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How Youre Helping Your Competitors Zillow and Trulia Outrank You

Reblogger Bill & Fran Jenkins
Real Estate Agent with Nevada Realty Connection

You may have noticed over the last 12 months that Zillow,Trulia, Realtor.com have dominated the first page of Google for organic buyer search results. This is due to Zillow and Trulia using real estate agents to actually work against themselves unknowingly. Please read this in depth blog from Jeff Manson owner of Real Geeks and after reading ask yourself how you may be helping Zillow and Trulia outrank you!

Original content by Jeff Manson

Last week I shared how it is getting harder to rank well in our respective markets for real estate queries. This week I would like to share one of the strategies your competition is using to beat you, and how we as agents play a part in helping them do this.

In the top 50 metro markets in the US, only 30% of the results are for local sites. That means 70% are national sites. And two of the biggest competitors in almost EVERYONE's markets are Trulia and Zillow. So how do they do this?

They Use Us

Zillow and Trulia are very good at marketing to real estate agents. With Zillow specifically, their core business model is to be integral; to your business model. In a conference call with analysts last February, CEO Spencer Rascoff explained their strategy:

“The strategy here is to have many hundreds of thousands of real estate agents using our suite of — mostly free — productivity tools.”

It sounds great doesnt it? Very generous on Zillow's part to allow us to use their tools. The most widely used of these tools are the widgets they offer. However there is a catch to these widgets. They are optimized to help Zillow beat each of us in our own markets.

How You're Helping Zillow and Trulia to Outrank You
How You're Helping Zillow and Trulia to Outrank You was created by: Real Geeks IDX Solutions

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Fernando Herboso - Associate Broker MD, & VA
Maxus Realty Group of Samson Properties - Clarksburg, MD
301-246-0001 Serving Maryland, DC and Northern VA

A good reblog. . .a lot of people are starting to notice it! 

Dec 20, 2012 10:43 PM
Randy Bocook
Keller Williams Coastal Area Partners - Richmond Hill, GA
Selling Coastal Georgia

Great Post,  I am not finding Good Things about Zillow or Truila

Dec 20, 2012 10:44 PM
Gail Robinson
William Raveis Real Estate - Southport, CT
CRS, GRI, e-PRO Fairfield County, CT

Bill and Fran - NOW I get it!  Thank you for explaining this to me.  I'll remove the widget today from my sites.

Dec 20, 2012 10:58 PM