In case you needed any more proof, Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence service, reported last week that Google accounted for almost 64% of all US search engine queries for the month of August 2007.  While this is down a hair from July, Google outran its nearest competitor, Yahoo!, almost 3:1, with Yahoo! grabbing about 23% of the market. 

The next closest engines were MSN with just under 8% of the market and Ask.com with about 3-1/2%.

According to Hitwise, there are 48 other search engines out there, but their share of the market combined is less than 2%.

Real estate searches were not specifically referenced in the press release, but other major categories, including travel, entertainment and business/finance saw significant gains in their traffic from search engines and, specifically, from Google.

What does this mean for you and your advertising strategy?  Google is the happening place for search engine advertising.  Dominating marketshare will likely allow Google to be more expensive for sponsored advertising, but you'll get more exposure.  Exposure is good for long term branding purposes.  If you don't need thousands of website visitors to support your business, try comparing click prices, but for our money around here, we focus on Google.

To your unlimited online marketing success!

Anybody who tells you that it doesn't rain in Southern Calfornia was not with us up at Big Bear over Labor Day weekend!  What an adventure that was!  I grew up in the Northwest and I know a thing or two about rain, but it seems that I'm way out of practice.

I'm blessed with a group of distant cousins here in Southern California that "adopted" me a few years I moved down here.  Every Labor Day, without fail, this bunch meets up for the long Labor Day weekend for an adventure.  When I first joined in, the trips were tent camping and campfires.  As we get older and ok, softer, the trips tend more toward cushy cabins or luxury motorhomes.

This year we went the cushy cabin route.  As I was packing up my husband and daughter for the trip, LA was in the midst of a blazing heat wave of the national news-making variety.  I'm talking 90's at the beaches kind of hot.  I checked in with family up at Big Bear who went up a day earlier as was told to bring a jacket for my daughter because there had been some sprinkles.  Jacket, yeah right!

We got up there Saturday evening.  Sunday morning everybody was running around like maniacs deciding how to spend the day.  This is no small group.  We probably had 30 people in two cabins and a couple of motorhomes.  And this group does not sit still well.

As I said, everybody was running around trying to coordinate movies, hikes, zoo trips and stuff like that.  Having just started my "relaxing" weekend, I was somewhat overwhelmed.  Rain to the rescue!  It started coming down big time right after breakfast.  Not a big deal, but everybody stopped talking about the zoo.

Unfortunately for our golf contingent, they were already out swinging their clubs when the real fun began.  Yup, thunder and lightening.  I was thinking for the umpteenth time that it was a good thing I never took up golf.

Over at my cushy cabin, we ended up spending the afternoon laying around reading.  Now THAT is my idea of a relaxing holiday weekend.  A relaxing, drizzly lay around the house day.  For a little spice, the thunder and lightning kicked up again later in the afternoon.  Let's just say I know how to gauge the closeness of lightening by observing the timing of the lightening flash and the matching thunder and this stuff was close enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  In fact, we had one strike that sent up a little cloud of smoke on our street and caused the headlights on our car to stop working for 24 hours.  Yikes!  Never boring when I'm with this part of the family.

We came down the mountain on Monday in another cloudburst.  All in all, I felt like we traveled a good two states away when we got back to the continuing heatwave in LA on Monday afternoon.  Big Bear is only about 120 miles away, but worlds away in weather that weekend.  Now that is what I call a get away!

Breaking news in the world of search engine advertising -- it was announced late last week that the plaintiff in a four year old case against Google has agreed to drop its claim that Google abuses trademarks by allowing business rivals to buy ads that appear when consumers search for information on a particular business.

Under the practice, a search request by a consumer for a specific business, like American Airlines, triggers ads from competitors which appear in sponsored positions around the search results.  These ads appear because the rival companies include portions of the target business' name as keywords in their Adwords campaign.

American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc., which sued Google over the practice, claimed that Google was using its trademarked name to send search engine visitors away from American Blind and to American Blind's competitors.

One leading tech commentator called the settlement a "stunning victory for Google."

Google has successfully defended its keyword policy several times in US courts, although the company has lost similar cases in Europe.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (an advocacy and legal group that works to protect digital rights), and other similar groups, have weighed in strongly in favor of allowing trademarks to trigger sponsored links, arguing that such ads are good for consumers.

