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Take Back Your SERP: New Real Estate Agent Grassroots Movement

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) April 20th, 2009 in Marketing tips. Comments

tea-party-trulia-zillow TruZilla Tea Party

The recent wave of grassroots Tea Party protests and the Twitter mini-debate between @davidgibbons and @trulia, aka “Who is better at jumping real estate agents in the SERPS, Trulia or Zillow”  got me thinking (that happens sometimes)—- maybe real estate agents should start their own grassroots movement: Take Back Your SERP.

Real estate agents, thirsty for their listings’ dissemination, have happily guzzled the TruZilla carrot juice to donate free listings, which TZ, mostly Trulia, has distilled into their own high octane SEO juice, jumping the agents in the SERPS (search engine results pages).   Touting their visitor counts and flexing their SEO muscle, these media companies are now making the agents pay for the privilege of   “featured” listings  and “pro” ads (Trulia ads are shared by 2 agents– c’mon).  (See Trulia Pro: Pros and Cons) Seems fair to the media companies.  Should agents care?  Yes, I think so.

There are 3 reasons why agents should not let Trulia or Zillow outrank their websites in the SERPS for local market keywords:

1. A listing agent’s properties are in the red ocean of TruZilla, competing with every other agents’ properties.  If the consumer is on the agent website, their listings swim in the magic blue ocean.

2. By letting TZ outrank you, you will become beholden to them and have no choice but to buy featured listings at every increasing prices.  Isn’t that the way monopolistic companies work?

2.  Buyers miss most of the MLS listings landing on TruZilla because these listings are on the agents’ websites.

The Red Ocean of TruZilla

firt-bite-truzilla

The line which keeps TruZilla fed is this: “Your listings are exposed to more people on TruZilla.”  This is a red herring and very misleading IMO.    If you think you have a better chance of getting a consumer to call you if they land on Trulia or Zillow  vs. your website, I say you’re mistaken.   I believe you have a much better chance of getting business if a consumer lands on your website directly.   Being on your website, they will call you.  Besides, TZ has ads to pull consumers off the site (and your listings).  Bad shark.

Once agents give up their SERP, they will become beholden to the SEO ball hogs, who will one day make them pay for being on page 2 of Google.   Make no mistake about it.

truzilla-transaprency

From the home buyers’ point of view, the media companies do not have most of the MLS listings— and these transparent posers refuse to tell consumers their local MLS coverage (better to tout visitors).  As the wise Jay Thompson wrote in a recent post, his local IDX/MLS search produced more listings than Zillow’s 87% or Trulia’s measly 64%.    But the problem is BUYERS DO NOT KNOW THIS.   And they won’t if they keep being sucked into TruZilla gaping mouth.

I am not saying listings should not be on these sites, and others on the net.  They should (so long as the clients approve).  But agents ought to educate themselves how to jump these sharks in the SERPS so they don’t one day fall prey to them (or their future owners).

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  • At some point we have to quit being angry and do something. Today my office chose to do something about it. this will hurt them. I am not affraid to not be apart of these organizations.

    We took action!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    http://www.skyrealtyaustin.com/blog/why-we-no-l...
  • That certainly is taking action, Curtis. I sense others may follow.
  • True. This is another technique I've advised clients to use. Since Google adopted Universal Search, videos pop to the top of SERPS. Savvy agents know how to use video to get to the top of the charts. What's interesting is these videos act as placeholders. If a house sells, simple swap out the video for another and you still have your spot.
  • I'm not in the real estate industry but as a professional internet marketing consultant, know a bit about local search. Many folks are lured into thinking that directory style site of any kind is the way to get high ranking in the SERPS. Well although the sites may rank well, only, by the way, if Google can't find anything more relevant to rank above them, but the reality is that you're listed with all of your competitors. How is a visitor going to choose between agents?

    There is no better way to rank in the search engines, and convert visitors into customers than to have an independent site on your own domain which is highly optimized for terms that are both relevant and valuable to your business.

    Second to your own site is the use of Social Networking sites. For a Realtor, there's nothing better than video. If you make a video out of still pictures of the home, add some royalty free music to it, and perhaps even narrate it, you're providing your visitor with a viewing experience that most of your competitors don't do. As important is the fact that Google loves video and will rank it well in the search engines if you optimized it properly. Send the video to multiple video sites, bookmark the video to several bookmarking sites, and in each of these, put a direct link to your site, pointing to the exact home in the video.

    You'll be shocked as to how easy all of this really is, especially for local search. Don't be held hostage by anyone promising customers from the search engines. Google is a free enterprise, and if you give it what it wants, which is good, relevant content, you'll blow any directory site, (which in the I.M. space is referred to as "backfill", away.

    Good selling.
  • @spencer rascoff

    "The more interesting question though, to me anyway, is whether preferring that an agent's website outrank Zillow means you participate more on Zillow or less on Zillow. For me the answer is clear."

    If participation on Zillow helps the agent website rank higher in the SERPs, that's a marketing concept I could endorse. But do you have proof?
  • @Teri I agree with most of what you say. But I am not suggesting these sites disappear or not be used by consumers or agents-- just don't let them use YOU. Outsmart them, if only to protect yourself from the future gouging (they're sharpening their knives as we speak).

