Real Estate Marketing Techniques that Work!

FACT: Twittering Impacts FICO Scores. Believe it.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:30:02 -0600

Just when you thought it was perfectly save to Tweet while still in your pajamas... Just when you thought it was safe to invite another friend to your Facebook Mafia Wars... how you act in Social Media is being watched and measured. And soon, thanks to a firm called Rapleaf.com -- how you Tweet may be affecting your FICO scores.

Rapleaf.com -- is a new firm that has been trawling, collecting and selling your Tweets, Hugs, Causes and Pillow Fights. I'm outraged and shocked to have learned of the existence of this firm and quite frankly -- I think this is a huge intrusion into my private part of my life. I'm rather pissed off to learn that my chirps on Twitter can determine if I'm a credit risk or not.

I don't mind blogging. I don't mind having to remove the occasional Twitter leeches following me or the college co-ed who wants me to help pay for her tuition, getting me to pay $39.95 to see her chat naked from her dorm room.

I do mind having my blogs and chirps collected then sold to the Government or the Credit Bureaus.

So, being naturally inquisitive -- I've written to and called on Rapleaf and speak to any member of their executive staff. I've yet to hear back from them.

Apparently, Rapleaf.com's sole business purpose is to tap into the gazillions of Tweet's then they sell the data.

After spending a lot of time on their website, it's my guess that they sell a watered down version of this data cleverly disguised as "social network business intelligence information," that companies can buy.

My main concern is this: Are they selling data to the U.S. Government and the (3) Credit Bureaus jam packed with personal stuff that neither you nor I want them to have? Your name. Your Twitter account. And how many times you broadcast how many cars you counted driving past your house.

The question begging to be asked is this;

Is blogging with nothing to say, Chirping what you just ate for lunch, asking too many people to Hug you, join your cause, pillow fights, Mafia Wars... is this that sort of activity branding me as a moron, a person with a mental disorder, or as a credit risk to Equifax?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Rapleaf.com is rumored to have drawn it's business and domain name from "RAP sheet," -- the kind of criminal record "nickname" used by the police. Rack up too many NEGATIVE points and you start to fall in what is being being called their "RAP sheet zone," which rates you as a bad credit risk.

Unless you've never watched the movie with Gene Hackman and Will Smith (Enemy of the State) or any other Government conspiracy movie, you need to know that the CIA is watching you through a very real and scary electronics surveillance project called ECHELON (yes, that is the REAL name).

There are a handful of very hot "key" words that the Government screens for electronically to identify possible homeland security threats. This is called the Patriot Act and the law permits the CIA to monitor your email, blogs, your cell phone and analog land line communications.

There's lots of good money in collecting this kind of information. I managed to call up all (3) of the Credit Bureaus before the Turkey Day Holiday and all of them confirmed they are getting data like this from multiple sources. Not one of them would disclose how much they pay for this data or how often they get it.

Below are the sources where they said data is being collected from on all of us;

Twitter
Facebook
MySpace
The U.S. Government
Lexis Nexus
Your insurance companies (including medical records)

Insurance companies have been using your FICO scores to determine how much of a risk you are behind wheel or not. In fact, many insurance companies use your FICO scores as a bigger determining factor over how many parking tickets you have.

Once I have a candid conversation with one of the principals of Rapleaf.com, I will post it here. But for now, keep in mind that your Tweets on Twitter are being monitored and are possibly being used against you.

So before you Chirp how bored you are by Tweeting that you are sitting on your porch," think twice and think about an intelligent thing to broadcast (instead) in your 140 character chirp.

Smart Chirps as opposed to stupid ones, just might fool RapLeaf into thinking you're 20 IQ points smarter or more successful than you really are, and you might see your FICO score go up simply because you a more socially smarter blogger.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

BiG Marketing Mistake Boo-Boo #1. Don't Lie.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:43:50 -0600

A new FSBO For Sale by Owner website is spinning up called Fizber.com. Please bookmark this post and tell as many REALTORS about this one as it's another website NOT to trust.

It's another Bartman Marketing Bozo Alert.

Because they are advertising they will POST your listings on websites that have been shut down for more than a year.

Google Base
Oodle
Vast
Olx (never heard of this one before)
Local.com
Info.com
Redfin.com (Oh gosh, the dreaded e-broker!)
Propsmart.com ( Really? They're dead. Shut off and went off line 15 months ago... )

I personally spoke to the founder of Propsmart.com two weekends ago. He's happy doing a book thing now and let the real estate portal to die more than a year ago. PropSmart.com started about the same time Kayyah.com and Trulia.com got started in 2005. PropSmart.com had a crawler or robot that literally "scraped" photos and information from other sites and published it on PropSmart.com.

Today, you can defeat this sort of crawler or bot easily.

Your Webmaster or IT guy or girl simply create an .HTACCESS file on the server and posts an allow/deny statement. You DENY access to a specific IP address the crawler is coming from, or you simply block out the name of the robot or crawler. This advanced block technique is why you do not see hundreds of Kayyah.com's or Trulia.com's out there.

Personally, it sounds really impressive to hear that any firm is pushing your listings out to a bunch of other portals we never heard of. Until you read the sobering facts of where your customers actually come from.

The fact is, 74% or more of your traffic is going to come from Google and some REALTORS are reporting success with CraigsList.com. In 2008 and 2009, an independent marketing poll of 10,000 Brokers and REALTORS revealed that less than 4.4% of leads coming from Realtor.com resulted in the procuring cause for the sale. So apparently, the public isn't going to Realtor.com as much as NAR says there is. See? Another liar.

When you catch any firm in a middle of a marketing lie, how can you trust them? Fizber.com says they advertise listings on a website that has been dead for almost 16 months.

That sort of marketing blunder can create doubt in any customer's mind. And I blame the CEO for being a bozo. Anyone who says stuff like this, immediately qualifies the identity of their character.

If they lie about something like this... what else are they lying about?

FACT: The BBB has demanded that Sprint.com STOP saying they are the most reliable 3G network. Apparently this kind of marketing hubris is a big virus out there with lots of firms making lots of claims that they can't really back up.

It's interesting to see that "Ready-Fire-Aim" continues to be the approach many start up firms continue to follow. Hurry up. Be sloppy. Lie. Tell the entire planet you post properties on websites that develop ZERO leads for REALTORS and tell people you post properties on websites that don't exist anymore.

Way to go Fizber -- you just made the Bartman's top 20 list of Websites not to trust.

Now another 152,000 REALTORS know about it, too.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

AOL Needs to DIE. Not Rebrand itself.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:57:36 -0600

I was reading an article in Advertising Age today and I was wondering how many REALTORS and Active Rainers are using AOL today?

A question to all of you out there who are Soccer Moms and REALTORS --- Do you use AOL right now for your kids? Do you go there to look at Video clips?

My research says: NO. Many of you don't, but I'm just curious of any Active Rainer's are using AOL at all and if so -- for what purpose?

Right now AOL is thinking of rebranding itself as Aol. Big "A" small " o" and small "l."

It's as stupid and lame as calling yourselves' Realtors instead of REALTORS®. AOL = Aol. It's the same thing. The embarrassing part of this idea is that it came out of a brain storming session with their Advertising Agency.

Rebranding didn't stop AOL's Running Man logo from running away and fading into nothingness. Leaving the AOL company awash with thousands of layoffs and senior executives abandoning the firm like rats who sense danger, abandon a sinking ship.

Rebranding is a classic "save the company," tactic that seldom works. Even in real estate. For example, I have a client who used to be independent. Then, they signed up with a national real estate franchise. Now they owe the franchise so much money for their 7% royalties, they're thinking of going independent again. The problem with rebranding is the same. Unless you get rid of ALL of the old management team, nothing is going to change.

We come up with catchy new slogans. But 99% of them never work to change the image that people have of your brand or image.

Catchy slogans are nice -- but that was advertising 30 years ago and does nothing for solving AOL's problem today. Famous Creative Directors like Saul Bass or Lee Clow would want to re-brand or re-invent the firm. But 30 years ago, there was no Internet. There was no desktop computer. No iPhones. No Crackberries. No Realtor.com, no MLS.

30 years ago, Social Networking meant you drove to the Chamber of Commerce or a business networking meeting for a "meet and greet." This was the analog version of Social Media. You actually dressed up, drove somewhere, stood in a room of strangers and stuck your hand out and gave people you never met before your business card and you told them what you did.

America On Line is suffering this same sort of problem. It's the 1980's equivalent of the old fashioned, "Meet and Greet," networking. Too many other brands, too many other technologies have surpassed AOL and since the speed of change on the Internet and technology can be equated to dog years, AOL is now 107 years old.

People live to be about 75 or so. At 107, you'd expect anyone to be on death's doorstep a long time ago.

So rebranding AOL isn't going to change their image in a lot of our minds. The very name itself says: We're a Dial Up Company. We were the firm that taught you how to use the Internet ten years ago.

You say: AOL. I say: Aol... changing the name doesn't do anything to make you want to use them anymore. If you want to find something, you Google it. AOL's market share of the Internet today is less than 11%. Yahoo is about 18%, the rest... GOOGLE.

Some brokers had no clue how to adapt to using technology. For some, even AOL wasn't stupid simple enough to use.