What does this mean for you?  At the moment, it means you can use your competitors' trademarked terms (like their name) as part of your Adwords keywords.  Google clearly states its position in its trademark policy:  "Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint." 

Of course, a recently filed case by American Airlines in the very conservative Texas courts might change this in the future, but as of today, trademarks are up for grabs in the world of search engine advertising keywords.  Tech commentators don't think American Airlines will fare (pardon the pun) any better than American Blind, but you never know.  A big negative for the plaintiffs that bring these suits is that they have usually engaged in the same practices that they complain about in their lawsuits.  One thing is for sure -- the American Airlines case was just filed last month in August and you can almost count on another four years before anything significant happens in that case.

A word of caution for Utah realtors - be aware that the practice of purchasing keywords on trademarks has been specifically outlawed by state law.  For everyone else, have at it!

There seems to be two distinct, diametrically opposed schools of thought out there among web developers about what agents should do with their listings information on their website.  In one corner is the group that advocates mandatory pre-registration before a visitor can see even a hint of listings information and, in the other corner, is the group that says, "hey, give it away because consumers will never register anyway."

I'm here on my soapbox to advocate for the Green Party.  OK, who could help dropping in a little political joke with all the politicos in the news right now, but I am perfectly serious when I tell you that there is another road less traveled in the online lead generation game.

As I've stated before, pre-registration is a turn off for consumers and a waste of your traffic generating efforts.  The big giveaway, on the other hand, is an utter waste of a unique opportunity to generate solid leads for your real estate business.

There is, I humbly submit, a middle ground.

A sophisticated IDX solutions allows you to "dance" with your visitors, keeping them on your site longer and ultimately getting a little contact information to start forging a stronger relationship.  These solutions let you give away a lot of great listings information, but they also let you trade a soft registration for extra value, like a place for the visitor to save his or her listings, the ability to get a listing's address, the opportunity to receive daily new listing updates by email, and so on. 

An IDX database is just that -- a database.  Databases can be manipulated in creative and enticing ways to serve information hungry website visitors and encourage registration with extras.  I talk about this more in What Has Your IDX Done For You Lately?

I absolutely agree with the giveaway crowd that an agent should be generous with information.  But I also believe that subtle lead capturing should be aggressively pursued wherever and whenever possible, as the fastest ticket to solid business growth.  Real estate agents have a unique online marketing opportunity because their stock in trade -- listings -- can be reduced to a manipulable database, and they should fully leverage this opportunity to grow their businesses.  Doctors, lawyers and other service professionals aren't so lucky.  Why would you waste this opportunity?

What do you think?  Join me on my soapbox for a better way?

Guestbooks have been around since the beginning of website time.  Originally they were used for visitors to volunteer that they visited a site.  I had one on my wedding website seven years ago.  Later, guestbooks morphed into a "lead capturing" tool by being placed over information with perceived value.  In real estate you often see these over listings information and occasionally still (perish the thought) over "free reports."

Why do you still see so many guestbooks in real estate?  For low tech website vendors, it's the best they can offer for lead generation and these vendors push them like crazy.  Don't be fooled by these illusory promises of new business.  As explained below, today's online real estate consumers won't fill out these forms.  But that's okay.  For realtors, another better solution is available.

Consumers Hate Registration Forms Masquerading As Guestbooks

Don't use a guestbook, even if it's cute!  They are a waste of time and bad for your brand for at least three reasons.  First, consumers are more sophisticated these days.  They know that listings information is freely available on the Internet.  If a consumer got to your site from a search engine, that consumer knows that he or she is only one back-click away from a hundred of your closest competitors and better, freer information.  If the consumer got to your website another way, they know how to find Google, if they are not getting the information they want or need from your site.

Second, guestbooks on top of listings information are the equivalent of meeting people at your office door and not letting them in until they sign your book.  Is how you conduct your offline business?  Of course not.  You need to demonstrate to your website visitors that you have something of value to them before you demand something valuable from the visitor (contact information).  The Internet is no place to brand yourself as a mememe taker.  You are a service professional.  Give a little service (like listings) before you demand anything from these visitors with whom you haven't even established a relationship.