    Agents ought to publish content and use websites that help them outrank the Trulias and Zillows. And one way I teach it to agents is to use long tail keywords they can't own, for example, "Modern homes in Denver" (used by Todd Carpenter) or "historic homes in brooklyn for sale" (Dan Shapiro)
  • hmmm, I just checked the 2 keywords you mentioned in my market:

    "Modern homes in Long Beach" (#8 & 9)
    "historic homes in long beach for sale" (#1, 2 & 3)

    Interesting - I didn't go after these particular keywords. It happens naturally when you write about everything in your market.
  • Teri L
    >-- Great, how many other Teri Lussiers did she beat out?

    It's about providing an alternative source, a second option, for information, Joe. If someone isn't comfortable with a blog format, or might not trust a site that is mine and mine alone, then they have another place to go for information. I'm not hiding behind my own site, where everything is controlled by me. I'm here and there and there and way out there. Where is the consumer comfortable? I try to make an effort to be there. Like LinkedIn, but zestier.

    Twitter may very well take over SERP for my name. If every realtor uses a hashtag or tweets about Dayton real estate often enough on twitter, it could take over for real estate terms. Scary. No one will think it's the last word or the best source for that, would they?
  • @Spencer Rascoff re: Teri Lussier

    "Your profile on Zillow has been viewed 404 times so far (which anyone can see in the upper right) http://www.zillow.com/profile/Teri-Lussier/
    and .... is now on page 1 of the SERP for your name."

    -- Great, how many other Teri Lussiers did she beat out?

    BTW, I did a Google search of Teri's name and she ranked #1 from HER website (her Zillow profile was on p.2). This is what I'm talking about. I say it is better that folks land on agents' websites ahead of third parties. As Colleen & Laurie (and others) prove-- it can be done. I echo your comment to Laurie Manny, be the exception, not the rule.

    Just follow this logic:

    1. Trulia nofollows agent listings. Why?
    2. To rank higher in the SERPS. Why?
    3. To get more traffic.
    4. duh.

    THE QUESTION:

    If an agent asked Trulia or Zillow if it would be better for the agent's website to outrank them in the SERPS, they would say yes ( if they were honest & transparent)

    THE ANSWERS:

    Zillow: Based on Spencer's congratulations/comments to Laurie Manny: YES

    Trulia: chirp...chirp
  • Yes, as I said above just a moment ago, if I were an agent I would prefer my personal website to outrank Zillow in the SERP for a search like "Dayton homes for sale" or "123 Main Street, Dayton OH" or "Jane Smith realtor". That's sort of a given, isn't it? Of course I'm not going to deny this.

    The more interesting question though, to me anyway, is whether preferring that an agent's website outrank Zillow means you participate more on Zillow or less on Zillow. For me the answer is clear.
  • If an agent asked Trulia or Zillow if it would be better for the agent's website to outrank them in the SERPS, they would say yes ( if they were honest & transparent).
  • I'm honest and transparent, and I can say "yes" to this. I agree that if I were an agent, I'd prefer for my own personal website to outrank Zillow in the SERP.
    But that doesn't mean you shouldn't participate on Zillow, and have your listings there, and your profile, and participate in Zillow Advice. It just means you should also get your own website to perform well in SEO, which by the way is a natural outgrowth of participation on Zillow.
  • Spencer from Zillow here,
    Joe, I don't understand your argument about MLS listings transparency. Zillow clearly shows how many listings we have in each search result. So if you want to know how many listings we have in Phoenix or wherever, just do a search and look at the counts. How are we not being transparent about our listings coverage?
    We now connect to over 100 MLSs. Some of those MLSs give us all of their listings, so we have every listing that an IDX site would have PLUS many FSBOs, new construction, foreclosure listings and Make Me Moves and other listings that have been uploaded manually or through other feeds. Some of those MLSs provide a subset of their listings based on what their member brokers tell them to send us.
    I think we're being very transparent about this.
  • "So if you want to know how many listings we have in Phoenix or wherever, just do a search and look at the counts."

    Oh yeah, that does it. What was I thinking? C'mon Spencer. Are you telling me Zillow is incapable of calculating their % of the available MLS listings in any market? It's still simple division, isn't it?

    To repeat what I said earlier-- Jay Thompson did the division and posted %. Are his calculations wrong? If not, then Z could do the same. (save folks from having to use a calculator and an unknown denominator)

    And if long division is not Z's forte, let's go with something Z is good at-- starting points-- just publish where Zillow has NO MLS listings. Is that not fair to the consumer?
  • As I said above, even if we wanted to publish the statistic of
    "Zillow's listings in a given search / # MLS listings in that search", how would we know the denominator?
  • @ Spencer "even if we wanted to publish the statistic of
    "Zillow's listings in a given search / # MLS listings in that search", how would we know the denominator?

    Question 1: If Zillow could, would you want Zillow to publish this MLS coverage stat?

    Question 2: Would you support Zillow publishing where they have no MLS listings?

