Get ready to care about "EdgeRank" more than SEO

@Billie - I pay a small amount of money for my internet marketing - less than I used to pay for a print ad in the newspaper. 

80% of my business now comes from my AR blog which links to my website for lead conversion.

You have to learn how to blog properly to make it work - I don't have to do open houses, work FSBOs, do floor time, etc.

Buyers and sellers call or email when they are ready.

Internet marketing is networking - online.  The best way to get new business.

Jay: 

You said what I was thinking but as always, so much better

I think, Alex, you're jumping a little bit too far ahead of where social media, search and real estate business is. And I doubt we'll get there any time soon when agents will be generating substantial business from online social networking. And if there is a person to ask, Jay Thompson would probably have the best answer, since he has one of the most prominent presence in SM.

First of all social media channels like Twitter and Facebook are not looked at by consumer in the same way agents look at it. From the business stand point we're trying to cater our services to the masses that  interested in discovering things shared by their friends and like-minded people they follow. Most of them will find real estate irrelevant. That's one of the reasons agents don't have masses of home buyers following them, but rather other realtors and businesses in the industry + friends and family.

Personally, I think, social media is a great channel for larger businesses and brands who can create a real following of their customers and people that care. For a single agent it's almost impossible. Yes you can create a substantial following of like-minded people, but not a mob of raving fans and former customers that will help you to generate new business. Plus a single agent would never be able to handle this kind of volume by him/herself.

Be realistic, if you outline a specific strategy to stay connected with your past clients and commit to it, then yes - you can have referral business generated that way. It doesn't matter which tools you're using - letters, cards, phone calls or Facebook. But again, I doubt you can make a leaving from the volume of this referral business - it's just a part of the bigger strategy.

Social Media became and overwhelming distraction filled with noise. And when it comes to finding the right tools for the job - we're turning to specialized channels that provide highly targeted and quality content. You could shop on Facebook, but would you? You can search for real estate on Facebook and Twitter, but do you? To find something worth your while, you'd have to filter out a lot of noise, and rather use ebay, Amazon etc.

Social media is good for distributing ideas and discovering something new - social media is an opportunity channel if it's used right, but in no way Facebook will substitute specialized tools like search engines i.e. Google.

I totally agree with Jay that comparing Google and Facebook is silly. Since you compare traffic, why not compare the time spent on Facebook and Google as well? Would that be relevant? If people spent as much time on Google searching for something they really need, as they spent on Facebook posting photos of their cats and venting, I'd be concerned, because I expect to find what I need in Google in seconds and be on my way. Social media tools are time hogs on the other hand.

You're saying "Facebook has surpassed Google in traffic and crushes them in engagement and customer relationship." What if Farmville will have more traffic than Google or Facebook? It probably has quite an engagement rate already. There is a difference between traffic and targeted traffic.

You say "Let's face it, only 5-7 players consistently win on any local keyword string. Are you one of those?" In business school they teach that only 5% of their graduates will become successful - are all realtors among of them? No one says it's easy - the "idea of easy" is what screws real estate industry in the first place. Nonetheless, there is approx. 1 Realtor per every 275 people in the US, not counting non-NAR members. Success demands diversity and ability to adjust. VHS rental/sales businesses didn't fold, CDs/DVDs and now Blue-Rays are just next generation of the same product and many of the same businesses come up with new strategies like online rentals and rentals on demand. Agents shouldn't look for an easy way - they should look for a way that works and figure out how it can work for them.

You say "For the vast majority of agents, business is done the old fashioned way through networking." I'm must be too young, since all I can remember - agents soliciting their family, friends, neighbors, cold-calling, door knocking and farming - in the old days. Today, we have a great advantage of not sifting through the masses, but delivering our messages directly to those who are in the market. Yes there is a competition and it will probably grow, since technology give more opportunities to those who can take advantage if it.

I agree that Facebook has too much of personal information from their users, which definitely can give them selling power, but again, we have to see that working for the real estate industry yet.

As far as SEO being dead... just because "SEO is very very well documented and understood now" - it doesn't mean that it doesn't apply anymore. Optimization techniques are quite simple and being implemented via plugins and directly into the systems, which makes things much simpler to maintain, but it doesn't mean it's dead. Producing quality content is what most important - giving people what they are looking for is the most important.

You say - "Long tail you tell me? How much traffic is that really sending you? And how much business is that traffic really turning into?" You're in business of referring business - volume is important to you, because that's what you sell. Agents, on the other hand, want to cut down the unnecessary volume and produce more sales. I've seen long tail brining real estate sales within weeks from site lunch. If long tail didn't pay off, search engines and e-commerce sites would never target (and especially didn't buy ads for) book names, ISBN numbers, model numbers and other detail oriented searches.