One of my former clients, qualifying broker had to call his assistant into his office and have her click on a few icons on his Dell PC so he could surf the Internet or check his email. So for a few people, even AOL wasn't stupid simple enough for some people to figure out. But today, many of us would refer to AOL as an 8-track company. Remember them?

They had a short life span. Because 8-track stereos were eventually replaced by Cassette Decks, which were then replaced by CD-ROM, which were then replaced by iPods.

AOL TODAY -- no mater how you slice it, is the 8-track company of the 1970's. Nobody listens to 8-track tapes anymore except one guy I know named "Eddie," who lives in New York. He also happens to have a Beta VCR, too.

Reinventing your old 8-track name and saying you do video now is just as stupid as when A1 Steak Sauce came out with A1 Chicken Sauce in 1981. It was an expensive $16 million dollar flop. Why? The brand A1 means "STEAK SAUCE." You can't use the old brand to tell people you now have a good "chicken sauce."

AOL's old brand can't do new things like launch video services. Apparently AOL never read about A1's $16 million dollar failure. Because using the same name or brand and telling people, "Look, AOL does video now," is going to result in the public reacting "Okay, so what?"

You're going to compete head to head against Google's You Tube? I don't think so. Your arms are just too short to box with God.

Here's another lame example of the same thing.

ASK.com used to be AskJeeves.com. And Rupert Murdoch pours gazillions of dollars into rebranding AskJeeves to just Ask.com and launches a ton of TV commercials touting ASK.com is a better experience that Google.

Uh-huh. As smart as Rupert might think he is, rebranding ASK.com into the minds of billions of people already using Google was a real stupid mistake on their balance sheet.

I even wrote him and told him that if he was willing to toss millions of dollars into the toilet on that idea, maybe he would want to invest into a real company with real good ideas and I suggested he call me.

I'm still waiting for his call.

And so it follows, the big mistake that AOL has done by trying to market Video.AOL.com became a huge expense on their balance sheet. My sources tell me AOL is $172 million in the hole (so far). The bozo who thought of that idea, thinking they could trump YouTube.com or Hulu.com is right now (my guess) either hiding right now or simply out of a job.

AOL's brand was permanently engraved into our minds as dial up company bulletin board service. It will never be anything more.

Later, AOL became a "flash in the pan," as Steve Case became a part of the Road Runner, Time Warner roll up and they bought what was left of Netscape after Microsoft decimated it. But just a few months ago, AOL became so unprofitable, it was unwound from the Time Warner family. They simply gave AOL it's had and was shown to the door.

Below is just a small sliver of the AOL's Chronology for 2009 alone;

January 2009, AOL fires 700 people
April 2009, AOL hires Google's Tim Armstrong to be new CEO
May 2009 - Time Warner gives AOL the Boot and separates.
September, AOL's Chief Operating Officer Resigns (she was named COO by Tim in July 2009. Go figure.)
November, 2009. 2,500 more layouts announced.

BOTTOM LINE: Any CEO or product manager knows the concept of "cradle to grave," responsibilities. People are leaving AOL and thousands of layoffs are taking place. It's simply time for AOL to die. So why postpone the inevitable?

If I were CEO, I'd scrap the company in 6 months. Here's what the AOL Board of Directors needs to do right now;

1.) Package up the client list, sell it to Steve Balmer at Microsoft.

2.) Take any proprietary technology they have including their Software as a Service (SaaS) and sell this to Lycos.com who is very big in Europe and might need a shot in the arm of new technology.

3.) Take the AOL Instant Messenger and license the crap out of it to 3rd party firms or sell it altogether. Right now, one of the MOST useful apps I have on my iPhone has got to be the AOL Instant Messenger. The one for $2.99, not the free crappy one. No matter where I go, I can have anyone Instant Message me from their computer or iPhone for free. This bypasses the TEXT message system of your iPhone so I can chat as much as I want without having to pay AT&T's $39 dollar "Text as much as you want," charge.

4.) Cash out the A Grade Players who have stayed with AOL for the past 15 years. Everybody who has stock at AOL wins. From the $92,000 a year System IT people down to the $29,000 a year customer service (telephone reps).

5.) Hold a big party. As AOL gets cut up in little pieces, we need to celebrate what they were and what they did.

Bon voyage AOL. Thanks for teaching us how to chat, and how to use the Internet. But you're 107 years old now (in Internet years) and we really didn't expect you to live that long anyway.

INSERT AUDIO: Taps plays here

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Google to Improve Featured Ads for REALTORS

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:34:55 -0600

Google is always tinkering with new ways to make search more relevant -- and charge you MORE MONEY for making your real estate website stand out.

They won't do anything to make your me-too McWebsite template look more attractive. But at least Google will let your Google Ad stand out more with a GOLD STAR if you are the most relevant search for the next time home buyer looking to buy a new home in Cincinnati. Or San Francisco. Or anywhere else.

Google is experimenting with a RELEVANT search and a GOLD STAR now. See below for two searches for an example how this looks.

Google is running a limited number of tests to determine how the market is going to react to more relevant ads using tiny images placed next to them.

Meaning simply if you search for just REAL ESTATE you're not going to see relevant ads for a specific city search because a search for general terms like hotels, real estate, foreclosures etc is just to BROAD of a search string. But if you type in: Cincinnati Homes for Sale, then you're more likely to get a series of relevant ads for that geo-centric search.

Google has never allowed (until now) the use of any images placed alongside or with their AdWords program. This could open up a whole new way of looking at Google ads for specific markets like real estate.

Imagine the use of a tiny Coldwell Banker logo or a Keller Williams logo next to your AdWords ad.

No matter what happens over the next few months, the use of a tiny image next to any Google AdWords ad is going to help YOU stand out and drive more clicks to your website.

So while Google might not help people STAY on your $99 a year McWebsite template because it looks like 15,000 others --- you can at least get a few more clicks and more visitors to your website.

More Google news coming later.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Actual Bad Example: Why McWebsites are BAD for your Google Ranking

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:27:40 -0600

I enjoy getting REALTORS sending me their website to ask a few questions, as Karina Leal did of Florida.

She had good visibility once upon a time and used to get 10 leads a day.

In her cry for help, I stopped and took a half hour to look at her website. As you follow along with my analysis below, perhaps you can use this example and look at your website and see if your real estate website has similar problems.

As for Karina -- she can fix her own problem if she follows my advice. But the first thing she has to do -- is fire her website provider right now.

Karina's Website -- Click Here

Website Keyword Analysis Score: F

The website has too many key words of Delray buried in the home page. Just scroll through it and count them up. Ouch. Apparently Google might have penalized this site for key word stuffing.

Bartman's SEO RX Fix: LESS keywords for Delray Beach. LESS is MORE.

Website META Tags Score: F

A few tags are good, but look at the Pragma Cache tag. It says NO to Google and other robots. You might as well take a steak knife and cut your own throat, because this is EXACTLY the same thing. The Javascript popup tag is also another Google killer. Google hates POP UPs and Pop-Under Java code. Keywords and Description tags are not in the right position, either. No Google verification HTML tag. I doubt there will be any Robots.txt or a Robots.xml file in her server folder, either. All of this means she fails the META part of the test.

These are her METAs now. Below are the cleaned up METAs they should be.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
	<head>
		<title>Delray Beach Real Estate, Boynton Beach Real Estate, Boca Raton Real Estate for Sale Rent Leal USA Realty </title>
		<meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1" />

		<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" />  <-- Big Mistake Big Mistake Big Mistake

		<meta name="keywords" content="Delray Beach Real Estate Boynton Beach Real Estate Boca Raton Real Estate Broker Karina Leal Estate Broker Highland Beach Real Estate Broker Hypoluxo Yacht Club Waterfront Intracoastal Properties for Sale and For rent KFuri" />   <-- Description TAG always goes BEFORE the Keywords tag. And Google since 2002, doesn't need the keywords tag anymore. So you can dump this meta from your website right now and it will make ZERO difference in where you rank )

		<meta name="description" content="Delray Beach Real Estate Boynton Beach Real Estate Boca Raton Real Estate Delray Beach Real Estate Broker Karina kfuri Leal Broker Highland Beach Real Estate Broker Hypoluxo Real Estate Yacht Club Waterfront Intracoastal for Sale and For rent " />  <-- Big Mistake. You cannot use the DESCRIPTION TAG like KEYWORDS tag and if you stuffed it like this... once more you are asking for trouble. )

		<meta name="google-site-verification" content="vAXf8-fBBJdqx1RIr9DSsnrV0yiElgvKOzeNOq0yz5U" />   <-- This is GOOD. )

		<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/Styles.css" />
		<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/templates/themes/floridahouse/styleSheet.css" />
		<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/flashobject.js"></script>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/themeScripts.js"></script>
		<script type="text/javascript" SRC="/scripts/flashPopup.js"></script>   <-- Big Mistake. Big Google NO NO.

BELOW are the RIGHT META TAGS for her Website. Compare this to yours.  IS YOURS this CLEAN and spotless?



