, many times, agents do not quantify the traffic as coming from featured homes, but instead believe it is a result of their showcase listings. It is impossible to tell if someone clicked into the listing from a featured home or a regular search. The one thing that is indisputable is that having a featured home guarantees your listing a lot more exposure on the site.

Still, in my opinion (I can only speak for myself), the featured home product has gotten a little stale. Which is why I am happy that Realtor.com is in the process of revamping the product's location on the site. Featured homes will soon be appearing across the top of every search results page instead of just the left side of the interim search page. This change will be a major benefit to all of our featured homes clients resulting in more exposure for all featured homes clients.

I would also like to address the reason why Realtor.com is still a great investment. We are the number one website on the internet for real estate traffic by a large margin. According to compete.com we had over 7 million unique users in the month of March. Our numbers are only growing in a market that is slumping across the nation. Just as the top realtors are consolidating business with newer agents leaving the market, so is realtor.com consolidating our traffic in the real estate sector.

Marketing is about crafting a message and getting that message out to the largest qualified audience, to build your brand, and produce results over the long haul. If you're looking solely for leads, (and many agents are at this point) then you would be better served by products other than featured homes and showcase listings. We have products to help with that. Showcase Listings and Featured Homes are for marketing yourself and your listings to people searching for real estate, even people who are already represented by another agent. They are great when leveraged in a listing presentation and are a solid addition to any marketing plan, but they are not a lead capture system. We can't make people connect with you, that is ultimately your responsibility.

My earlier blog posts address how to get the most out of your Showcase Listings. If anyone has questions on how to use featured homes to their greatest impact, just ask. I would be more than happy to do another post on how my top clients use these positions to maintain and build business.

Enhancing Your Listings on Realtor.com - part 2

Brian Horan (Realtor.com) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:02:09 -0500

Okay everybody, Now that we've mastered your yard sign, it's time to get a little more detailed. Many realtors do not realize that your listings on Realtor.com are like full page ads in the most circulated newspapers" in the world. Would you run a full page ad that said next to nothing about your listing? Next to nothing about you? Would you ask the people looking at your ad to contact you or visit your website? If you do it on a print ad, then why wouldn't you do it online? The listing enhancements on Realtor.com are also accessed in the Realtor.com Solution Center. Again, if you don't know what that is, then this post probably won't make much sense. For basic instruction on the "data entry" portion of these comments go to the instructional page on my website. Here is a quick rundown on all of the available enhancements for your individual listings:

Video Tours/Virtual Tours
Photos
Headline Banner
Property Description
Scrolling Text
Open Houses

Video Tours/Virtual Tours Many Realtors use virtual tours and pay a handsome cost for them. I believe that virtual tours can be extremely valuable as a "value add" for your sellers. One thing to know about these tours is that the only way that they can appear on Realtor.com is if your vendor is a member of Picturepath. Your virtual tour provider will not be charged (and therefore neither should you) to upload virtual tours for Realtor.com Showcase Listing members. Video Tours are a different animal though. This feature was introduced to Realtor.com in July of 2007 as an alternate or supplement to your virtual tours. In the Youtube era, it has become increasingly popular to show off your listings with streaming video. The good news is that this can be both more enjoyable and more cost effective than traditional virtual tours. Many of the realtors reading this post probably already use video and just didn't know that Realtor.com could accomodate it. For those of you who are "video virgins", fear not. You only need a few simple things to get started:

a camcorder
a computer (you probably already have one that will do just fine)
a video editing program

Your Realtor.com videos can be in any major format(.avi,.wmv,.mpg, etc.) and a maximum of 50 megabytes. If you don't want to spring for the camera, I would recommend at least getting a program to convert photos into a video slideshow. Set the slideshow to some music and voila! you've got a "video" to upload to your Realtor.com listing. Photos Did you know that photos were listed by 82% of homesearchers surveyed by the NAR as the most important feature when searching online? Did you know that Realtor.com accepts up to 25 photos on each of your listings? If your MLS only lets you post a smaller number, you can add more on the Realtor.com Solution Center. We already import your listing photos from the MLS, so in many cases their restrictions provide you with a tremendous advantage. "But Brian, whatever do you mean?" you ask. I mean this: For every Realtor that puts more photos directly into Realtor.com, there are hundreds who only display what we pull from MLS. That 1 extra photo that you add can be the difference between showing up on the 1st page and the 5th. So do yourself a favor and add some pictures already! Now, many of my realtors tell me that their listings don't have 25 photos. Okay, well aside from the obvious(why did you take the listing in the first place?), here is a suggestion for at least one extra photo. Go to your paint(or similar program) and create a jpg picture that says the following: "For more information on this home, or others like it, visit my website at www.YOURWEBSITEHERE.com." (Don't worry, I won't come after you if you steal my phrase verbatim.) Headline Banner What is a headline on Realtor.com? A headline is that little line of text that appears as a gold bar above your listing in the search results and again at the top of your listing when clicked on. It is the only way for you to manually change the messaging that buyer's see before they have clicked into the listing details. This is what gets buyers to view your listing! It is limited to 60 characters, so keep it short and sweet. Here are some ideas for things to use as a headline (in no particular order of importance):

a unique property feature
a prestigious neighborhood
price reduction or buyer's incentive

For Realtors who don't have any time and want a more templated option:

Call To Action Message:"Call 800-555-1234 for a private tour"
Personal Promotion: "Another John and Jane Doe Showcase Home"

