In looking around the local Real Estate Websites for the Greater Rochester, NY area, I came across an interesting finding: On a Google Address Search for "672 WEST GENESEE ST Corfu, NY 14036", the top 2 Google Results Page positions were for Realtor.com. I had never seen a Realtor.com listing on a Google Search before.
After years of concealing their listing data on the "Hidden Web",where Search Engines are blocked, the NAR and Move have decided to use the Search Engines and SEO to drive traffic to their Realtor.com Website. They've decided that a visitor coming in through their Street Address and Town pages are just as good as Home Page visitors.
An interesting piece of advice on Internet visitors is: "General searchers are shoppers. Specific searchers are buyers." Which do you want?
Last year the New York Times opened up most of their articles to the Internet and search by the Search Engines. Their subscription revenue didn't suffer and their traffic and ad revenue soared.
When Saturday Night Live first saw their video clips on YouTube, they threatened to sue. When their viewership and ratings soared, they not only allowed their clips to go out on, they decided to provide the clips themselves.
Realtor.com had always subscribed to the One Big Website Theory, and the philosophy of hide your individual listing data from Internet Search. So the only place you could find a Realtor.com listing was on Realtor.com. No need for Google. No need for SEO. No need for search-able Web-pages for every home. All visitors were channeled through your Website's Home-Page.
But Google Base, Yahoo Real Estate, MSN Real Estate, Zillow and Trulia have changed all that. The Web traffic Market Share for Realtor.com and Move.com is only 6.63% and Realtors are hungry to get on the other 93.37%.
Won't we loose control of our listing data? What if someone puts our listing data on a porn site? It wouldn't make for an interesting viewing, and it would make for terrible porn.
But being search-able by Google and the other search engines (heaven forbid pushing your listing data out to a search engine or 2, even a vertical search engine) has all of a sudden become an interest of Realtor.com.
I was impressed with Realtor.com's use of SEO for the individual property address and the Town
- They used the street address or Town name in the Web-page domain name
- They used the street address or Town name in the Web-page Title Tag
- They used the street address or Town name in the Web-page Description
Sounds repetitious, but it works well for SEO.
It appears the NAR, Move and Realtor.com have taken a page from the Trulia Playbook for SEO and for high Google Results Page positions to drive more traffic and potential buyers to their sites.
What's next? Realtor.com will become a media Website, selling Google Text Ads, like Zillow and Trulia?
Have the lights really gone on at the NAR and Move?
Happy Searching.
Posted by: Cliff Jacobson
Adapt Or Die!
WebHomeUSAblog: The Blog of Online Real Estate Marketing
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