<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Delray Beach Florida Homes for Sale | Boca Raton Real Estate </title>
<meta name="description" content="Real Estate Website offering free MLS search for Delray Beach Homes and Real Estate for sale in Boca Raton">
<meta name="keywords" content="delray beach real estate, del ray beach homes for sale, boca raton homes, boca raton homes for sale">

<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<meta name="googlebot" CONTENT="index, follow">
<meta name="document-classification" content="Commercial">
<meta name="document-rating" content="Safe for Kids">
<meta name="document-distribution" content="Global">
<meta name="rating" content="General">
<meta name="author" content="SEO and SEM by Voyager International">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="vAXf8-fBBJdqx1RIr9DSsnrV0yiElgvKOzeNOq0yz5U" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/Styles.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/templates/themes/floridahouse/styleSheet.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/flashobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/themeScripts.js"></script>
 <!-----   new meta tags, November 18th, 2009   ----->   </head>


Below is how her Website SEO Metas would look if she did this properly for GOOGLE SERP.

Use of Contextual-Extensible Menus/Navigation Score: F

The Website uses a template from A la Mode. This is fine if you don't care about natural search engine results. (SERP). A La Mode is a fine company. But you get what you pay for. In today's market, too many next time home buyers are going to be hyper critical on the "me-too, cheap looking," websites. And they are going to click their BACK button and go to another website they found on Google.

I AM NOT BASHING A La Mode, but you have to understand their place in the world of real estate, me-too McWebsite providers. The market is awash with them. Advanced Access. #1 Expert. eNeighborhoods. AgentImage, Point2Agent and there's hundreds more.

These are good firms if you do not mind looking exactly like everybody else out there.

If you've had one for five or seven years and you are right now on page one of Google, you are to be congratulated but you are in a handful of agent websites that numbers in the hundreds. hand tooled SEO friendly websites and Bloggy Websites like Word Press websites are ranking better and higher now than your Homes.com website did. Lou Frey was an agent in Santa Fe and for years, was always on page one of Google when you searched for "santa fe real estate."

Now, Lou has to pay Google every month for PPC ads to rank somewhere on page one. If his website was hand tooled, or Word Press driven -- he could be naturally found on page one of Google in position 3 or 5. His META Title is wrong. Says nothing about Real Estate in Santa Fe. It just reads: Lou Frey. This tells Google absolutely nothing and Lou just like many other REALTORS make this same mistake.

Getting a cheap website for a 2nd stealth website is good. But for your primary But in today's real estate market, thousands of REALTORS are being handed their hat and shown to the door. Many of them unwillingly. If you do not take control of your website and spend a few dollars on a custom website, then you can enjoy mediocrity and watch the Amazing Realty firms and million dollar producing agents pass you by.

Bartman's SEO RX Fix: Fire A La Mode and get a small designer to build you a website from scratch. Add an IDX from iHomeFinders to the home page and link Hot Sheets to Neighborhoods. When people come to your website, they could care less about reading about you. Show them homes. That's all they want.

UDM4.com is where you tell your webmaster to GET this code and make your navigation CONTEXTUAL and EXTENSIBLE. Google SEES these kind of keyword rich navigation items as they LOOK like graphic buttons, but they are actually TEXT. Google loves Contextual navigation. Yum Yum Yummy!

Lack of Focus.

The website has no real focus. The site is a long scrolling document filled with too much text and not enough graphic OOMPH to pull in visitors and covert them to leads instantly. Adding an IDX and an easy sign up is important. You can test this by going to the site and simply observing WHERE your eyes go.

Bartman's SEO RX Fix: FIX THE MISSED OPPORTUNITY: Don't bury the Obama $8,000 tax credit in text. Get a nice cool graphic and show people you know a thing or two about design. There's a lot of people out there who just don't have all the facts on the $8,000 tax credit. Educate them.

Below are some examples of some really good websites that are SEO friendly, and make use of Video, and sticky things to pull customers into the site and instantly sign up as a lead. I did a few of them. The rest are just good sites that other firms have done.

Colorado Springs Team

The Ultimate Properties

Shadow Creek Estates

..................................

If any REALTOR needs some help with SEO for his or her site, let me know and as I have time these next two weeks, I will show you how to do BETTER on your website and point out the step-by-step fixes you must do to fix the problem.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Google Android Phone or Apple's iPhone. Which is Better?

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:03:56 -0600

When a good company starts going too many directions, when it starts to create too many new products, too many new services... the firm begins to lose it's focus. And so the Bartman predicts this may soon happen to Google sooner or later.

Al Ries is one of my favorite authors. He wrote a book that I still read (or listen to the audible version) every few months today.

Focus. The Future of Your Company Depends on it.

Apparently, nobody at Google read this one and this book has been out for more than ten years.

If you haven't read this book or listened to the audible version of it. Get it. Read it. This should be a book on every REALTOR's bookshelf today.

Google has Google Search. Why they're building a line extension and developing an iPhone me-too product with Verizon is a poor idea.

It would have been wise for Google to have stayed with this just that one service including Google Paid Search (AdWords). But this is the problem when you get too much money. You want to spend it. You want to tinker. You want add things.

Nobody told Google that less is more, and this is where I see the big problem for Google down the road.

Google's Search has pretty much replaced the Yellow Pages. I don't think a lot of you bother going to Yahoo or MSN anymore to search for anything today. Neither do millions of other people.

I have a few pounds around the middle I want to lose and I was impressed with the Bowflex Treadclimber.

I Google'd Treadclimber Best Price. Albuquerque.

Then I went to Yahoo and did the same search. Wow, talk about cluttered. Finding WHERE the search box was hard enough. Yahoo plasters so much crap on their home page these days you just can't help but be distracted every time you go there.

1.) OK is a new word now. I've been using OK and Okay for most of my life. Thanks for letting me know now it's OKAY to think of OK as a word.

2.) Southwest can take me a lot of places, one way trip eh? $59 bucks. Nice to see them slashing prices. But no thanks. I'll drive, thank you.

3.) (off the page) But I've got an ad for Scottrade.

4.) Ashlee now has black hair. So what? My mom changed her hair color last week. It's easy to do. Does anybody care about that?

5.) Americans in Uproar about 911 Masterminds Being Tried in New York. Why bother? They're war criminals. Shoot them. Get it over with. Jeez.

6.) Horoscope. Sports scores. Personals. Weather. Why is any of this important to me? I just want to find a TreadCimber please.

7.) Popular Searches. Says who? One click to Sara Palin, Clint Eastwood. Okay, fine. More distractions for my eyes.

8.) FINALLY! A Search Box! Yay, I found it. Hiding in plain sight.

Google is really good at Search. They are also really good at Google Apps and a few other things that add value to your Internet user experience.

Okay -- if you've read this far by now, you're wondering where my point is if you based your interest on the subject of my title, right? Fine. Let me get back on topic here. The Google - Verizon ANDROID Phone.

The only thing good about Google's Android phone, is the TV commercial.

A bunch of Stealth fighters come streaking into the skies and the camera pans close up to the bomb bay doors and they drop their weapons. We then see a lot of people looking up at the sky, watching these bombs or missiles streak down from the heavens where they sort of whump into the ground.

Curious looky-loos step cautiously to the meteor-like holes in the ground and then the commercial gets cheesy.

The dark bomb-like objects open up and reveal the Google Verizon Android phone just as some cowboy mutters "what in the world is that...?"

Nice commercial, but I feel cheated. I was hoping it was the sequel to 2012 or a movie sort of just like it.

I was at the mall the other day, and I stopped into the Verizon store and picked up an Android Phone. It's black, and slick looking. I immediately pulled out my iPhone 3GS and placed it next to the Android just as a Verizon sales representative came up behind me.

"Looking to upgrade or switch from iPhone to Android," the man smiled big like a Chesire Cat.

"Ha! Fat chance I said," I'm still pissed off about the crappy way Verizon baited me with that TV commercial. I thought was going to be a really kewl new movie and it's just an ad for the phone."

He quickly lost his smile and looked at me in disbelief, "So... how may I help you, sir?" he asked.

"I'm the electronics buyer for all of Sandia Labs, and I need to see if you can handle an order for 12,190 of these little puppies," I said.

"Wow? Really?" he said.

"No, I was just joking. I'm not buying a single one. I'm writing an article about this thing in ActiveRain. It's a Blog website that has about 150,000 REALTORS there and about 80 or so follow my blog pretty regularly."

By this time, he was getting frustrated by my teasing and insulting. After a few minutes of Quid pro quo he quickly realized I was only going to taunt him some more if he stayed around. So he meandered back to the other end of the store.

Just as I was starting to become to play with some of the Android's phone applications, Britney Spears came up to me and smiled and asked if she could help. Okay it wasn't really Britney but she was a close ringer as far as looks and that Pepsi smile goes.

"On my iPhone, I can pinch maps and the browser and zoom in and zoom out. The iPhone has this basic feature and so does the Palm Pre," I said to the Britney Spears look alike.

"Oh, she says, Motorola or Android haven't turned that on yet," she smiles and beams at me.

"So..... why are you selling the Android with that basic feature being crippled? Pinch zooming in and out is a really basic feature here. Didn't anyone think that was sort of important to have before you rolled this out?" I ask.

Then Britney hands me a Droid ERIS. She said the phone is $99 bucks and it does allow you to zoom and pinch to enlarge your maps and for Website browsing. it was nice, compact. lightweight. The Android is bigger and bulkier. There's no waste here with a physical keyboard. It was sort of Apple like. And it was a fraction of the price of the much more expensive Android.

Just as I was staring to smile, she blurts out the bad news. "Only a handful of applications are supported and the ERIS supports the older operating system. Not the newer, slicker one that Android has."