Property Description There isn't a whole lot to say about Property Descriptions that you don't already know. As a Realtor, you are probably very capable of writing a flattering description of even your least desirable listing.(Of course you don't have any of those.) You probably even have that description loaded into the MLS already. So all you need to do is upload it to Realtor.com right? Wrong! You see, Realtors know other Realtors. But buyers don't! So you've got to establish who you are in the minds, and hearts, of the buyers looking at your listings. In order to do that you should have a stock biography or "about me" paragraph on every listing. You should also have this paragraph saved as a .doc or .txt file so that you can easily access, copy and paste it into all of your listings. (Tip - This will also have the added bonus effect of pushing your office name and phone number further down the listing page.) Scrolling Text Honestly, scrolling text seems kinda dated as technology goes. But it does accomplish one thing. It's eye catching. People's eyes are naturally drawn to things that are moving. Add a little color and it's all over. You see, for the same reason that people are drawn to photos, they look at scrolling text. So in that instant that they look it is important that you say something important. Here's are some examples of what I have found works best:

"Search my listings at www.YOURSITEHERE.com"
"Find out if it's the right time to buy at www.YOURSITEHERE.com
"Buying? Selling? Get my insider advantage at www.YOURSITEHERE.com

Those are just a few, but they all direct people to your website. If you would rather have people call you, ask for that. The point is, if you don't ask for it, you won't get it. One more thing, giving something(anything) away for free helps provide those buyers and sellers an incentive to contact you. Open Houses Last but certainly not least are Open Houses. With houses "open" 24-7 online, many Realtors are asking themselves, "Why do I keep up with this antiquated ritual?" The answer to that question is, "Duh, networking!"(note: you can replace the "duh" with your choice of regional diction) Open houses provide an opportunity for you to meet potential area buyers and sellers(i.e. - nosy neighbors) and impress upon them your unique talents and abilities. They also help justify your commission in the eyes of your sellers and help show the "results" of your marketing program. You can list up to 5 upcoming open houses on Realtor.com at a time. Once the date of the open house has passed, it will drop from the site. The best advice I can give on open houses is to get them up on your listings as far in advance as possible. The buyers who see your open house online are looking on Realtor.com for the convenience, so in order to entice these savvy shoppers to your open house, you must first be conscious of the value of their time. Be sure to also use the Open House Description and not just enter the date and time. A good idea for the description may include something like this:

Buyers, make sure that when you stop by you ask for a copy of my FREE local market trend report.

Summary Whew! That took longer than I thought. Way to show your perseverance! You may have noticed the lack of links in the last several sections. The reason for that is that site content on Realtor.com is constantly changing. Over half of the listings on Realtor.com update every 15 minutes. Is your MLS one of them? I hope this post helps you all get the most out of your Showcase listing enhancements. Questions? You know what to do. Comment baby! I'm always here to help!

Enhancing Your Listings on Realtor.com - part 1

Brian Horan (Realtor.com) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:27:12 -0500

Hey Everyone, So I've promised many of you some tips and tricks for really getting the most out of your Showcase Listings. Well... here we go. My goal by the end of this post is to make sure that none of my agents ever has a listing without their online "yard sign." All of these edits are going to be made in the Realtor.com Solution Center. If you don't know what that is, then reading this post isn't going to help you all that much. If you just need some directions to the place, you can click on the following link:Realtor.com Solution Center. If you don't have your login and password, you can request it from me here: Password Request. That said, now we can actually talk about your yard sign. What goes on a yard sign anyway? Your name? Check. Phone number? Check. You probably also have your website address and maybe even a snazzy photo. All of this is important for a yard sign. So why don't many realtor's have this information on their Realtor.com listings? The answer is pretty obvious, they simply don't know. If you don't know what your listings look like on Realtor.com, just go to our homepage and do an advanced search by the MLS number of one of your listings. Once you pull up your listing, click into it, look to the right and... there's your sign! How do you look? If the answer is, "not as good as I thought, Brian," try some of the following tips.

Make sure your name is ordered and spelled correctly. Nobody will call you if your own name isn't right. How do you pronounce Jhon anyway?
On second thought, better spellcheck everything.
Have a flattering photo taken of yourself to upload to your sign. We're not talking "Glamour Shots" here people, just something simple and preferably taken within the last decade. Two might be pushing it a little.
Only list phone numbers that come directly to you. Your broker's number is already on the listing, and as thankful as they will be for the extra exposure, I would prefer that you get the business from your advertising.
If you have a slogan, make sure that it fits into our 50 character limit. If you don't, try something like "Click my photo to visit my website."
If don't have a website, get one. It's the 21st century for cryin' out loud. In the meantime, link to your page on your company website. If your company doesn't have a website, you may want to change companies.

With all of that information on your yard sign, you're off to a great start. You're almost ready to enhance your individual listings. But first, I'd like to point out one more important part of your account information section in Solution Center. Did you know that the "Areas you specialize in" section actually provides the information for our Find a Realtor Directory? The section is provided for you to enter city names so that you will appear in those searches when consumers are looking to find a realtor. The zip code section is not relevant to the search, so you can leave that field with your primary zip code. The last point I would like to make about Account Information is this: Get it right the first time. Make sure that you stay under all character limits for each field on the page before you save your changes at the bottom. I didn't write this post for you to do all of this and then break your computer in a fit of rage when it doesn't work. Questions? That's what comments are for. Just do it. Stay tuned for part 2.