This is a post that dovetails from George Anton's original post in February.  I was hoping to address some of the negativity surrounding the Featured Homes marketing system on Realtor.com. 

For those of your who don't know, featured homes on Realtor.com are an upgrade to showcase listings.  They are purchased by zip code, and each zip code has 8 spots total.  These spots link people directly to your enhanced listings from a placement on the interim search page before consumers are actually looking at search results.  This is why, many times, agents do not quantify the traffic as coming from featured homes, but instead believe it is a result of their showcase listings.  It is impossible to tell if someone clicked into the listing from a featured home or a regular search.  The one thing that is indisputable is that having a featured home guarantees your listing a lot more exposure on the site.

Still, in my opinion (I can only speak for myself), the featured home product has gotten a little stale.  Which is why I am happy that Realtor.com is in the process of revamping the product's location on the site.  Featured homes will soon be appearing across the top of every search results page instead of just the left side of the interim search page.  This change will be a major benefit to all of our featured homes clients resulting in more exposure for all featured homes clients.

I would also like to address the reason why Realtor.com is still a great investment.  We are the number one website on the internet for real estate traffic by a large margin.  According to compete.com we had over 7 million unique users in the month of March.  Our numbers are only growing in a market that is slumping across the nation.  Just as the top realtors are consolidating business with newer agents leaving the market, so is realtor.com consolidating our traffic in the real estate sector. 

Marketing is about crafting a message and getting that message out to the largest qualified audience, to build your brand, and produce results over the long haul.  If you're looking solely for leads, (and many agents are at this point) then you would be better served by products other than featured homes and showcase listings.  We have products to help with that.  Showcase Listings and Featured Homes are for marketing yourself and your listings to people searching for real estate, even people who are already represented by another agent.  They are great when leveraged in a listing presentation and are a solid addition to any marketing plan, but they are not a lead capture system.  We can't make people connect with you, that is ultimately your responsibility.

My earlier blog posts address how to get the most out of your Showcase Listings.  If anyone has questions on how to use featured homes to their greatest impact, just ask.  I would be more than happy to do another post on how my top clients use these positions to maintain and build business.