Two phones. Same carrier. Two different feature sets and lots of inconsistencies. This is really stupid.

Truth be known, I was shopping to see if it was worth my time and money to develop a new IDX specifically for the iPhone and the Android.

Since we are developing a brand new IDX system with a ChirpIDX feature for Twitter, I can tell you that developing a similar application for Verizon starting to look like a complete waste of my time and money. I made the decision right there inside the store... isn't going to happen.

The two different Operating Systems and the problems with them not supporting pinch mapping are a real deal killer for any serious GPS developer. The day we'd release this for our Ohio client, they'd be bugging me when we'd be supporting pinch mapping. Motorola nor Google has turned that feature on. Okay, this idea alone makes the front page of Stupidity Illustrated.

This might be fine for Verizon's 89 million subscribers, but for simplicity, my money is on Apple's iPhone to be the clear winner here.

Which is why the Bartman predicts more and more useful applications for the iPhone and REALTOR needs for GPS mapping and useful software will only continue to get better on the iPhone platform more so than Palm's Pre, Blackberry or the Google/Verizon Android or ERIS smart phones.

I only wish AT&T's service was better for coverage. More Bars in More Places? Ha! Not where I live. LESS Bars in MORE Places is more like it.

But for use-ability, nobody beats the Apple iPhone user experience.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Is DMoZ Dead now? No More Open Directory Project?

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:20:33 -0600

Do your hear the TAPS playing for DMOZ now? I do.

DMOZ is the Open Source Directory Project. Or was. I'm not sure if the service is dead. Dying or on Financial Life Support. All I know is the site is not working and nobody seems to care about fixing it. I've been trying DMOZ now for months. I get the same screen below every time I try to add a URL to them.

So Brett, Billie, Jane... I'm working away on your SEO... but I think someone out there just pulled out one of the legs on the chair I was standing on. It's not a death sentence, it just means we have to do more on incoming links, Twitter bursts and some page content.

Does anyone else out there on ActiveRain know anything about DMOZ? Enquiring minds want to know!

If you're not familiar with DMOZ, technically speaking, this is where the Internet started it's first catalog of everything on the planet.

Websites.

Cameras.

Even Real Estate offices.

It used to be that getting your Website into DMOZ was something to really Yahoo about (pun intended.). Getting listed into DMOZ means that AOL, Google and the other search engines could start indexing you and ranking you higher in the Natural Organic Search Engine Results Page results (SERP). Today, Blogging and Twittering seems to be a fast way to get this done but so many people are not Blogging the right way, and a lot more are not using Twitter effectively.

Google has become the household word now as evidenced that the phrase, "Google it," is now a part of Webster's dictionary now I think. Who uses the Yellow Pages anymore? Your computer, iPhone or Blackberry has Google so you just use that instead.

It's never been easy or fast to add your website to DMOZ largely because they are not run by robots, crawlers, and a lot of the automation doo-dah's you'd expect to find at Bing / MSN, Yahoo! or Google.

DMOZ is run by live people. They manually approve sites submitted to them. Sometimes it takes months to get even reviewed. Why? Because the editors are not paid to read your emails and try to figure out where to put your website if you submitted it to the wrong category. DMOZ Editors are non-paid volunteers.

The site is always asking for people to become editors, but that's not easy to become one, either.

Let's assume you're a real estate agent and you have a real estate website you want to get listed into DMOZ.

It sort of becomes a conflict of interest for you to be a REALTOR in Pleasantville and naturally, you want your site to be listed and you want to be an Editor at the same time. So you might not want other broker or agent websites to be listed in Pleasantville. Just yours.

For that reason alone, it's hard to fake your way into the good graces of DMOZ as an editor and getting your Real Estate Website listed at the same time.

So forget the Editor part. You submit your website. And you wait. And you wait. And you wait.

And weeks or sometimes months later -- you get approved. But 90% of them submitted get denied.

But getting approved means you have to make your website read like plain vanilla when you describe it.

You cannot use words like;

We're #1.
Premiere Realty in Pleasantville.
Etc., etc.

You must be very, very careful to tone down the use of any flowery, or puffy marketing statements about your site. So getting listed into DMOZ required that you wrote your description like a librarian is the only rule to follow.

Like the sample below.

DMOZ has been really quiet for year. I've yet to get anybody's website listed there for over 14 months now and in my opinion, they've been largely forgotten about and is about to become extinct.

If you Google the phrase: DMOZ is DEAD, you get a lot of links with other people like me who seem to be wondering where the Editors are, and what the heck is going on with DMOZ anymore.

Sharks can smell blood in the water, and the Bartman predicts that Steve Balmer (Microsoft) will want to buy DMOZ out or maybe one day, Google will. Until then, we should all keep a watchful eye on what happens with DMOZ.

Because once upon a time, it was the only way to guarantee your website would ever be seen in the Yahoo, Google and other search engines and directories.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Follow Me on Twitter: My Google Rank Drops. Why?

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:08:18 -0600

For years now, we've been reading and seeing how to get our Websites ranking higher on a natural search results page on Google.

Two years ago, Twitter comes along and now the spirit of true, Herd Mentality, thousands of REALTORS have moooooved on over to copying what the other REALTORS are doing -- hoping and praying the technique will generate more leads and sales commissions.

We copy the same links; Follow Me on Twitter. And we make the mistake of putting too many Follow Me links on our home page despite the fact you've probably spent years trying to get people to COME to your website... you tell them to GO AWAY.

Weeks later, your visibility goes down and you are left wondering what the heck just happened?

Too many redirects from your home page is not only stupid, it's the fastest way to see your page one #1 Google rank drop to #2. Then, it drops to #3. And the slide just keeps on a-sliding down... down... down.

A former SEO client of mine has a website ranking page one #1 for seven years. Then a year ago, they added the Twitter Follow Me bug. And the Linked In Bug. And one from Christies Great Estates.

You spend thousand of dollars on a new site and SEO work. Then you spend MORE money with your offline marketing efforts telling next time home buyers to GO TO www.SantaFeProperties.com.

Then when you get people coming to your website, your home page tells them to GO AWAY. Find us on Twitter. Find us on LinkedIn. Find us on Facebook.

That might sound silly, but this is exactly what your website says to visitors you've tried to come to your website for months or even years of working to improve your Google ranking. Now that they find you, you tell them to find you someplace else.

Trust me, this can be leading up to; Lead sabotage. And thousands of REALTORS and brokers are just watching their leads drop, and they think by placing the Follow Me links on their website will increases leads... it can create the opposite effect.

People will click on things and links because you give them reason to do so. They are not immune to Herd Mentality either.

After a few clicks, is it any surprise why your visitor is now looking at properties from Amazing Realty instead of yours? For too many REALTOR websites, it's clear to me that too many of you are suffering from Mad Cow Disease, just like Denny Crane from Boston Legal.

It doesn't have to be that way. You can use Twitter and other links to your advantage, but you need to use them wisely and correctly.

There are SMARTER ways to use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Below are Bartman's Top Ten SAFE Ways to Use Social Media effectively to keep people coming BACK to your website from other channels out there.

1.) Don't put offsite links on your home page.

If you have page one # 1 ranking on Google now, be careful how many links to offsite websites you ADD to your home page.

2.) Rule of thumb: Place your Follow Me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn on your Contact Me pages and other pages inside. This is especially important if you are just now building links to your home page.

3.) One Way Link Bulding.

ActiveRain.com, Curbed.com and many other Real Estate blogs can be used to build one way, incoming links to your properties. Don't just link all links to your home page. This is not a smart idea. Build links to point to your properties and about the life style and communities you know about.

4.) 1888FreePressRelease.com.

A great place to post your FREE press releases with links pointing BACK to your website.

5.) PRWeb.com.

The BEST place to post your Press Releases. $100 - $200 cost each, but you get to go BACK and edit the links to make them SEO friendly and point them to your website pages.

6.) Get links from Title, Mortgage companies even Landscapers and custom home builders.

They might have a crappy looking website, but ask them for a one way link from their site to yours. NEVER give a link back to them as this will give you what is called Google PR Hemorrhage. Never give reciprocal links BACK to any website until AFTER one year AFTER you've held a page one position on Google.

7.) Social Media Pay per Post, Pay per Blog.

There is one firm out there that seems to have done it right. SocialSpark.com is the one to see. You can buy ads on this system to be inserted into popular blogs out there. This is a great way to build awareness of your website for geo-centric, local searches.

8.) StumbleUpon.com

It's a web site that says what id does and does what it says. It emails hundreds of thousands of people every week with suggested Websites they should visit. Visitors to the site indicate a few sites and topics they like. And weekly, StumbleUpon will deliver the user a cornucopia of Websites and some of them... NEED to be your real estate website.

9.) Sell LifeStyle. Don't sell just homes.

This is the big trap of conventional thinking. But next time home buyers today can get their house with or without a REALTOR. So when they come to your website, dazzle them with Life Style. We're just now completing a website for Jane Paulus of Edina Realty now. The website is here: www.TwinCitiesHomefinders.com -- See the emphasis on Live -- Work Play and the rich page content of living in Minneapolis. Google loves this stuff and so will your next time home buyers.

10.) Get your Banner Ads on the iPhone, BlackBerry and Mobile Devices.

