I love data - it helps us understand how consumers behave. I've also made many references to Freakonomics - can 't stress the underlying issue of correlation versus causal variables. Here's a scenario that makes me laugh because people get it wrong so often and the bias is so obvious.
The setting for this story is Anytown, USA and the main actors are Agent Jack Smith and Agent Jill Jones; each are very professional and competent realtors in Anytown USA. They are competitors, but the point of this story has nothing to do with their competitive posturing.
Imagine Agent Jill Jones has a really nice web site. On that site she creates an excellent integration with her local MLS data that provides an ideal model for people to search and discover properties. Her site is flawless in every way and really provides a wonderful experience for people that just want to find homes they can buy. Indeed, Agent Jones has created a lead generation machine by all indcations.
Also consider Agent Jack Smith - he's created the best real estate community site you could imagine. He has links to local newspapers, television stations, the library, schools and universities, and a robust search feature for finding a good day care center, or a great place to dine or shop. Agent Smith has created a universe of local information - a comprehensive directory unmatched by any other agents in the area. He too believes he has the perfect lead gathering system.
Each month, Jack and Jill look carefully at their web site server logs to make sure they are providing the content that people want. They are constantly tuning their content based on how search engines have referred new visitors to their site. This is a good practice by all indications - after all, the data doesn't lie.
Jack sees many search referrals based on phrases like Anytown schools, Anytown recreation, and Anytown events. He concludes that people want these subjects because they're finding his site on these phrases. So he adds more community references to schools, recreation, and events in his local area. He even pays a programmer a significant amount of money to add a community calendar with all sorts of features that will surely appeal to what real estate buyers really want.
Jill is also looking at her server logs and realizes that what people truly want to do on the web is search for properties. She sees lots of referrals coming from search engines that indicate web users want to find properties in Anytown's newest and exclusive subdivision, Anyplace. ;-) Other phrases and terms about property search stand out thus validating her conclusions that real estate buyers only care about property search. So she embarks on a mission to promote her site and hires an SEO firm to enhance her positioning for terms like Anytown Properites, and Real Estate Search in Anytown. She pays a lot of money to optimize her presence for property search.
The next month, both agents review their latest search referral results following their web site improvements. They each are very pleased with what they see; Jack sees a noteable increase in interest about events in Anytown. Jill is extremely happy to see more visitors using her MLS search facilities. It appears that both agents have created the perfect web model for getting clients.
At a local gathering of real estate agents, Jack and Jill are enjoying cocktails and sharing some stories about the community when Jack begins to brag about his success on the web with his extensive community content. Jill, who knows alot about Jack's community-oriented web site, remarks - How can you get any leads from a site that offers content that no one is looking for? Smith responds - What are you talking about - community content is all that web users care about!
What have we learned about the Anytown USA market and search engine marketing strategies based on these two divergent perceptions of reality? Is it possible that both are right? Is it possible that both are wrong and are simply attracting very small slivers of real estate buyers from a much larger pie? Is it possible that their respective sites are so biased that they have each left sizeable portions of their real estate selling opportunities to an agent that blogs?
We don't know the answers to these questions because, well... it's based on fiction, but we can understand a few things about this scenario that might help us see our web properties in a different light.
- Search engines refer visitors to your web properties based on the content that they can confidently recommend. If you focus on property search, you will only get referrals for property search regardless of how many people want to purchase homes and aren't ready to search for properties.
- Your web site strategy and content can unknowingly bias search engines, thus reducing the size of possible selling opportunities.
- Your marketplace perspective can lead to incorrect assumptions about Internet users and their needs.
- Focusing on one dimension of the data can dramatically shrink the target audience that you seek to communicate with while distorting your perception of the true needs of the market.
An alternate perception of reality...
In my view, the correct perception of reality is that people want [first and foremost] to find content that will help them. There are many types of content - property data, community data, and information about many diverse subjects which are not easily predictable or able to be encapsulated in search engine terms. Real estate buyers probably want to establish trust with someone that will engage in a dialog, not a monolog of properties available or a list of churches in the area. Isn't this the foundation and value proposition of real estate agents?
I would hazzard to guess that people who use sites that are tilted towards any single dimension of the real estate buying process, do so because there is a void of relevant content written by articulate thought leaders for any given region or locality.
What are your thoughts?
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