    Here's a suggestion: list every MLS in the country-- you can do that right?-- and put a little check mark beside the ones you have no mls listings from. Fair?
  • >so we have every listing that an IDX site would have PLUS many FSBOs, new construction, foreclosure listings and Make Me Moves and other listings that have been uploaded manually or through other feeds.

    That's what chaps our britches, doesn't it? We, Realtors, want control of the inventory. Consumers see through this, and why not? Consumers want control of the process, as they should. We, as Realtors, are going to have to wrap our brains around that fact.

    Joe, your question about whether this is good for agent's sites is a valid one, but in the end our concern should be whats best for the consumer?

    I don't come to that decision easily. As I said, I don't like any of these big real estate bullies, but, in Zillow's case (I have no experience with Trulia or Homegain, AR is something else entirely) consumers like it. Consumers like the mix of professional info and independent info. And stop and think about it- that in itself provides a service that my site can't provide- yet.

    At this point in time, until I'm sold down yet another river, I can do Dayton consumers a service by participating there, with them, shoulder to shoulder. They appreciate *that* little bit of transparency and brotherhood.
  • Yes, what's best (better?) for consumers is point 3 in the post-- to visit agent's sites to see more MLS/IDX listings than TZ in most, if not all, markets. Is this not true? If it is, it is better for the consumer if the agent's site ranks higher than TZ.

    This is not to say they dont need or want to see a heat map or two. But, in my opinion, their #1 desire is to see all the listings (someone find a survey on this). And one day Roost will overtake the TruZilla on exactly that basis-- if they market to the consumer this way, they will gain ground quickly.

    Why do you think Trulia is working on the MLS chink in their armor? Be prepared to read the releases as they sign more and more MLS-- why? Because they need to. Then watch for the rate increases to agents. Again, just the way I see it.

    Are you saying it is not good for the consumer to know if Trulia only has 67% of the MLS listings in Phoenix? I say it is and they should publish this % in the holy name of transparency. But methinks they don't want folks to see the holes in their underwear, figuratively speaking.
  • Teri L
    Consumers want information, just like we do, Joe. They want listings, yes, but they want more than that too. They want to know what a city is like, what a neighborhood is like. Not photos alone, but what is it like to live there. I can provide tons and tons of that information, that's my strength. I've never heard (I'm possibly wrong) Zillow say that they can replace my eyes.

    But here's what I can't provide, yet. I can't provide an impartial conversation about what is going on in real estate. Do you think that when we give someone information, they don't cross check it for accuracy? I do that all the time, don't you? I know clients do that when they first start a discussion with me because they tell me the take my information to their lawyer, or their parents- someone they trust, before they know me well enough to know I'm going to tell them the truth.

    I think people are smart enough to know that there are flaws in the system, and they use Trulia and Zillow to cross check, as one more source of information, that's all. Good for them!

    I use my Zillow profile as one more place to present myself online in a professional capacity. Nothing more.

    >I did a Google search of Teri's name and she ranked #1 from HER website

    Phew. :-)

    Nice discussion, Joe!
  • Joe,
    it looks like this is the comment that i tried to post previously
    a similar comment to this one posted up above, in the proper place
    so you can delete this comment and the one that i replied to here, if you want.

    - spencer
  • I recently pimped my profile on the big Z. Within weeks I began to get calls. No, nothing closed yet, but I don't have any reason to think it won't happen.

    What I find interesting about this conversation is that we don't like these products, so we think consumers shouldn't like them. Consumers like Zillow. Damned if I know why, but it appears that they like the third party feel to it. It's not R.com, it's a warm fuzzy silly-named place that they seem to have some control in the conversation.

    I also find that consumers use Zillow as a kinda sorta other place to check you out. They see your name one place, they are googling you to see where else you show up. Are they looking for listings at Zillow? Not necessarily, but they are looking for solid third party consumer controlled information. Argue about the accuracy of the information at Zillow, consumers trust that site. Funny name and all.

    Dustin, just curious, how you separate AR from Zillow or Trulia with regards to competing against an agent's own site. AR was the worst offender of this. That's why I pulled my account.

    I'm not a huge fan of any of these sites. I want my site to be the first place people find for local real estate- no offense Gina ;-) But, if I can use a site to be one more place consumers can find out about me (it's all about me?) and I can create a unique profile that exhibits a unique aspect of my business to a consumer, then I'll use it. I'll keep my eye on the prize, but yes, I'll use it.
  • Spencer from Zillow here.

    Teri, Thank you VERY much for your comment here. Much appreciated.

    Your profile on Zillow has been viewed 404 times so far (which anyone can see in the upper right) http://www.zillow.com/profile/Teri-Lussier/
    and back to Joe's original point of the post, I should point out that your Zillow profile after just a few weeks of having "pimped it out" is now on page 1 of the SERP for your name.
  • Hi Laurie and Gina
    HomeGain customer success is more than anecdotal
    Here is a 3rd party link that has Mitch Ribak one of our buyelink customers saying he will close THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY transactions this year using HomeGain
    http://frogpond.com/trendsetters.cfm?trendsette...

    We also recently announced our second customer that made a MILLION DOLLARS in commissions using another one of our products -agent evaluator. http://www.homegain.com/press_center/press_rele...