Just because you're page one on Google doesn't mean you can't get more leads. Google now offers a Paid Search program that allows you to snag 50,000 banners for $18 bucks or thereabouts. Create Google Visual Ads that are shown on mobile devices. It's cheap and it's effective.

Lots more good stuff to come later. I'm trying to get our company moved to Colorado Springs, but if anyone needs more help on these items above, call me or email me.

I'm always glad to be of service.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Thugs Making Calls from: 775-412-4499

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:06:07 -0600

I received a call today from that number at 9:07 am. Says UNAVAILABLE but the number is stamped: 775-412-4499.

I did some research on the Internet and found out a few thousand other people are getting the same calls. Apparently, to collect old debts from 1999 and back. Maybe you got a call from them, too?

I don't have any old debts, but I did used to do some programming for the old Chilton/TRW firm in Dallas, TX in the late 1980's when they modernized their three floors of file cabinets of consumer credit microfiche to computers. Today this firm is now -- Experian.

Suffice it to say, I went to the FTC do not call and complained and I asked the FTC (in the comments box) if they could please drop a small tactical nuke on the building where these calls are coming from. I hope I don't get a visit from some government people now by saying that. We'll see.

Here's the law people: There is NO debt public or private that can be collected on after 7 years.

If you have a debt that is older than 7 years and say it went to collections 7 years, one month ago... the debt is no longer collectible. This is different of course if you have an ACTIVE installment loan, car or of course a mortgage. I'm talking about the debts that you need to get rid of on your Credit Bureau reports that you haven't paid or confirmed in years.

Most of us have a bill we forgot to pay (or didn't want to pay) to the Yellow Pages ad. Or the Verizon bill that your kids ballooned up to $703.19 when your airtime charges were .33 cents a minute on an old bill from December 2002.

Cleaning up your credit reports is really child's play. But you have to know the rules; Meaning what to say, when to play dumb and shut up and when to take action with a letter, a #10 envelope and a stamp.

You have to write letters to the (3) Credit Bureaus and you must be diligent. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is a law that allows consumers to demand valid proof of any debt when you challenge them with the credit bureaus.

They get 30 days to confirm your debt is valid. Fortunately for you (the consumer) many businesses are going out of business now, or are being sold or merged with other firms. All too often, your account with that company can get really buried in a roll up acquisition. This is a good thing because when you go to DEMAND the Credit Bureau confirm the debt... in many cases they can't.

Getting the Credit Bureau to confirm your debt has to be done within those thirty days. If the debt is still there on day 31, you simply inform the Credit Bureau they did not confirm the debt and pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act... the debt must come OFF by law.

Now -- I am NOT advocating ways for you to legally dump valid debts. But sometimes, we all have a few dings on our credit for silly or stupid bills and for some reason it sort of hangs onto your Credit Bureau. I got hit with a bad experience with credit card theft and I've done a pretty good job at getting rid of the bad credit Klingons on all of my (3) bureau reports.

STEP ONE: It is important to NEVER ACKNOWLEDGE to any collection agency that you have disputed the debt, but ignore it. Never Never Never confirm your debt is valid. That resets the CLOCK on the 7 year time limit. Bart Wilson? Verizon bill? I don't think so. (this needs to be your standard reply. Just be sure to use your name.. not mine. Hahahahahaha)

STEP TWO: Wait your seven years, deny the charges/debt on your credit bureau and start with Trans Union first. They are the easiest to push over and easiest to quickly remove any challenged debt(s) you have.. Once you clean up TransUnion, then work on Experian and Equifax.

Many large cities have an Experian or Equifax in your home town. Dress up nicely. Make an appointment and take your cleaned up TransUnion report with you along with your drivers license, any utility bill and your SSAN card.

Never Never Never (I mean NEVER) send copies of this information in an envelope and mail it to the credit bureaus. This is why ID theft is skyrocketing. Too many thugs working in the Credit Card Theft cartels have relationships with local mail carriers. They get paid to open up envelopes, copy your information, the envelope gets sealed with tape... and you will never know.

Until it is too late.

Good luck to all of you and fight fire with fire and report this 775-412-4499 bastards to the FTC do not call list.

If anyone know where they are, I will personally make a visit to them and our attorneys will bury them in so much legal paperwork, their grand kids will still be paying the bill.

Knowledge is Power. Power to the people.

-- Bartman (the one and the original)

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Is it Okay for an MLS to Restrict Your Listings?

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:49:33 -0600

Realcomp II, a local Detroit MLS just got spanked pretty hard this week by the FTC.

Apparenly, the FTC slapped them around a bit because they got caught restricting listings from local (discount) brokers who had agency exclusive listings. The FTC simply told Realcomp II to Publish the MLS Listings or else.

It's the same problem we've heard countless times before ranging from our own trade association to CMLS pulling the same stunts. You cannot restrict listings. FSBO's seem to be okay to restrict as they are not REALTOR sponsored and broker carried. But we all know an agent who DOES take a FSBO under their wings and then posts it to Realtor.com. At Bohnen Realty -- we did a few.

But it's NOT okay to restrict your listings just because you happen to own a discount brokerage like HelpUSell or Asssit2Sell.

It's criminal.

We cannot discriminate on who buys a house thanks to the Fair Housing Act, right?

But it's perfectly okay to restrict your listings if you work for a discount broker?

Sorry -- not in America. This cannot be allowed to happen. I applaud the FTC. I'm paying for MLS access. I've paid my NAR annual dues. Therefore I get to post my listings. The fact that they happen to belong to HelpUSell, or Assist2Sell is none of your damned business. You cannot penalize me because my business card doesn't read.; Sotheby's.

And every year it seems, some other smart ass MLS system thinks it's perfectly okay to toss ethics and discrimination out the window. It's pathetic, it's appalling and in today's economy... it's certainly unnecessary. The last thing we need is an MLS dictating to us how we can list our listings or not. We need to see some real leadership from our local MLS to help many of us keep our doors open. The last thing we need is predatory behavior like this.

Dozens of real estate brokerages are closing their doors every month. I've personally chronicled the death of 217 brokerages over the past 14 months. Six alone for Coldwell Banker, the most recent one being the Hunt Kennedy Group who died this past summer in Manhattan. The agents who still wanted to work went over to the Corcoran Group.

Okay, there's my rant. What's YOUR opinion?

Do you think it's okay to allow the local MLS to restrict their listings like that?

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Google Voice. Voice Mail was Never this Much Fun.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:21:06 -0500

Google Wave. Google Search. Google Docs. Google Apps. Let's face it. Lots of us are Goo-goo over Google.

And for good reason. Simplicity is what we all crave.

Aren't you just a little tired of dealing with five, seven or even ten different companies out there who mange your website, Top Producer, Settlement Room, Point2Agent, Reply! for leads.... aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh it makes you want to scream.

There'a a lot to like about Google when it comes to anyone streamlining their real estate business. They innovate constantly, which is something a lot of us should be doing, too. And best of all, Google is a big enough company to pay lots of propeller head engineers to come up with some impressive business solutions at a price tag that we all like.

FREE.

So... if you haven't heard of Google Voice, here's the skinny from the Bartman.

It's a single phone number that Google can set up for you, or in two weeks -- you can use your own phone number. But now on line, you can create any greeting you want. Forward calls to any phone number you want and it's pretty cool having ALL of your voice mail messages in one place.

My Google Gmail is about three years old, and I've got emails from now bankrupt and dead brokers like the Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy Group and All Pro Realty who closed their doors in October 2008.

So I guess it's time to go in and clean out some old Email "dust bunnies," here.

One really nice advantage of Google voice is that is can translate your voice mails into text and send it to your cell phone or email. This way, if all you want to do is get the voicemail to hurry up and give you the phone number to call back... Google can now grant your wish.

You can set up different outgoing voice mail greetings for your customers. Make another for your mom, one for your friends, etc. It's like a fancy Voice Mail PBX without the expensive price tag.

I've been using RingCentral.com and it's good. But I pay $49 a month. With Google, I can save that $49 and buy a tank of gas with my savings. I just need someone to invite me to Google voice so I can start using it.

Click here and watch the Google Voice Video.

While all of this sounds "too good to be true," it does come with a few "gotcha's."

1.) For now, Google is only available via invitation.

2.) Not all of these cool features (above) are going to be available unless you HAVE a Google Voice phone number.

Insiders for me at Google tell me that changes or STARTS to change in two more weeks. So stay tuned to my blog posts for more.

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

ArGh! Now I Have to Sort Through Twitter Tweets.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:18:10 -0500

I've been micro-interrupted so many times with my iPhone with people Tweeting on Twitter I've just turned the damned service off so I can get some work done.

I could care less that Arnold was pissed off that a photographer caught his wife red handed driving with a phone stuck to her ear. I'm thankful that the California fires were put out, but Arnold like to Tweet a lot. He Tweets seven... sometimes fifteen times a day.

He should change his name to the Tweet-a-nator instead of Gov-a-nator.

President Obama only Tweets three or so times a day and it's usually to rally us or thank us for calling in for support of the helping to fix the Healthcare system. These are valuable Tweets, but when you add in Arnold and Tweets about the Balloon Boy from CNN I'm starting to lose my concentration. Nothing is getting done.

I turned all Tweet notifications OFF. I'm starting to hate the idiot who made the Tweet iPhone app even possible. How anybody gets any work done in this country and claims they can monitor 100 Tweets is a liar. You can tell them the Bartman said so.