Third, most guestbooks can be faked.  Do you really want to annoy your visitor (starting the relationship off on the wrong foot) and get fake information to boot?  Who wins there?  And don't tell me about services to verify the guestbook information before letting a visitor proceed.  Those are the epitomy of annoying for consumers.  You want me (as a consumer) to stop my search and go open my email application to retrieve some password or link?  No thank you.  I'm back clicking to the next real estate website.

A Guestbook Strategy Gone Terribly Wrong

I stumbled on an agent's website today where the agent employed not one, but two, registration forms.  I wasn't especially surprised to see one because her particular website vendor is notorious for pushing these worthless forms for "lead generation."  I clicked on "Find A Home" and proceeded to fake my way through the form.  What did I find on the other side?  Listings from another state!  Can you imagine being the Florida consumer who just gave up valuable contact information on this Florida branded website to get listings from two states away?  That would not be one happy camper.

This was bad enough, but for grins, I tried out her "Our Featured Listings" button and encountered the second registration form.  Wait a minute!  Why do I have to register again?  Didn't I just go through this exercise?  How annoying is that going to be to your prospective client?  And why, oh why, would anybody put a registration form over his or her own listings?  That limits exposure for your listing client.  And, if a consumer is interested in your listings, you're in the deal in any event.  Is this some lame attempt to grab both sides of the deal?  That probably isn't going to happen with this now totally annoyed consumer.

Now I don't want to hear from anybody who is going to defend their guestbook because they get a couple of leads from it.  Even if you have good, solid, relevant listings information behind your guestbook, you're still going to lose more and more visitors as consumers become increasingly sophisticated and either click off your site or fake their way through your form.  Jump off that sinking ship while there is still time.

What To Do Instead Of Ineffective Guestbooks

Fortunately for realtors, there is a better solution.  Your stock in trade (listings) is reducible to database format and you can leverage this database to do the marketing dance with online consumers.  You don't even have to create the database.  Your MLS has already done it with its NAR-mandated IDX program.  Show visitors listings.  Show them a lot of listings.  It shouldn't matter to you.  This is an automated process.

Only after you've provided value in the form of lots of listings, do you even start to think about asking for something in return, but guess what?  A good IDX solution can help you here, too.  Invite your visitor to save specific listings of interest on a private page, or register to get daily new listing updates by email or see the complete address of a listing.  All of these equate to extra value and consumers will be much more likely to give up legitimate contact information once you've already provided value and are dangling added value.  Daily new listing updates by email are a particularly strong incentive to give you a valid email address. 

This strategy requires a sophisticated IDX solution, but lucky for you these solutions are not expensive.  Yes, they cost slightly more than free, which is what your MLS might charge for their IDX solution, but how much are you willing to pay for legitimate leads that you can actually use to grow your business?  Sophisticated IDX solutions like the one described here will run agents about $40/month.  I don't know about you, but my Starbucks budget is twice that per month.  I'd give up a few lattes to grow my business.  How about you?

Do you know somebody that is still using a guestbook?  Be a swell** person and send them a link to this post!

To your unlimited online marketing success!

** Yes, I've been watching Mad Men on AMC and highly recommend it!

Yesterday, we discussed the branding dance and I advocated that the primary brand for all agents should be that of a resource for information hungry consumers.  Not just any information, but the information that online real estate consumers really want -- listings information.  Today, it's getting those consumers to your website in the first place.

Where Do Your Prospects Come From?

It goes without saying that all the best lead capturing, incubation and conversion tools available are worthless if you don't have any traffic (i.e., prospective clients) on your website, but where do these visitors come from? 

Naturally your simple, clever, easy-to-remember domain name is prominently featured on all of your print materials, including your signage.  And of course this same domain name is referenced in your voicemail greeting as a place where callers can get immediate information about you and available listings.  You better be featured on your company's website, too.  These forms of marketing have all become de rigeur, but they don't represent the venue where your hottest leads will consistently come from.