    David and Rudy- Got any one who has made serious money using your "products"?
    Or can you spout some more traffic stats?
  • Hey Laurie,

    There are local examples of decent leads ($200K buyer) from Trulia, plus visits to agent sites from visitors to Trulia.

    I would expect that more sites will pop up who will be competing with Zillow, Trulia, Homegain etc. Each will have specific "better" plans than the other, just as any competitive business does.

    Isn't this more about the agent or broker or boards of Realtors and MLS' losing control over the process of providing listings, no matter how robust or complete the feed in regards to exactly the full number of active listings in the queue?

    gk
  • Gina,

    My point is that while there may be a few leads dribbling to Realtor's from the huge sites with incredible placement, they are few and meager, not enough to base an internet presence on or a solid source of lead generation.

    The MLS's may be losing control, but the consumer is perceiving a greater exposure. The truth is they are not all getting that exposure and mostly are lost in the crowd.

    Have to run, will be back later.
    Laurie
  • I have to jump in here.

    What HomeGain offers is quite different than Trulia and Zillow. Where ever we feature real estate agents they are featured exclusively and in an ad free environment with a link to their web site.

    Take a look whether its your blog, listings, or profile, HomeGain features the agent and the agent only, PLUS we deliver built in traffic and page rank.

    For the price of a listing package at homegain your get exclusive listings, a blog, and profile slot.

    http://www.homegain.com/blogs/tropicalrealty-52...

    Doing business merely because the representatives of the company are dashing and charming is a mistake.
  • lol.......Louis always jumping in and pushing HomeGain.

    Doing business merely because the representatives of the company are dashing and charming is a mistake.

    You are the fairest of them all...........even though you sell leads!
  • Laurie - you totally crack me up and this is the biggest truth of them all:

    "Doing business merely because the representatives of the company are dashing and charming is a mistake."
  • Amen. The proof is in the pudding, not the pudding pusher.
  • Our company pushes our listings out to sites such as Zillow and Trulia long before they hit Realtor.com. And, each agent has an agent web site that they can pimp if they want to in order to reach critical SEO mass. However, if agents don't do necessary SEO work, then their ranking is minimal at best. Current thinking among some companies is to establish a presence where people are going or are checking for listings - Zillow and Trulia are perfect examples.

    Let's look at a couple who are searching for a home. Because they don't know a real estate agent, they decide to go online and search. They aren't searching for a company, an agent or a person, they are searching for areas (thus the local issue), for a specific type of home in a specific city/state.

    If I am not on Trulia and Zillow and ActiveRain and Realtor.com and if I haven't done my SEO work on my site, then how else may the burgeoning number of people who are looking for homes find my listing? Definitely not at my site.

    While it seems bad on Trulia and Zillow etc., there is some validity to these sites' existence.

    If you want to push your listings on your own site, then do your SEO work. If you're not skilled at determining keywords, courting inbound traffic etc., hire a pro if you can afford it. If your broker is agent-centric, it's all the more necessary to do your own or hire your SEO work.

    Profiles are abundant across both these sorts of sites as well as other social media or entrepreneurial sites. It's important that the profile page itself pull traffic to a desired site and I don't know if the other profiles such as those on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc. show outbound links to a Trulia or Zillow blog or profile. Do they?

    I do think if there is any danger of dilution of agent or broker web presence on their own hosted sites exists, it's a ways off.

    The consumer will decide which is important. Frankly, I think the broader sweep is what the consumer wants and we are simply frustrated by that desire.
  • Hi Gina,

    Ever wonder why the agents using Trulia and Zillow aren't being plowed under with leads? Especially when you consider the placement they enjoy on the engines.
  • Laurie,
    I don't know what stat you're trying to coax out of us when you keep baiting us with this "not being plowed under with leads". But Zillow sends millions of visits a month to our listing partner websites and there are plenty of agents who can attest to the success they're having on Zillow. Frankly, Rudy does an excellent job of amplifying the success that agents have on Trulia as well (a better job than we do, imo).

    Congratulations to you on your ability to generate enough leads though your personal blog and referrals so you don't have to rely on other media outlets. Sincerely. You're the exception, not the norm.
  • Re: Trulia successes. I went to the Trulia blog and searched their testimonials. Out of the hundreds of thousands of Q&A (I think Rudy said they get 1000 questions a day and average of 10 answers per question= 10,000 x 365 days = 3,650,000 per year -- geez that's a lot of noise--- and I think I counted 15 testimonials. That is arguably a classic case of anecdotal success. With that kind of ROI, I'd rather be on the lottery line.
    http://www.truliablog.com/category/testimonials/
  • There's so much FUD, nuance and magic around SEO that I thought twice about commenting here but this post now has quite a bit of reach, so here goes ...

    Online marketing is a personal decision and what works best will differ from site to site and user to user. I also want to be clear that I am not defending Trulia and that I resent having Zillow lumped with Trulia in this regard. if SEO buttered my bread and I was a Realtor I would might well not list on Trulia and I certainly would not blog there so some of this post's advice is sound. And to actually execute on this teaparty you'd have to start by removing all listings from Realtor.com. Picking on Zillow here is disingenuous at best and at worst, is shooting yourself in the foot.