Last, but not least - how creating relationships via social networking, that later lead into business transaction can be less time consuming and result in more business than converting targeted traffic from search engines?

I think that SM is a huge misconception by many real estate agents. You guys are following and listening to companies whose targeted audience you're. They like it and it works for them because you're their buyers and you follow them... Until realtors can generate as much business as Real Estate Connect, by organizing their open houses via Facebook and Twitter - SM will be outplayed by targeted search in generating direct sales.

Alex -

To be blunt, I'm not overly concenred with the "average agent". We hire great, well above averge agents. Those, and our clients, are who concerns me. You, as a real estate vendor, have different concerns.

Personally, I think "owning the SERPs" is over-rated. Yeah, it's a matter of personal pride for me that I've managed to get my blog to Page 1 of Google for the search term "Phoenix Real Estate". And that does indeed drive a significant amount of traffic. But you know what? It's terms like "Power ranch homes for sale", "MLS #xxxxxxx", and "I want to sell my Phoenix home" that really make the email and phone light up.

Those search terms are not all that difficult to rank for. SEO mastery, link backs, meta-whatever tags are not needed.

I built a highly local WordPress based neighborhood site about a year ago. Within a week, I had a contact from it. It only gets about 15 unique visits a day (compared to 2000 - 3000 a day on TPREG). But it makes the phone ring. 

THAT is the power of "SEO". Find a term a few, serious, buyers and sellers search for, and build a site - or a series of posts -- around it. I think I could Facebook that term to death and get nowhere. Google on the other hand, loves it.

Traffic is nice, and there is a "numbers game" to this Internet thing. But **focused** traffic is far more important.

Facebook isn't going away, Google isn't going away, and who knows what some 20 year old kid in a dorm room is cooking up as we type. It's a never ending battle to stay on top of these things.

The interesting thing to me, is it is entirely possible to be wildly successful in real estate doing NONE of the internet/social media/blogging/next big tech thing. There are people out there who geo-farm by postal mail, door knock, and attend the Rotary Club and are insanely successful too....

There is almost an infinite number of ways to skin the real estate cat.

Max - *great* comment!!

Interesting. Have not been using Facebook to any degree for business. Got a Blackberry though so I can more easily access Facebook. (One reason). Will start thinking about facebook more and take a closer look.

Ok, It is amazing that everybody is so upset about this.  SEO is not and will not be dead for a long time if ever.  Facebook is growing like mad and is the future we are going in.  15-20 years ago who knew what the internet was?  7 years ago, who cared about Google rankings?  Today, most professionals are ignoring Facebook & Twitter.  In 4 years, it will be as important, or more so then SEO.  I am spending more time on Facebook now then doing blogs.  The switch is important, but it would not make sense to drop SEO.

Yes, but should I be doing this on a Mac or PC?

Unix or VMS ?

emacs or vi ?

firefox or IE ?

iphone or laptop?

Please take this man's advice and stop partaking in SEO.  You will leave less competition for the guys who know better, and we will enjoy our new found wealth in the real estate sector.

Google will be used for a long time to come.  It was the first most intelligent and still is the ultimate "magic mirror", one which you can ask any question in to and probably find an answer within seconds.   Google maps connections made between websites, creating a sort of social network similar to Facebook's social networks.  That's SEO in a nutsell. 

Facebook is a social network for people, not a search engine to find topics on web pages... two very different services to be comparing. Yet still you submit to ActiveRainers advice that they should ignore SEO?  Alex, you lost me at... "Google Local, how to register? WHO KNOWS?!?"

GOOGLE SEARCH KEYWORDS "REGISTER GOOGLE LOCAL" REVEALS THIS:

http://www.google.com/local/add

Er... I mean "ignore Google it's worthless".  Doubt you could have found ths information on Facebook.  Edgerank information is great, but telling folks here to ignore SEO is wrong in my opinion.

Billie, #181 I agree with your accessment that we should never give up on walking and knocking, reaching out to our COI's and networking where ever we can. But, I also (at least for now) think that social media is here and its here to stay. I have found that it allows me to keep in contact with my COI in an ADDITIONAL way beyond the calls and email. I was surprised how many of them were willing to "friend" me for example. I will never give up the aforementioned ways of maintaining my customer base but will and have added social media as an addition to and not a replacement for.

Great Post, I think I have a grasp on it now that I have read it about 5 times.  I am putting together my plan to take advantage of it.

Very nice...I think we all need to re-evaluate our time spent advertising on the internet and possibly shift to creating relationship instead...keep it up!

Alex, this is an eye opener!  Thanks for the insight.

Thank you for this information... I've been doing Facebook, but don't remember ever hearing the term Edge Rank.