Far and away, the the hottest, most qualified leads for you are consumers sitting in front of a search engine right this minute with a great need for your services.  Why is this?  It's simple.  A consumer doesn't sit down in front of Google and type in "homes for sale in mytown," unless he or she has is highly interested in homes for sale in Mytown.  Better yet, the consumer knows that once the query results come back, he or she is only a click away from getting the information desired. 

Print advertising, by contrast, requires the consumer to find his or her way back to a computer to get more information about you from your ad.  Simply put, the search engines represent a huge population of potential clients who have an immediate need and will get to you (ideally) with one click.  With the right tools on your website, that prospective client will stick around your site longer and return often.

So, how do you put your name and web address in front of search engine consumers looking for services like you offer?  It starts with you defining what your highest value, most qualified prospective client looks like, and then defining a search engine marketing campaign to attract this exact prospect to your site.  It's not rocket science, but none of us grew up with the search engines, and if you're like most of my clients, you'd rather focus on real estate than search engine marketing, a discipline that requires constant attention and training.  That's when a solid search engine marketing consultant can be invaluable. 

With or without a consultant, there are two important strategies to consider with search engine marketing -- organic ranking and advertising.  Tomorrow, we will talk about the pros and cons of both strategies.  Some of the pros and some of the cons for each strategy will likely surprise you.  And, while everybody has an opinion on which strategy they think works best, smart agents do both, and tomorrow we'll see why.

The Federal Reserve pumped $62 BILLION dollars into our financial system this week because the rate on bank-to-bank loans is significantly above the Fed's benchmark rate.  Do you know what this means?  If not, take a look at this excellent, short article I saw in the Los Angeles Times business section this morning called A primer on the Federal Reserve. 

Is this week's action significant?  As the article points out, the second infusion on Friday ($38 billion right after Thursday's $24 billion dollar infusion) was the Fed's biggest corrective move since its move right after 9/11.

If the Fed's actions make your eyes glaze over, I urge you to look at this article.  Our economy impacts world markets in significant ways and we as real estate professionals are sitting in the eye of the storm.  None of us can afford to not understand the basic mechanics of what is happening.

This is a reprise of an article I wrote five years ago when I was doing more business coaching.  I thought it would be fun to share it with the AR community.  Real estate professionals are some of the coolest, most motivated entrepreneurs I know.

The Hokey Pokey Of Being A Successful Entrepreneur

My husband and I are HUGE fans of Jimmy Buffet, a man who sings passionately about having fun with life, no matter what it looks like.  Jimmy, not coincidentally, has made a boatload of money with his message.

So other than the fact that I have tremendous entrepreneurial respect for the Jimmy Buffet money-making machine, why would I bring this guy up in an entrepreneurs' article?  Because Jimmy sings a great parody of the Hokey Pokey.

I know what you're thinking - this woman has been spending too much time in Margaritaville!  Geez, isn't the Hokey Pokey a polka reserved for family weddings???  I had the same initial reaction and I'm positive that I physically cringed when I saw a song called "The Hokey Pokey" on a Jimmy Buffet compilation CD our good friend Tom made for my husband.  In fact, I refused to listen to the song for months.  Being the first song on the disc, it was easy to skip.

Then one day I was in the car thinking about ten different things (the bane of an excited entrepreneur) and I realized that the "dreaded song" was playing in the background.  As I reached for the skip button, I was literally stopped dead in my tracks.  I can still hearing the horns blaring all around me.  I should have guessed this before based on Buffet's general philosophy, but here was a song taking a full-frontal "poke" at people who take life too seriously.

So, back to the question, "what the heck does this song have to do with running a business?"  The answer, my friends, comes in one particular immortal line of the song:

            "You only have two choices - having fun or freaking out - that's what it's all about...."

There is was!  A thunderbolt from the sky, courtesy of Jimmy Buffet.  Isn't that what all of LIFE is about?  And why should running a business be any different?  Are you having fun or freaking out?  It IS that simple.

A number of years ago, when I first started leading entrepreneurs' workshops, a lawyer approached me and asked me to put together something for solo-preneurs to help them deal with fluctuating revenue streams.  That request has always stuck with me, although I never complied with it.  I now understand that my resistance to her request stemmed from that the fact that this person wanted me to make freaking out "okay."  I'm sorry, but I opt for the fun side of the equation.