    When it comes to partnering with Zillow to improve your SEO, this is bad advice and the post neglects a couple of key points. Honestly, I can't even tell why Zillow even made it into this story:
    1) The homes you list are on Zillow long (years) before they're on your listing website. Not sending your listings to Zillow will not keep those addresses out of Zillow's database (but will keep you from getting great links from our site.)
    2) Good SEO optimization requires getting followed links to your content. Zillow is the only large RE site that will give you followed links to your listings on your sites.
    3) A Realtor can build a PR3 or PR4 profile page on Zillow with much less effort than it takes on a blog or website. For many pro's, their Zillow profile is the most authoritative page they control. Our site allows an unlimited number of followed links from your profile page. For a Realtor trying to move your site or blog up in the SERPs, I'd be surprised if you found a more effective and efficient SEO tactic.

    SEO is a karma-based economy. You get what you give. Zillow gives RE pro's more tools to pump up their SEO than any other site and Zillow is not employing sneaky tricks on listings links.

    Bottom line: if you have two Realtors with the same understanding of SEO, the one using Zillow will outrank the one that's not.
  • David,

    Why aren't the agents using Zillow plowed under with leads?

    Laurie
  • Mysteriously, that is a stat the number crunchers don't seem to know how to squeeze out. One would think transparency would require that disclosure. Maybe the TruZilla has no clothes.
  • I will concede that Trulia has sucked more juice from the real estate agent's Google sippy cup than Zillow ... but the shoe still fits on the MLS non-transparency. I think it disingenuous for Zillow to tout transparency as a company principle, while keeping the MLS/IDX cat bound and gagged in the bag. If Zillow was honest about it's MLS coverage (or lack thereof), it would encourage consumers in certain markets where your coverage is crap to visit an agent website. But Zillow prefers not to say a peep. That is not good for consumers or agents. Bad Z.

    Let me ask you this David: Leave aside how the magic works, do you agree that the agent is better off if their website outranks Zillow and Trulia in the SERPs? Yes or No?
  • OK, you're gonna have to fill me in on this MLS issue you're talking about, Joe. What on earth are you accusing us of this time?
  • Let's begin with this: Does Zillow know its MLS coverage in any market? If so, why doesn't Zillow publish this %? Z seems to think marginal error rates on zestimates fall under the transparency banner (but have never showed how it helps one iota in assessing value to a specific home) yet I say consumers would want to know if they are spending valuable time on Zillow or Trulia searching only 65% of the available MLS listings.
    Should Z publish its MLS coverage? How do you plead?

    Here are some posts where the MLS coverage cat is let out of the bag:
    http://tinyurl.com/5uqvjv
    http://tinyurl.com/5qhdxh

    Some real estate guy also posted on comparative MLS coverage in the Phoenix market--

    http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/where-to-se...

    --- it would be nice to see this stat on Zillow. As a consumer, wouldn't you want to know how much, or how little, the MLS coverage was for the website you were visiting? Sure you would.
  • I tried to post this comment a moment ago but it didn't seem to stick.

    Spencer from Zillow here.
    Joe, I don't understand your line of argument here on the listing coverage issue. We're very transparent on our listings counts -- just do a search and look on the left side and you can see how many listings match the search criteria. We even have the total number of listings on the homepage in the search box. How are we not being transparent?
    Remember that in addition to the listings you might also find on an IDX site, Zillow has foreclosure listings, new construction, FSBOs, and Make Me Moves. MLSs don't have those listings.
    We connect to several hundred MLSs now, and some of those send us 100% of their listings and some of them send us less than 100% (based on whatever their member brokers or member agents choose to send us).
    If you're suggesting that we show on each search result what percent of the MLS listings are being returned, that's a ridiculous suggestion.
    Considering that we show listings counts on every search, I think that accusing Zillow of not being transparent about our listings coverage is pretty far out there, even for you.
  • Percentages Spencer, percentages-- not just listings counts (ie listing counts/total listings in MLS)-- like the percentages published in the marginal error rates (which one day, someone will explain to me its usefulness when contemplating a specific home-- no way in heckhell that regional marginal error rate helps me figure out if a particular house is in line with the median error rate or way out in space-- a truly marvelous statistical transparency trick to amaze the eye and confuse the senses. It's like saying the average human has one breast and one testicle. Hardly useful. But I digress.)

    Read Jay Thompson's post and the Techcrunch post cited in the comment in this thread, since I obviously lack the skill to explain it to you.

    They are able to calculate your MLS % coverage in certain markets and you come up great in some and meager in others. Are you saying my friend and esteemed colleague, Jay Thompson's calculations are wrong?

    If this MLS coverage % calculation is too complicated for Zillow to figure out, let's go with what Z is good at-- starting points-- just tell the consumer where you have NO MLS coverage. How about that?
  • Even if we wanted to report the % of MLS listings that are on Zillow in a given search result, how could we do that if we don't get all of the MLS listings? How would we know the denominator in real time?

