Different parts of the country use different search engines.  They use different real estate websites.

I just checked out a Hit Router blog by Active Brad and saw something that really didn't surprise me but caused me to say "WHY?!"  According to his blog "over 100,000 consumers searched ActiveRain for Real Estate in specific cities using the "Search For Homes" feature" in April of 2009.

Well I checked the graph on his blog and there were virtually no cities in the Northeast?  Philly, PA was there but is anything south of New York really in the Northeast?  (PA people, I know you'll tell me if I'm wrong).

Here at Realty Executives Tri-County, Inc. in Bellingham, MA we are going through an important and I believe essential change.  We have joined forces with Realty Generator to bring our company website and our individual agent websites into a newly upgraded, online integrated, customer/client management system.  The benefits of this partnership have proven to be substantial to other offices in MA, and they can't stop raving out it.

One of the things that so impressed me with Realty Generator is that they take note of which search engines customers/clients in our area are utilizing.  And their "magic programing juice" (if no one has taken credit for this term, yeah, it's all mine), focuses their stuff at those sites.

Now I'm not a computer genius and I don't pretend to be, so "stuff" is my technical term for whatever and however they get me more clients.  In all honesty I cringe as I say this because I don't want to be perceived as one of those agents who will do whatever to get as many clients as they can.  I am one of those agents that cares about every client I come into contact with.  I want the best for them because they deserve it and that's not just a tag line!

Active rain is considered an "organic" or free way to gain SEO and increase your online presence, but it is not THE SEARCH ENGINE for consumers in the Northeast.

WHY?!  Who knows?  But I would love to commission a poll to find out!

So that's my challenge for the next week (maybe two).  To find out how consumers in the NE, currently buckling down for good old Hurricane, no Tropical Storm, no Tropical Depression Danny; search for homes.

Is it Yahoo, Google, Boston.com, Realtor.com, ActiveRain or something else?  I aim to find out!  With the help of my Facebook, twitter, my broker, and current agents I will construct a poll for agents in the Northeast that will tell us where our future/present clients are searching for homes and real estate information in general.

A big undertaking, I know, but I think it's essential for each of us to analyze where (online) our clients are coming from; and I hope that agents in other areas of the country can do the same!

Part II will be the poll itself!   Stay tuned, this is gonna be fun!