NAR 2011 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

New Home Buyer and Seller profile study now released by National Association of Realtors.
"Of buyers who used the web as a starting point for their search (88%), 45 percent found the home they ultimately purchased online, up nine percent from 2009"

There was a dramatic sea change regarding the New Home buyer profile and the precipitous drop in Fist Time Buyers in the market this year... With tightening credit standards and so many buyers under water that is to be expected. But there are also a number of important clues for creative Real Estate Agents to use to stand out in a crowded market.

Research Overview:
http://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2011/11/home_buyer_and_seller

Relevant Internet Use Summary: "... buyers use a wide variety of resources in searching for a home: 88 percent use the Internet, 87 percent use real estate agents, 55 percent yard signs, 45 percent attend open houses and 30 percent review print or newspaper ads."

There are tons of other important issues that the NAR study brings out for Agents to pay attention to...
We particularly liked the AGBeat overview of the study http://tinyurl.com/7p7ewqh

What does this tell us?
The major shift is from first time buyers to older, more established families... those over 65 tended not to use the Internet as much... again this is "as much" but they "still used" the Internet so from a standpoint of you are doing everything else to make your local presence known... you still need to use the Internet.

PDF overview of NAR 2011 Home Buyers Report http://tinyurl.com/7ejdomd

So as markets become more competitive what are you doing to stand out?

We believe that all studies indicate that using video, specifically YouTube video, which is not only the easiest way to put your listings in front of real buyers but also the fastest way.

In other studies it has been borne out that of all realtors in a recent study conducted by realtor.org …. (only) 2 percent used YouTube or another video hosting site.

October 10, 2010 study http://www.realtor.org/topics/homebuyers_sellers_profile/techtrends_pres

...and that 85.8 percent of American web users (77.3% of the population) are viewing web video...in addition, the tipping point for the use of mobile devices while in the field to view properties has grown dramatically. Putting video on YouTube solves all of these problems.
http://torreyrussell.blogspot.com/2011/09/tipping-point-mobile-video-search.html

So by taking the advantage that Video brings - you can quickly and easily gain a dominant position on the Internet without a lot of cost associated with creating and hosting it.... YouTube is free or use a service like ours, (http://techmediamarketing.com) cost about $1.00 per listing per month for a typical office to automate that process.

What separates Rich Real Estate Agents from Poor Real Estate Agents

Video SEO - are you playing by the book? YouTube rule book

Its easy to think you know everything about how something works after using for years and years... but really take a minute to read this document
http://www.youtube.com/creators/playbook.html
This alone tells you exactly what is and is not going to work if you are trying to use YouTube to gain better SEO for your brand, your assets or services you market or the story you want to tell.
Also be reading this guy with his first post on Search Engine Watch
Terry Van Horne, November 4, 2011
Video SEO: Video Metadata Optimization

Video SEO using YouTube how we do it

It all started here officially several years ago with this study done by a respected industry analyst called Forrester Research, “video stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the (Google) index”
http://blogs.forrester.com/interactive_marketing/2009/01/the-easiest-way.html

OK, a 50x advantage using video, specifically YouTube video over any other method of web presence.

And if it is true that: "Most people start at a search engine on the Internet 74% of the time."

Information sources used in home search:
Internet: 74%
Real estate agent: 69%
Yard sign: 22%
Open house: 12%
Newspaper ad: 9%
Home book or magazine: 6%
Source: 2010 National Association of REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

And that of all realtors in a recent study conducted by realtor.org …. (only) 2 percent used YouTube or another video hosting site.
October 10, 2010 study http://www.realtor.org/topics/homebuyers_sellers_profile/techtrends_pres

And the rules by which we do all of this is in constant motion...

The ever changing landscape:
As stated above Google dominates the search industry.. They own YouTube. Google also embraces new companies from time to time. At one time they backed Facebook, then Twitter and for a short while Groupon… today those are no longer seen as partners but threats and competitors. Now they are backing a new group of startups like Storify and Tumblr. This process of embracing and then letting go of different partners effects the rules of SEO. This also provides an uneven and turbulent market in which to conduct a company’s business in which to acquire customers.

In our blog at http://offersnetwork.com/blog we identify all of these issues and how you can use Google’s current “love affairs” to maximize the SEO of your listings.

For example to take advantage of this we have written an entirely dynamic series of rules that wrap our client’s inventory into SEO landing pages using current Google partner’s sites as the scalable location from which to generate entirely new levels of SEO for their listings without violating the new rules of Google’s PANDA release [read more here http://tinyurl.com/pandarules ] and also we recognize through this process other rules of the road that are not documented but test out in our labs.

We are constantly evaluating the signals that Google is releasing regarding who they are backing and how that might affect our client’s ability to gain SEO of their brand and how we can use those alliances to have our client’s offerings dominate their local markets using these techniques.