    By the way, while we're discussing listings transparency, why don't you go pick on Realtor.com -- they don't even dedupe listings that come to them from more than 1 MLS. So their listing counts double-count the same listing whenever an agent uses 2 MLSs! And they've been connected to all the MLSs for like a decade and haven't fixed this! Now THAT'S lame, much lamer than what you're picking on Zillow for.
  • Joe -- you're on fire today. :)

    While I may agree with everything you've written, I do think there's something a little bit missing. Which is... why does T&Z have any traffic at all?

    Fact is, consumers don't care whose website they are on; they care about user experience. Perhaps buyers need to know that they're not getting 100% of the MLS/IDX listings, but that's something an agent will do for them anyway somewhere in the process. And most agent/broker websites provide the user experience of a particularly opaque federal agency.

    So my question is this: Suppose tomorrow, Pete Flint were to resign and hand the reins of Trulia to you. How would you change things? How do you make money if you're T&Z in real partnership with the realtor community, if as you say, they're currently taking advantage of them?

    Is there a way forward? Or is this simply a case of T&Z (along with Realtor.com) needing to go out of business?

    -rsh
  • Must be all the Harvard videos I watched at YouTubeEdu.

    Yes, buyers do need to know they're not getting 100% of the MLS/IDX listings, which are available on RE agents' websites. And yes, this falls on the agents' shoulders to make this common public knowledge. But in the name of all that is holy in the transparent age, shouldn't TruZilla expose this bug in their soup as a service to the consuming public, or is the median error rate more valuable (that error rate is totally worthless BTW) IMO, they should. Not their job? That's Web 1.0 non transparency-- same old shitake. I thought we are in a new age. Apparently not. They are transparency posers, plain and simple.

    If Trulia & Zillow were up front about the MLS/IDX gap they would actually be helping agents-- so keeping it a dirty little secret means, to me, they really don;t want consumers going to agent websites directly to see all the MLS/IDX listings. Bad kitty.

    Consumers care about listings #1-- even over user experience. I'd wager you can give them a crappy Craigslist UI-- if it had ALL the listings, they would go there. So agent ads on Trulia or Zillow-- a total waste of money IMO. I'm rooting for a metasearch engine like retrove.

    Here is my advice to Zillow (Im still waiting for their check), a company which could win the cola wars if they knew how to use what they, and no others, have:
    http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/zillow/a-val...
    But their Kelley Blew It Book zestimate is their curse. Plus their UI really needs an overhaul. Awful. I feel like I want to squint.

    I don't think media companies like Trulia will survive in the real estate space without jacking prices to agents for featured listings and ads. (IMO Pete and Sami would rather sell their science project and move on. These guys dont come from the industry & have no attachment to it). The reason for the ad dollar straightjacket is because, IMO, there is a "visitor ceiling" on real estate portals-- you're never going to see 10 million monthly uniques for listings-- unless you take the TruZilla monster to China.
  • "I don't think media companies like Trulia will survive in the real estate space without jacking prices to agents for featured listings and ads."

    I don't know if anyone has actually done a business analysis of looking at listing aggregator sites as a media play. It may be that even with a ceiling, the more segmented audience may lead to a higher CPM/CPC rate than generic media.

    That's looking at it from non-realtor advertisers, like Home Depot, of course.

    -rsh

    PS: Loopnet seems to do just fine as a "media play" by the way.
  • Pure RE listing sites have the visitor (maybe more accurately called "buyer") ceiling problem. That is why Trulia rolled out TruliaOutofTownVoices and Zillow gave the world GruelingDigs, ZillowComplaints, and MortgageMoneyMakerMarketplace (at least we can be thankful for Zillow's MakeMeMove or What a House is NOT Worth). These are meant to boost traffic, in an attempt to get them over the ceiling. But it somewhat dillutes the homebuying visitor traffic, as does the voyeuristic zestimate. Pure listing sites bring buyers. Period. This is why classifieds work so well-- they attract buyers or folks looking to do some kind of transaction.

    Loopnet is a commercial real estate site, so a bit of an orange in the TZ apple cart. To the best of my recollection, they charge hefty subscription fees to members and featured listings fees? It certainly provides a model for the future Trulia -- free members get this morsel, paying members get the whole pie.
  • Loopnet is very expensive. I have been a premium member for most of my career. SOME things are WORTH paying for!
  • I had a late night conversation with Rudy last year. In the conversation we discussed Trulia selling leads. Rudy assured me that this will NEVER happen. I suggested that if it wasn't Pete and Sami's intention to take this company public then their educations were wasted and the venture capital money wouldn't have flowed so nicely. Let's get real here, monetization is a joke if the intent isn't to take this company public at some point. I further suggested that Pete and Sami were probably telling the truth, its likely not "their" intent to sell leads. However, if the company is taken public the stockholders will demand that the company is put to its highest and best use and that a profit be turned and doled out.

    There will be no thank you to the Realtor's or the industry who built the system.
  • wnyrealtor
    There is one universal truth in building a website --- You want people to purchase your product/service. Both Trulia and Zillow sell enhanced listings to Realtors, as does the realtor dot com site. Agent education is needed!

    They won't get a single dime from me! My lead generation improved significantly when I started to focus on my local results directing traffic to my website. I would write more, but I have to return 3 phone calls and two emails that resulted from my BLOG this morning.
  • That is the value of a successful hyper local site and an interested audience - leads - delivered direct to you - direct from the consumer - no middle man! Rock on Colleen!
  • wnyrealtor
    Joe -- Thanks!

