Hey all, this is from my article in this month's RIS Media (http://rismag.imprev.net/2007/12/) pg 124/125

http://rismedia.com/wp/2007-12-11/how-to-establish-your-mega-presence-on-the-web/ (complete)

"The average agent would probably count a website as part of their marketing plan and as important as their PDA, computer and digital camera. Yet, like many marketing tools of the past (see Polaroid and the Newspaper) the website is not timeless. As the web has matured to its proverbial adolescence, the sites that were created in recent years have quickly become outdated and non-functional. With today's "web 2.0" connectivity, data sharing and the mega-presence available to today's agent, a personal website is now optional. To understand my point, we need to assess the original intention of a website.

Some of you may say that the original goal of your site was to connect with consumers, or to display your knowledge, maybe even to market listings. These are all true. But something had to happen for this venture to be successful, you needed to be found. The race was quickly on to get to "page one" of Google for countless scores of keywords. We competed broker to broker, agent to agent and broker to agent and all against the lead farms for those coveted 10 spots on page one. An essentially painful and fruitless endeavor, that was quite costly. We can agree that unless your website can be found, it is virtually useless. Enter the "blog."

We did it, we found a way to connect - to speak with our clients and create connections - fantastic. But wait, so did 9,970,000 others according to my Google search for, "real estate blog." At first it was a genuine smorgasbord of actually good writing; it looked so easy. Quickly, thousands upon thousands of consumers, brokers, agent, mortgage bankers, lawyers and more started blogging too. The battle for supremacy raged again and blogs have now replaced websites as the medium of choice. They are text heavy, therefore easily indexed by Google, they offer quick and easy posting - and heck they don't have to be pretty. The blog has become the centerpiece of today's agent, but even that has a shelf-life that is nearing its course..."

for the rest of the article please read it here(http://rismag.imprev.net/2007/12/), I cannot link to it directly as it is a "flash" scroll to page 124-125:

"Commentary - Establish your Mega-Presence on the Web"

Happy Holidays!

-Pierre