Of course I'm not advocating that we all starve to follow our passion.  Just the opposite - I'm advocating that passion sells!  Whether you own a dry cleaning business or manufacture pet toys, your passion (or lack of it) will show up in everything from your print advertising to the top down culture you create for your employees.  And people, no matter who your client base is, want to touch passion - and they will pay top dollar for it.  Oh no - you won't starve.  Ask Jimmy Buffet.

Are you passionate about your business?  If you say "yes," check in with those around you (like clients and employees) to see if your talk matches your walk.  If you say "no," ask yourself "why not?"  Are you in the wrong business?  Are you taking on too much of the stuff you don't like in the right business?  What changes need to be made?  Put on a Buffet CD and get it all sorted out.

Remember, you only have two choices - having fun or freaking out.  If you're not having fun, make changes.  Yes, it IS that simple.  Maybe a little hokey pokey around the room wouldn't hurt either.  Try out this fun version I found and rock on!

Yesterday, we talked about the importance of keeping your business pipeline full, even when you're busy handling "life."  Today, it's the branding dance.

May I Have This Dance?

Your best strategy for doing business with today's online real estate consumers is to engage in a subtle branding dance, with you taking the lead.  What is the "brand?"  First and foremost, it's you as respectful, helpful, resourceful, knowledgeable and responsive.  Secondarily, it's you as an expert in whatever neighborhood, property type or other niche you enjoy or advocate.  This is the type of service professional that consumers universally want to work with.  If you perfect the primary brand, you might even be able to get away without having a secondary brand, although I don't recommend it.

How do you perfect this primary brand?  As a real estate professional, you provide listings, listings and more listings to your consumers.  Isn't this what you did before the advent of web marketing?  Listings information is what real estate consumers demand!  Don't make your potential client beg, work hard to find or pre-register to get this sought after information.  These consumers don't generally have a relationship with you yet, and they are only one back-click away from being gone forever when they first land on your homepage.

Bonus tip!  Forget the free reports and community "information."  Consumers don't want this fluff and it distracts from your real value proposition.  The free report concept was thought up by the web vendors who don't have a strong listings technology to offer you.  It amazes me that these vendors have so successfully sold this as "lead generating" to the real estate community.

Once you provide lots of listings information (making access as simple as possible), only then do you start to think about asking for anything in return from your budding client (hint:  this means you absolutely do not even consider asking visitors to pre-register for access to listings).  Even at this point, any request for identifying information from your visitor should be intertwined with additional value to your consumer, such as requesting registration in exchange for seeing a listing's complete address or setting up a private watchlist.  A strong, effective, interactive IDX product is designed with exactly these objectives in mind.  Weak IDX solutions will not support your branding dance, as I've previously written.

Keep Dancing

Please keep in mind that many visitors will be reluctant to register on your website (i.e., give up contact information) under any circumstances on their first visit to your site.  This does not make them bad leads!  They are "early" leads with a longer time horizon.  If your lead incubation tools are automated, you can fill an entire pipeline with these early leads, and retire happy as early lead after early lead matures.  But you have to keep these early leads with you, instead of roaming the Internet looking for additional information.

For these reluctant consumers, your goal is to make your site a "safe," non-threatening place to return to, and you want to further employ tools that encourage return visits.  Prominently advertise that your listings "inventory" is updated daily or encourage visitors to register for daily new listing updates by email.  These emails should then have ample links back to your site where visitors can view the details of the listing(s) and save them to their private watchlist.  Again, strong IDX solution is an invaluable tool for advancing this goal.

None of the foregoing tools would be available to real estate professionals marketing online, however, if they did not have web-ready databases of listings available.  It cannot be over-emphasized that this is a unique marketing opportunity for real estate professionals.  It makes me absolutely crazy that agents and brokers fail to recognize and capitalize on this exceptional opportunity.  But although there are no better strategies and tools available for converting leads to clients than those described in this post, did you notice that a critical assumption is being made?  Yes, you need visitors to your site, if you want to use my strategies to grow your real estate business.

The strategies and tools above assume that you have visitors to your website!  Tomorrow, in Make More & Work Less With Smart Lead Generation & Development -- Part III, we'll discuss how to bring more visitors to your site.