    Laurie -- amazingly simple too!
  • That's what I'm talking about. Hooray and congratulations to you, Colleen.

    Maybe I should spray paint some TruZilla Tea Party signs. Power to the Agent! Take Back Your SERP!
  • I think that most real estate agents are so uncomfortable with SERP and have no clear understanding of how it works or most importantly how to make SERP work for them.

    It takes a lot of focused, dedicated time to build a foundation of knowledge and to apply it to create a local real estate internet presence.

    Truzilla, Zillow and Realtor.com are quick and easy fixes for most agents - you pay and you get "visibility".

    I, too, signed up with Trulia for a pro account awhile back when they were offering a special and can honestly say that I received one lead to date. It's been about 6 months or so. BTW, the lead didn't pan out.

    Truzilla also has technical difficulties with old listings popping up out of the "blue" and oblivious customer service.

    I get 3 to 7 leads a day from my local real estate website.

    You are so right, we need to educate ourselves and start taking the power of SERP back - NOW! No lazy excuses.
  • Thanks Laurie and Ines for sharing your real life experiences with Trulia and Zillow. I hear the same things from other agents-- but they are usually whispered to me out of earshot of Rudy and David.

    The bottom line is ROI and I doubt TZ provides the ROI that comes anywhere close to listing in your local MLS (somebody ought to do a comparison study). IMO Trulia and Zillow provide incremental value for listings dissemination, which is fine, but at some point their hype has to hit the fan. But dissemination of listings is not the point of this post-- it's about TZ jumping agents in the process.

    Who's idea was it to share Trulia spotlight ads between 2 people? Truly dumb. It's like sharing a billboard ad-- who does this? It would not surprise me in the least if these ads had a crappy ROI. At least Zillow lets the agent have the ad space for themselves. C,mon Pete Flint, fix the stupid spotlight ads-- and take the big brand ads off the listings page-- geez, can't you see agents are trying to sell homes there. I know you guys are media companies but you must understand that successful ads mean consumers are being pulled off the listings and the website. A media company cannot serve 2 masters.

    TruliaVoices, which a bunch of real estate folks were asked to seed with questions (and probably still do), makes no sense to me sometimes. Folks from Seattle answering questions from Miami? WTF?

    I doubt Rudy or David will come by because it's a losing battle. Since these fellas are company spokesman/PR/customer service, I would be surprised if they admitted an agent would be better off if their website outranked Trulia or Zillow in the SERPS. Bad for business.
  • I think the logic (although I'm not for it), is that TZ expose the listing to other agents, not necessarily get us traffic or get the consumer to call us. Same ol' same ol' as Realtor.com "disguised in web2.0" clothing but not being regulated by our boards.
    Because I like Rudy, I started agent pro on Trulia and don't know how many months it's been, but more than 6 and have gotten not one lead from that system......time to redistribute my marketing budget away from there.

    I think the concept of offering a consumer centric sight was not a bad one and yes Realtors can squirm and complain, but they were behind the concept (at the expense of us, of course) - but has been poorly execute IMHO.

    I stopped answering T Questions because the value I was adding was watered down by other idiotic responses like "call me, I'm the expert" - and I was juicing them up with keywords. As for Z - their random zestimates are very.....how should I call them.....RANDOM (and I will sit down with David Gibbons one day soon and have a juicy conversation about this while I enjoy his accent).

    Can't wait to see what Rudy and David come in with - love them both.
  • So Ines, did you ever wonder why you didn't get a single lead from such an illustrious site with such great placement in the engines? Do you think its possible to participate for over 6 months and not get a single lead? What's up with that?
  • My buyer's agent closed one transaction - from an answer I gave on Trulia Voices (short sale under $250k) - not really much ROI - I cancelled my pro acc. already. They can't say I didn't give it a shot.
  • While I am on a roll here lets discuss the Q & A in T-Voices.

    Do many of you get those nightly emails with the current questions? Can so many people have such a low level of intelligence and literacy? Why on earth any agent would even bother answering most of these questions is beyond me. For that matter I wonder why people would embarrass themselves by asking quite a few of them too.

    Only bringing it up because I've noticed a dive in the literacy level and was wondering if anybody else has noticed as well.
  • Laurie,

    Good point on Q&A. Not only are the questions crazy but some of the agent responses are flat our WRONG! You get what you pay for as a consumer but it's shameful to see such a low level of knowledge among "professionals" in our industry
  • Honey.........you're singing my song tonight, I love it.

    First of all have any of you actually looked at those reports that Trulia sends out that show the number of hits your listings have received?? It's hilarious! A small handful of hits as opposed to the thousands I get on my site in the same time frame. Except when the hits come into MY site I get leads too!

    For all the hits that Trulia and Zillow claim to get when you divide them up by the 50 states and average number of cities, then an average number of counties, then an average number of neighborhoods their numbers become more and more irrelevant. Hey, do the math yourself, its really crap.

    Your own hyper local site can get much more local traffic. You remember the saying REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL? Well, it is! A good IDX will give you all of the MLS listings in your area. Neither T or Z has that, they have contracts with most of the big brokers and some of your local MLS's are now sending their IDX feeds to them.