It's impossible to focus and claiming you're a multi-tasking, Social Networking Twittering wizard and all your clients are happy and all your work is being done on time. I say it's pure BS. Employers are now starting to march their employees off to the front door for screwing off too many hours at the company's payroll expense.

Now Google and Microsoft says they're adding these same TWEETS to their search results now.

Fine. There goes the neighborhood. More crap that you and I have to wade through when we start searching for stuff online tomorrow.

The real estate market never sleeps and I guess it's fair to say that no matter how much we hate it... technology is going to be changing, too. So it's Bartman to the rescue to help all of us to make sense of this new fangled stuff.

Today Google and Microsoft's Bing (you've got porn!) are going to include Tweets in their seach. Meaning the Bit.ly... short domains you see out there attached to a story are going to be part of organic and (my best guess) even Paid search results.

So for everyone out there who's been groaning and complaining about not having the time to learn to Chirp on Twitter... you have to do it now. Because relevant searches and Tweets about homes in your area are going to be a big part of how folks find you in a few more months.

The problem with this might mean we're all going to be stuck with wading through a bunch of stupid, meaningless tweets about what somebody had for lunch. It's bad enough we have too much information overload coming at us now. How can we possibly deal with Google and Microsoft now heaping more stuff on our plates to sort through? It just seems totally unfair. Nobody asked me if it was okay for Google or Microsoft to start adding TWEETS to the search results. I have to kick out an average of 15 jerks, bozos and leaches OUT of my Twitter account every week now.

Now I have to brace myself for having to sort through meaningless Tweets as part of a Google or Microsoft search engine results page? Please, somebody shoot me now. I just can't take anymore.

The Bartman sees big problems with any real estate searches simply because there's the potential of having millions of "Tweets" which might be confusing if you search for Homes in your area.

"Did you see that last episode of House?" (and I'm referring to Hugh Laurie's TV show: HOUSE)

So how in God's good name are we going to find any relevance in that for a real estate search for homes in a certain area?

Hopefully smart people like Google's Matt Cutts can figure this one out.

It's clear that Google's AdWords and those SEO Rock Stars has a place for helping their customers get ranked on Google naturally. But adding TWEETS to a Google search results can only be more of a headache as it gives us all MORE crap to wade through to find what we want. We need LESS information on line, not more of it.

Asking Google and Microsoft Bing users to wade through a bunch of meaningless Tweets about what someone else had for lunch is only going to make me lose mine.

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

The Bad People Lurking on Twitter and Facebook

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:59:22 -0500

Dean posted a good article on Twitter security today. Way to go Dean.

Twitter is not safe. Far from it. Too many of us like Facebook and Twitter. But less than 90% of us truly understand the grave risks that using these tools presents to your becoming just another victim of identity theft.

Twitter uses Cloud-based technology. Which essentially collects clusters of excess space (hard drive space) from lots of pools of other computers and there isn't much bullet proof security you can apply to that technology. It's hacked all the time.

Do the math. How many times has Twitter been hacked this year alone? Click the link on the left here and see for yourself. So you think Twitter is safe, eh? I rest my case.

The other problem is the sheer number of time wasting, ID stealing applications on Facebook.

Your friend pokes you, another sends you flip flops.

A friend sends you a Heart or invites you to a pillow fight.

Another wants to hug you or challenge you to Mafia Wars.

Every time you accept one of these stupid applications on FaceBook or allow yourself to have your Twitter accessed by a third party program... do you really know how well they built their software? No, you don't. It seems innocent af first and many of give it no real thought. Just click the OK button. Now you have a pillow fight. You get a stupid pair of colored flip flops.

Am I the only person who questions WHY I'm allowing my personal information and and birth date to some company I never heard of? And to make matters worse, you jsut let them have access to your friends information, emails and addresses and birthdays, too.

Wow. What a nice friend you are. Now you not only did you put yourself directly into harm's way, you just screwed your friends and colleagues by placing them at risk, too.

Do you have any clue if their coding is WC3 os ISO compliant? Nope. And yet thousands of us blindly trust them with our personal information. Fine. I have a lot of beach front real estate I want to sell you in Nevada.

Once your IDENTITY has been stolen like mine was, you get really cautions of this crap. Because the bad people are out there. They know how to scrape your information and eventually steal your life, credit cards and your online credit reports. My nightmare is far from over. I had FICO scores of 820. Used to. Now my scores on two of the bureaus are 710 and my Equifax is 610 and they reported only 9 months of credit, a new name and I was born in the 1980's instead of the late 1960's.

I've called and begged Equifax to restore my twenty year record of GOOD credit by sending them copies of my TransUnion and Experian reports. They cleaned up my credit, but they posted the WRONG birthday for me and only 9 months of credit. I'm screwed for five years now as my score will never get up much more from 610 to 640 by the end of the year. It shows I'm too young and don;'t have enough credit history. So what do I do? I can certainly get my attorneys to sue the morons at Equifax.

I end up talking to some nice Indian woman overseas every time I call and ask for a manager. I've jokingly asked to speak to Suze Orman. The woman from India is so polite and replies, "I'm sorry sir, Ms. Orman is just our national spokesperson." Fine, can I borrow her FICO Scores while you fix the mess you did to my financial life? I can't qualify now for that jumbo loan I want in Colorado Springs and you guys are holding me hostage to a report that reads I'm 25 years old and been working for 9 months. I'm 45! Did you not get the certified copies of my TransUnion and Experian reports? "Yes sir we did, but we cannot change your information we have on file."

Now I know why they use these people in India. You can't tell them off and use some really colorful language. They are so sweet and nice and polite. I just don't have the ability to curse them.

Did you know that there are right now, more than 202,913 gangs out there and more than 11.3 million people in the United States that can tap into your conversations and listen in with you and your conversations with Equifax, TransUnion or Experian? This is no BS. This is the one smoking gun that screams for secure communications when you are transmitting your SSAN over the web or a telephone.

I used to work in military intelligence. I used to tap into your phone lines. I was the breathing voice you heard on the other end of the line. It's called the Patriot Act and the military can do a lot of thigns that you are not going to happy to learn about. Your private conversations, your emails. We know what's in there. The problem with the military and government is, as we tap into this information and we send copies of this back to the NSA and CIA (computers), your personal data is once again at risk as it is being transmitted so the bad guys out there with the same equipment we have, can siphon off the information, too.

Any idiot with $140 bucks can buy themselves an operators handset which can tap into any twisted pair phone line. It's a problem in New York and many cities with large under ground sewers where the phone company runs millions of miles of copper and fiber optic cables. You pop open any manhole cover, you drop in or you just open up any one of thousands of phone junction boxes attached to your local shopping mall. Hacking into any existing phone line is child's play.

You have no clue who is listening in on your call as you cheerfully blab your SSAN, personal information, last two addresses over the phone.

Your risk of getting nailed by some punk in a gang copying down your information is now one out of fifteen. Envelopes you send to Equifax, TransUnion or Experian can be opened. Information is copied and sold to the gangs then steamed shut or taped shut and you'll never know about it. The safest thing you can do to fix your credit is to never check it online. Never talk to a credit bureau over the phone. You set up an appointment with the local office and you go there in person.

Credit Card cartels and gangs have infiltrated our postal system, and in my case, they worked part time at some of the more classy restaurants posing as cheerful waiters and waitresses. Restaurants today, represent more than 33% of all identity thefts in America and this is on the rise.

I was robbed blind by a young woman posing as a UNM student at an upscale restaurant who after we had several drinks, just asked what we did. She takes our company credit card back to a place where we cannot see her and puts two and two together. She logs into a browser, finds our company address, assumes that is where the company card goes to and she scribbles down the Visa #, expiration and the 3 digits on the back of the card. I had no clue.

A week later she quits her job, and takes my Visa with a $25,000 limit and starts her spending spree as she drives to Oakland, CA. She opens up credit posing as my wife and the rest is just to painful to tell you the rest of the facts. All I can say is her ass is tucked away in a Women's prison in California and her parole hearing is in 2016. I plan to be there in person to tell the parol board she needs to stay another 50 years for screwing up my life.

Sorry for the long post here, but you need to PRACTICE some SAFE ID stuff here if you are going to use Facebook or Twitter.

Here's my rules for staying out of trouble.

1.) Never post your REAL birthdate. Bump it up a few years. Change the day and month, too. Bad guys with wrong information can't steal your ID.

2.) IS your real name Bart on your birth certificate? Online, you post it's Bartholomew. Or Bartley. Again, bad guys with wrong info can't steal your ID.

3.) The stupid programs on Facebook - Forget Them. If you're a teenager, have fun. If you're a REALTOR, knock off the game playing and go sell some homes. Every time you accept a 3rd party program, you are placing your ID and personal information at risk including your friends and family you have saved in your Twitter account. According to NAR's homebuyer's report they published last year, they did not report one single instance of any REALTOR playing Mafia Wars that resulted in a home sale.

4.) Firms are firing employees for screwing off online. Kodak just did it. I used to work there in the 1990's. A friend of mine who is still there said that Kodak HR just marched three employees to the door for playing Mafia Wars on company time.

A Coldwell Banker office is about to implement the same strict policy for their marketing staff. No screwing off on social media networks on company time.

