Real Estate Relativity

Ever wonder why anyone tries to “out-game” Google? I’ve always argued it’s futile to try and out-think hundreds of PhDs working in a university atmosphere where they have relatively free-reign to explore their research-oriented whims, and where they’re all pretty much singularly focused on studying one thing: us. Oh, and they likely get paid extremely well for what they do.

A question I have after watching the video below: How can anyone “out-game” this? Which likely also supports Google’s universal search platform. That is, it’s not a stretch to assume that Google employs insights derived from the user base that’s signed up for Google’s personalized search service to refine the primary algorithm(s) used by Google’s general audience to deliver more and more “relevant” results to this general audience.

Accordingly, when it comes to SEO I always advise taking the “high road” and write original content, update your site(s) frequently with this original content, build relevant in-bound links over time, create an easy to navigate (and spider) website, and focus on your niche expertise.

Despite the sentiments expressed by Google’s CEO about long tail search (see previous post), Bill Tancer of Hitwise presents an intriguing alternative view. Tancer shows that despite brand-centric search saturation in the head, the long tail presents a panoply of opportunities to online marketers willing to invest the strategic and tactical resources necessary to leverage such.

Top 100 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic

And, according to the New York Times real estate blogs offer consumers some of the best information available about real estate.

For brokers, blogs are, of course, a handy marketing tool: they’re economical, practical and easy to update. But for prospective buyers, a sophisticated blog — one with more than an agent’s plea, “check out my new listing” — can help potential buyers forge a connection to a faraway community, learn the landscape of an area and, ultimately, make informed purchasing decisions.

Since blogs are long tail feed machines, real estate professionals ought to embrace blogging as a viable online marketing channel.

This is a great video interview of Google’s CEO by McKinsey & Company Consulting. Read this definition of Zipf’s Law first, however, if you don’t know what Zipf’s law is. What’s especially intriguing is the interview segment that discusses the long-tail versus the head. Schmidt does not dismiss the long-tail as a search marketing strategy, but he does implicitly decry its value. My take-away from his comments, however, is that no single strategy is the marketing silver bullet; rather it’s a blending of marketing strategies that makes sense. Abandon the long-tail as a strategy? No. Augment your firm’s short-tail and primary brand promotion strategy with a concerted long-tail marketing strategy powered by blogs? Absolutely. This study leads credence to this augment, where it states that blogs have just as much reach as mainstream media.

After a couple of months, I decided to give Wikia another test. The theme this time is “golf course homes”:

“golf course homes for sale columbus ohio” Google Wikia Winner is Google because it lists relevant, real estate oriented blogs with posts focusing on the specific search query.

“golf course homes sanibel florida” Google Wikia Winner is Wikia because there were more real estate firm sites returned than on Google.

“villas for sale on golf courses valencia spain” Google Wikia Winner is Google because Wikia’s results did not center exclusively on property for sale, while Google’s results did.

“finger lakes ny real estate for sale on golf course” Google Wikia Winner is Google because many search results returned focused exclusively on Finger Lakes real estate firms, whereas Wikia’s results were limited to six results with the first talking about the Sopranos.

Test of which service gives a more relevant result for typical real estate searches (of course, relevancy is subjective). For this test, I am defining relevancy as routing me to the local market expert real estate firm or agent in the most expeditious manner.

• “columbia south carolina real estate for sale” : Wikia Google : Winner is Google. The top search results on Google take me to South Carolina.
• “60647 condos for sale” : Wikia Google : Winner is Google since the top search results take me directly to that zip code. Wikia delivered one result.
• “lincoln park luxury homes” : Wikia Google : Tie. Both services presented me with similar results. Wikia was a little scattered in that it showed “lincoln park” results from around the country. Whereas Google directed me mostly to Chicago websites (which was my intent). Interesting note: When I added “illinois” to Wikia, it did not change the results much, and doing so on Google muddied the results (on Google, lots of optimization going on for the combo “lincoln park” in conjunction with “illinois)