    If they were doing so well, and creating so many leads, Realtors nationwide would be standing on the mountain tops screaming halla-freakin-luya. They are not, just a few attention deprived agents.

    So, if they are doing so well, why aren't you flooded with leads? If they were doing that well you SHOULD be flooded with leads! For that matter if your sites are high up on the engines why aren't you flooded with leads? Anybody out there wondering where all the leads are REALLY going? I'm wondering...

    Do you really believe that the companies who sell leads are acquiring massive amounts of leads countrywide to the extent that they can sell them to Realtors by Zip Code? Do you really believe that PPC can be that productive? Hey I have some ocean front property in Phoenix to sell you if you do. Where the heck do you think those leads you are buying are really coming from?

    Question everything!

    The truth of the matter is that they, and all MLS aggregator sites, just want to get between you and your local consumer? Why? Hey, its very profitable!

    Think!
  • Hi Laurie,
    If you tell me what city you're interested in, I'll tell you how many visits Zillow got last month in that city. You're definitely correct that all real estate is local so the aggregate traffic stats that Zillow cites (8.8 million uniques in March, up 71% year-over-year) is irrelevant to the individual agent. But we're transparent about the specific city stats as well, when asked.

    - Spencer from Zillow
  • When consulting with agents, I always use your site, Laurie as the prime example of how agents CAN outjump the TruZilla sharks. What you have accomplished is truly amazing and every agent should be knocking on your door.

    The MLS/idx coverage an agent website provides over TZ is the dirty little secret these transparency posers keep hidden from the public. Trulia is working on improving this major chink in their armor and if and when they do, you can bet they'll be puking it all over the net-- see we do have the MLS listings-- until then the crickets will chirp and consumers will be kept in the dark. Truly crummy.

    Zillow founder Rich Barton preaches about transparency and how information wants to be free, but he won't reveal Zillow's MLS coverage (or lack thereof). Total hypocrisy IMO and a disservice to the consumer, to whom he has no hesitation force feeding his pablum zestimates. But hey, it's business and I understand that.
  • Absolutely 100% true - yet it will be hard to convince many agents that putting their listings on Trulia etc is not worthwhile because many agents believe this is what gives them the right to say that they know how to market properties on the Internet...
  • Note that Joe's post explicitly says that you should put your listings on Zillow. His point is an SEO point, not a listings syndication argument.
  • Not exactly. I said disseminate your listings where clients have approved, or given you authority to decide. They may not choose to list on Zillow because of the zestimates or Q&A, agreeing, as I and many other homeowners do, that an inaccurate zestimate can turn away buyers or distort negotiation --- as you know, the recent NAR-DOJ settlement acknowledges the homeowner right to exclude listings from internet sites with AVM and/or comments on their home or exclude the internet altogether. And not to single out Z for listings exclusion, an owner may choose to market privately-- no lawn sign, no internet, no green markermen with heat maps.

    But, yes, the post addresses SEO and not listings dissemination.
  • Good point -- yes, you did say where the owner has approved, which makes sense. If I'm paying someone to sell my house, I should be able to tell them where it's listed.
  • If Zillow gave owners a zestimate & Q&A opt-out (as per DOJ-NAR settlement, which I know does not specifically bind Zillow), I could support Zillow.

    IMO, Trulia's SEO ball hogging thru nofollow and widgets (see Eric Blackwell's great post today:

    http://www.ericonsearch.com/homegain-widgets-vs...

    ...and especially this quote from him: "They work in a sector where far too many agents are less than tech savvy and can be taken advantage of. Trulia (IMO) took advantage of that lack of understanding and tried to get over on REALTORS." And to think the name Trulia comes from truth and trust...hmm

    ... all add up to a big green slap in the face to real estate agents and brokers that give them the content they use to make money, including off these same agents & brokers. If it were not for their PR savvy to hire folks the industry knows and likes, they would be pea soup. [if anyone is old enough to remember, Trulia was a web crawler(scraper?) of broker and agent websites.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20051214145509/www.t...

    ... but I guess that had to change if you want agents and brokers to pay for ads... but that's a whole 'nother pile of dog-do, better left without a stick in it. ]

    As I've said many times before, I think Zillow has the potential to go where no real estate portal as gone before-- to the homeowner, making them your partners-- do it and truly become revolutionary. But you have to respect homeowner rights-- the fountain from which all real estate wealth comes.
  • I agree with your logic 100%. I've been doing something similar with agents for a while and the part that might surprise some agents is just how much targeted traffic that one can get from simply ranking well for their listings.
  • If an agent asked Trulia or Zillow if it would be better for the agent's website to outrank them in the SERPS, they would say yes ( if they were honest & transparent).

    I agree with Tony Sena that TruZilla is just Realtor.com in Web 2.0 clothing.

    "Step right up for a featured listing (you owe it to your client) and a side of spotlight ads."
  • What TrulZilla is doing sounds so familiar? Realtor.com????

    We as real estate agents are building a trio of sites that are not only our competitors but we are also funding them by placing ads on their site. Didn't we learn with Realtor.com?
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