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

NEWS: Yahoo to Stop Paid Inclusion

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:00:29 -0500

It's not really any sad news, here if you do not (right now) have a natural page one presence on Yahoo.com.

Prudential still has the leads on Yahoo for a while longer. So if you're not a Prudential REALTOR, there's really nothing you can or should be doing with Yahoo as 70% of the leads generated (or more) on Yahoo are still going to Prudential's call centers.

If they have a qualifying buyer for one of your listings, trust me. They'll call you and you'll be asked to cough up 25 or 30% of your commission for the qualified buyer.

Which is why I continue to tell all REALTORS there's just no reason to focus on any Yahoo natural search engine results for SEO purposes unless you're a Prudential broker or REALTOR.

Steve Balmer might give Prudential the boot now that Microsoft owns Yahoo! so it's kinda hard to tell what's going to happen with the Yahoo-MSN Bing Menage-a-twa. time will tell. I do know that next week Windows 7 comes out and Apple is announcing a new line up of iMacs and I will be getting iMac #72. Brand new processors and a sportier new thinner chassis. I can't wait.

Sorry for getting into weeds there for a minute -- back to SEO and Yahoo.

In the off chance you are launching a brand new website anytime now and the end of the year, you might want to get $299 ready to shell out to Yahoo for PAID inclusion into the directory because as of 1 January 2010, it's gone. Or, hire your local SEO guru to get yourself listed into DMOZ as Yahoo still reads incoming from them.

Yahoo removed (already) it's standard Web submit forms and the new one they are redirecting everyone to is here.

Suffice it to say, Search Submit is on life support and this program dies on 31 December 2009.

You heard it from the Bartman here first. Goodbye Yahoo. Hello Google.

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Coming Soon: The Virtual (LIVE) Open House

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:17:58 -0500

Did you hear the news? Adobe Systems -- makers of Adobe Photoshop, DreamWeaver, Illustrator and lots more software we all use made a bold statement.

NO MORE PRODUCT LAUNCHES..... EVER.

It used to be that Adobe, Apple Computer, Dell, Compaq, you name it... would create a BUZZ for a new product launch by inviting a lot of people to New York City, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami (or others) and pack thousands of people into a convention center or hotel to roll out new product.

Flying bar charts, dancing computer generated graphics that would humble Terminator 2 would thunder across a Sony Jumbo-Tron or big screen. There's be a wet bar so you could cozy up with free drinks, get a little bit tipsy then write them a check or break out the plastic for buying (or even PRE-buying) the new products.

But no more. The traditional product launch is dead. Rest In Peace.

Now, Adobe is going to do VIRTUAL product launches and it claims it was already successful. Click here to see the Video.

Adobe shifted 75% of all of it's traditional product launches and advertising to online.

Adobe did a test with a new product roll out by advertising the event on their website. 200,000 people signed up and Adobe used Webcams and their own streaming software to stream a power point like presentation. For those who missed the live event, it was recorded so people could come back and watch in on demand later.

So here's an idea. What if we did away with traditional Open houses? How many people show up to your typical open house?

Just announce the LIVE Open House of 14 Elm Street on your brokerage website. Tweet the event to Twitter and send it out to all of the people who are on your monthly drip marketing newsletters.

Some BENEFITS of the LIVE Open House

Instead of 7 couples and 4 individuals coming to the Open House, you now get 200 or more people watching it LIVE on your website.

You no longer have to kick the owners OUT of the house anymore.

You can do a LIVE open house one time, record it then stream the video from your website to anyone who missed it.

I would personally like to try this idea on for size. What do you think?

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Benefits of an Advertising Agency

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:06:40 -0500

A week ago, the four A's (American Association of Advertising Agencies) created a bit of a big stink.

They suggested that smaller advertising agencies and marketing firms are a bargain -- claiming billing rates are half or one third of their larger colleagues.

Which means if your brokerage was using J Walter Thompson (a New York ad agency) as opposed to say a firm like ours, Voyager International.

Shopping for anything on price or FREE can be a big mistake. When you go out shopping for creative talent, you need to focus on finding a firm that's a good fit for your needs.

1.) Are you a high maintenance client?

Do you need to call your ad agency creative staff three or five times a day? Are you neurotic? Do you have the book "Computers for Idiots," next to your laptop? Then you probably need an in-house person. You'll drive any outside marketing agency nuts and you'll get fired inside of 90 days.

2.) Do you know to use your computer? Does Internet Marketing frustrate you to no end?

Do you become annoyed even at simple explanations why your website isn't on Google two days after your website launches? These kind of clients are technology challenged and need an in-house person to constantly answer the same questions over and over again. Because asking your outside marketing or advertising agency these questions is a perfect recipe for you to get fired as a client. (It will be polite and apologetic. But nonetheless, you're simply being fired for being a high maintenance nag.)

3.) Can you afford $30,000 - $50,000 a year in outside marketing/advertising costs?

Small 10 agent shops typically fall under this umbrella. SEO and website services will run you $9,000 - $25,000 initially then another $900 - $2,000 a month in ongoing services. More SEO work (monthly) postcards, radio, and PRWeb.com Press Release ads, and lots of incoming links from the social media networks.

4.) Do you need to spend $150,000 - $500,000 a year in outside marketing costs?

Typical ad spend on marketing and advertising if you have three or more offices, or your REALTOR work force is 300 agents or above. SEO and website services will run you $20,000 - $40,000 initially then another $5,000 - $8,000 a month in ongoing services. Monthly sit down meetings are part of the service. Branding of your top selling agents with a semi-custom or custom website are often included with the larger agencies. More SEO work (monthly) postcards, radio, billboard and PRWeb.com Press Release ads, and lots of incoming links from the social media networks.

If you're a medium to large brokerage, it's certainly easy to see why using a large advertising agency can get pretty expensive. But there are good reasons for them to BE expensive.

1.) Top agencies have Top talent. If you need clip art and stock photos, you can go to iStockPhoto.com. But if you need to get your business name on the lips of everybody in town, nobody will out perform the creative and marketing talent you will get from a respected national advertising agency. Small agencies can do this too, it's just that with smaller teams, they can't turn on a dime quite as fast.

2.) Resources, Resources, Resources. If you need a billboard done across town, if you need to run a :30 second radio commercial, if you need to brainstorm on a 2nd website strategy... it's not a problem if you needed it done yesterday.

All of these things cost money.

Smaller creative and marketing shops like Voyager and many others are a different breed of ad agency.

Instead of big teams and big systems, you invest into the creative talent of a small group of multi-talented people. A day in the life doing my job, for example is spent often working 6 days a week, and working around the hours of some of my clients who can only brain storm with me at 7:45 pm my time... 10:45 pm east coast time. Being a small shop, we often have a creative hit list of outside freelance copywriters and Flash design gurus who love nothing more than to work the midnight oil on creative, crash and burn projects.

Small shops are tenacious and we have the tendency sometimes to be slow on completing things. All too often, clients like to micro-manage and add lots of feature creep requests which create their own slow downs. Smaller shops are also more technology and marketing savvy than their larger colleagues. This means a nice departure from the business as usual, "one-size-fits-all" marketing mix.

Down markets often result in the big players in your market pulling back on advertising. This is a tragic mistake that you can take advantage of. For example, the newspaper used to carry a full page ad of Amazing Realty. But for weeks, they've not advertised there anymore. Customers reading the newspaper get used to reading the ads from Amazing Realty. But now... they're not there anymore.

Next time home buyer are no different than next time car buyers. Or next time appliance or sofa buyers. They all read the newspaper. They all spend time on line surfing Google. They all drive around town and they listen to the radio.

If Broker Bob from Amazing Realty used to advertise in these places, and now they're not... there's a hole here that needs to be filled with another marketing message and it can be yours.

People need to be told that you're good at what you do. Impress them with a catchy tagline. Wow them with your new and improved website.

The two rules of getting more customers are the same today despite the fact we have Facebook, Twitter, and Google to get folks to come to your website.

1.) Frequency

2.) Reach

These two rules is why advertising agencies work. They know the two things that help people remember your name and your brand.

In today's marketing, everything you do to market to next time home buyers and sellers should drive people to your website. But getting people to get to your website has to be done with a traditional mix and the new media. Radio, newspaper (including CraigsList) and direct mail postcards work great.

But if you're not good at creating a consistent message that you can use on Facebook, newspaper, radio or postcards... then it's time for you to get some help from advertising agency. Saving money is the worst reason to do your own creative work. 90% of those who have tried will often fail. Sure, you know how to market and sell homes, but it doesn't mean you can call yourself an ad agency of one.

You might be good with a scalpel. You need sharp medical instruments so you can make a fabulous living carving animals out of a single block of wood. But you wouldn't operate on yourself if you needed your appendix taken out with that same scalpel.

A closing note about creative people and advertising agencies...

It doesn't matter if you choose a large or small agency to help you rebrand yourself and make more money in 2010. You'll find that any ad agency big or small is filled with creative people, passionate about helping you achieve your dreams of getting bigger, becoming more visible on Google and they will enjoy hearing that you are now pocketing more commissions.

90% of brokers and REALTORS will need some outside marketing help in 2010. My suggestion if you are in that group... Please spend lots of time researching firms big and small and find yourself a real marketing "partner." Someone who cares about making you a Real Estate Rock Star in your market. Once you find the right firm, be prepared to spend some money as you are only investing in yourself. Because no matter what the costs are, price becomes just another detail when you find yourself one day sitting page one on Google and enjoying a never ending stream of next time homebuyers coming to your website.

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Authenticity: Why the Trust Economy Works for New Sales.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:37:39 -0500

I like to read the other posts on Active Rain sometimes. One caught my eye earlier today. It was a post by ActiveRainer Caroline Pigott. Her short article on Authenticity and Trust are hot topics of discussion right now. Caroline just didn't include enough information on her post to shed a lot more light on a disturbing trend we are now seeing in the fight for landing new customers. The lack of Trust.

Lots of websites make lots of claims. Many of them are misleading. Many say the same thing.

People are getting so much information from too many websites that all make the same claims. When this turns to excess information overload, how are next time homebuyers going to understand what you have to offer and how can you improve the chances of you getting a lead when your website looks exactly the same as 15,000 other websites?

Case in Point

It used to be that you could get a lot of clicks to your website simply because you're page one #1. We used to believe in that for a while. Our site, Voyager360.com has been page one #1 on Google now for seven years in a row. And for that matter, we're also page one #2.

If we're #1 on Google for selling virtual tour cameras, why is it that some of you here on ActiveRain never heard of us?

The same question can be said if you are a seasoned real estate agent Rockstar. Let's assume you're one of the top dogs in Minneapolis Minnesota.

But on-line, nobody ever heard of you. You're a real nobody.

In Minneapolis, you have radio and TV and billboard advertising. But if I'm moving from Santa Fe, NM to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 3 months, and I find you on Google and I click on the link and come to your website... what is it going to take for you to get me to register on your website so I can get homes from your local MLS automatically sent to my mailbox?

TRUST.

I have to trust you know what the hell you're talking about. I have to believe that you have a real handle on making my move to Minneapolis a smooth and bump free ride. And the problem is, you have to do this without talking to me and I have to GET that message inside of 7 to 10 seconds.

But how can you show that you're trust worthy? Ever agent says the same thing online. "Buy from me because I'm a lifetime resident and I know the area." You can drop in all the cryptic acronyms next to your name. ePro. ABR. CRS. GRI. Studies have shown these are not factors in choosing you over another agent in your area.

When customers go looking for homes and they find your website with the same, me-too template website that 15,000 other agents have right now... Does this help build trust? I have found out that many of the me-too real estate agent websites are not landing the customers they once did anymore.

One of my customers just today told me their $9,000 website they paid for at Real Estate Webmasters is not what they want and they told me to bull doze it. Quite ironically, this $9,000 website doesn't look much different than a $249 template you'd buy from AgentImage.com.

Does it have to cost $9,000 to build trust? No, it actually costs about $400 a year to build trust.

In addition to coaching lots of brokers who really need our help in retooling their business for Facebook, Linkedin.com and Twitter customers... we had to first eat our own dog food and then teach agents and brokers how to do what we did to keep our cash registering going Ka-ching every day.

Below are the 3 steps you can take right now to dramatically improve the quantity and quality of leads coming to your website.

Step One: Get rid of the me-too looking website. Show the world that you can spend a few marketing dollars and build a website that looks a bit more original.

Step Two: Register with the local BBB and get yourself online and get the TrustLink attached to your site.

Step Three: Privacy Policy. So many people are getting their Identity stolen and they do not want to get bombarded with email from banks, moving companies, mortgage outfits, or the local landscapers. Customers WANT to know BEFORE they sign up with your site WHAT and WHERE their personal information goes. Sign up with TrustE.com. When you create a good privacy policy, you get to sport that cool looking TrustE link on the bottom of your website like we have it on the bottom of ours. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of our webpage and SEE the BBB link and click on that. See the nice testimonials we have there?

Now click on the TrustE link and see our Privacy policy.

Since we have added these links to our website 90 days ago, we have been consistently closing on $15,000 sales or more every week. We're so booked up with client work now, that we cannot take on any new clients until mid December.

It's a nice problem to have.

For several of our customers, we are doing the same thing for agents and broker websites by building Trust into their websites and showing visitors this. So far, it's working out pretty darn good. In 90 days I will let you all see an official "ka-ching report," and how it helped grow new revenues for a handful of brokers and agents on these new ideas.

Please email me if you want a copy of this research.

-- Bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Google Opens OnLine Bookstore. Good for SEO, too.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:54:46 -0500

Competition for Amazon Bookstore? Maybe. It depends on how you look at it.

Amazon has gone Star Trek. Sort of.

Did you ever watch the TV show or any of the movies? All of them have these five inch by seven inch pads or electronic PADS. They seem to download stuff to, read them. Stacks of them in different colors were on Captain Picard's desk sometimes.

Google's plans for many books in fact will be complimentary or if you look at it this way -- ALTERNATIVES. Amazon offers the Kibble.

It's a box that sort of looks like your kids' "Etch a Sketch," pad but it loads up your favorite eBook in the "kibble" format.

Google will be letting you read the books either as a PDF download or on line as a Web version.

Considering the book publishing, and REALTORS destroy a lot of trees with millions of paper contracts, this is Google's way of going green as you won't have to buy the book anymore at your local book store or news stand.

Good for SEO

There more than a few smart REALTORs out there. Some of them are my friends and clients. Colleagues like Bernice Ross who is a syndicated columnist at Inman News is sure to like this news as she can no doubt get her books out to more REALTORS who need them.

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

Need Leads? GoodBye HomeGain... Hello Google.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:46:25 -0500

Could there actually be an AGENT or BROKER without a Website somewhere in San Francisco or San Diego...?

According to Google, there has to be more than a few businesses out there without a website presumed hiding in San Diego or San Francisco.

Google is testing a new advertising program with a FLAT fee per lead. They are letting businesses in San Diego and San Francisco test drive a new Google Pay Per Lead advertising model that connects you to a potential customer right over the phone. Way cool. Of course, the program will work if you have a website or not. But Google's primary push is for the businesses in California that don't seem to have a website.

These businesses just want to put a dollar into a box, and they get a phone call from a potential customer. Nice idea. Now let's spin this to a GENUINE NEED for us REALTORS.

Google is innovating or reinventing themselves every few months it seems and now they're expanding on their highly profitable AdWords program.

For many of you that don't know a lot about Google AdWords; it's Google's Pay Per Click program and it's just now turned (version) 3. It's the third major upgrade since their Pay Per Click AdWords program started way back in 1999.

If you're a REALTOR or broker in the SFO bay area or in San Diego, here is how can get into this cool new program to help you land a lot more leads providing that you don't care about reading online reports about clicks or conversions. You just need leads. Fine. Put a few dollars into the box and you get phone calls. It's that simple.

It has been often said by many a seasoned REALTOR... GET me a customer on the phone. And I can sell them a house.

Well Google has heard you and they're delivering on this idea now. At least for two California markets, anyway to test it.

Here is how it works: You set up your AdWords account just as you would for any real estate centric term to the bay area, for example;

san francisco homes for sale or san francisco real estate or san francisco foreclosures

After you CREATED your AdWords ads or your banner ads, you get to make one more choice. You LINK your Pay Per Click AD to a voice phone number. (Google Voice). So people who click on your ads, will be connected to your phone. You get the Google whisper voice letting you know that your LEAD has come from your Google ad to your Google Voice number.

So what's a LEAD worth right now if Homegain calls you? 25% of your commission. Ouch. And you thought taking the Broker exam was painful.

You pay $3 for the same lead and you get connected to a buyer thanks to Google.

The DEATH of the Yellow Pages

Does anybody even use the Yellow Pages anymore? I don't. I was upset to see the yellow book tossed in my driveway packaged in a plastic wrapper a few months ago. So I called the Yellow Book people and the Other Book people and asked them to REMOVE me from all distribution.

The woman on the other end of the phone at the Yellow Pages was getting her feathers ruffled, "How are you going to find a local plumber," she scoffed.

"Google," I replied. We need stuff, we Google everything. I'm sorry lady, but your Yellow Pages are obsolete. Trust me, when people in their seventies and eighties die, you're really out of a job. People in this age group are the only ones keeping the Yellow Pages on life support."

She started to get pretty miffed at this point.

I asked her, "Do you have an 8-Track player in your car?" She immediately replied, "Of course not."

I said, "Well, you're the 8-track player for business listings, Google is the MP3 player and everybody wants the MP3 player."

She hung up on me. Well, that was no surprise.

Goodbye HomeGain, Farwell Reply!, So Long HouseValues. Hello Google

I used to work for a luxury broker here in Santa Fe. Every once in a while, one of the Lead Sharks would call us with a qualified buyer with fabulous FICO scores. I know that HomeGain and others still call agents today and try to get them to AGREE to the lead for 25% - 30% of your hard earned commissions.

If Google's new AdWords and Google Voice program is successful in the two test markets, I can see the death of HomeGain, Reply!, LendingTree and even HouseValues in 2010.

What REALTOR in their right mind will want to pay 25% of your hard earned commissions when you can get the same lead for $3 bucks?

Trust me. That day is coming.

-- bart

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | SEO Rockstar

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483 iPhone: (505) 204-8097

HomeGain Leads cost 25%. Google: $3 bucks. Wow.

Bart Wilson (Voyager International) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:40:54 -0500