Summary: To generate significant, scalable SEO for clients with large ASSET bases requires a programmatical approach. This cannot be done by hand. And with the ever changing landscape it is important to know what are the relevant signals the search engines give off that work and have the flexibility of design to take advantage of those new opportunities. Knowing which ones work and which ones produce false positives is a matter of hard work and testing. In addition, the research indicates that for those brokers that use Video, specifically YouTube video, it represents a huge advantage to dominate search results for their listings over other real estate listings in their market (98% of realtors don’t use video).

Content continues to be king for SEO new Infographic

schema-org what every SEO expert should know

YouTube Video Keyword Suggestion Tool

Video, video, video... especially YouTube video get better SEO than any other method

Top Level Domains still pull the best for SEO

No doubt about it, using a top level domain (TLD) creates tremendous SEO for that site.... not just .gov or .edu.  But putting the keywords you want in the order that the searcher is using also is key.

For example we just launched http://homes-for-sale-real-estate.com with each of our clients sitting under it by city and state and it is pulling a entirely new level of SEO for us. Each client (Real Estate) is then optimized at the Office, Agent and listing level...
Example site
Here is the video on all the features of this as marketed by our partner - Techmediamarketing.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YLKTWqftFY

Of course our entire process is to re-post directed links back to the YouTube videos for each listing to increase engagement (time) watching that video by more people.  Our clients take our customized java-scripted-slide-shows of their YouTube videos as embedable links and post them on their web blogs, web sites and face book accounts generating huge SEO back links again.  We are working with a newsletter company where we will take their embedded links and push that out to their newsletter readers... creating tons of page views, hey video takes longer to watch, email is opened on a mobile device 39% of the time, and creates longer "engagement" ranking for that search term... we win!

So this is an automated process... we are now creating new landing pages for each video, optimized for that city and state, then building clustered landing pages by category (houses for sale city state)... on and on. Cross links, back links, landing pages on our client sites with their videos embedded there, news sites that will take feeds like stumpleupon, tumblr, storify....   each listing is now linked from 10 or more places thus - with the TLD approaching the goal of starting the Google engine to follow all of this makes it simple and automated for tens of thousands of listings and is all kosher for Google (eg white hat).

It is nice to see other stories coming out that verify some of our techniques:

Author Tim Callan  |  September 28, 2011 on ClickZ

QR Codes just a snap of the camera with Google Goggles now... no scanning

8 great basic rules for SEO on your web site

Tipping Point: Mobile, Video, Search Marketing.... More time on phone

One in Two Americans will carry a smartphone by Dec 2011 ~ Nielsen Study

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/smartphones-to-overtake-feature-phones-in-u-s-by-2011/

Mashup your social and crm and what do you get Nimble.com

The new standard in the field for herding all our cats into one bag - Nimble.com


Follow jon http://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Ferrara

Use Bundle Tool to View Expenditures by Consumer Type

What the average American spends

Understanding buyer profiles is key to knowing what to expect them to spend
Here is a great tool that allows you to slice and dice the data in real time
http://money.bundle.com

40 percent of social media users access content from their mobile phone

YouTube Slide Show

Slideshow of YouTube videos for Real Estate clients to post on their sites.

Now our clients can post their entire video library of listings easily in one place and it will update it automatically based on the listings they have posted with our service on YouTube.

Google doesn't get memo on Daily Deals biz - starts spamming their Gmail Account users

YouTube Insights for Audience Tool to analyze key words

YouTube Playbook for Creators

Take a look at the latest writeup from the people at YouTube about what you should be doing to optimize your video posts Referral Story: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2106089/YouTube-Creator-Playbook-Offers-New-Strategies-Best-Practices

New Slideshow Presentation of our clients YouTube Videos they can embed

Click on property to view YouTube Video Slide Show

VIDEO SEO - fastest way to the front page of Google and beyond!

If you are a car dealer or a real estate agent... using video posted to youtube magnifies your presence on the web times the number of listings you have... multiply your visibility, in a way that Google likes, with one of the cheapest forms of SEO there is
Here is a great overview article about this subject

Free Google Position Tracker for your Web Site search position (RANK)

Or click here to use it
Google Rank Checker

Where are you in the Click Stream. New SEO study by SlingShot says need to be in first 3

Good review of the study here
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2100616/Top-Google-Ranking-Captures-18.2-of-Clicks-Study

Facebook offers new user guide to Facebook for Business

Learn how to grow your business with Facebook's powerful marketing tools

http://www.facebook.com/business
Easy and important rules and ideas to promote your business on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/business/howitworks/

Review great article in SearchEngineWatch
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2097810/Business-Guide-to-Facebook-Launches

then all you have to do is monitor and reply to people who go there... Active Facebook traffic helps your general SEO if you have your page properly set up.

Here is someone to follow who is working hard to teach you about this
http://www.facebook.com/seo.tips.peter.drew

71% of online shoppers visit video sites in their search

What are the top 10 things as a business you should focus on to gain top SEO for local search

David Mihm has released his annual Local Search Ranking Factors list, which compiles feedback from 33 local optimization experts.

50% of auto shoppers view vehicles on YouTube before they buy a car!

“According to Nielsen, more than half of all in-market auto—car or truck—buyers will have visited YouTube in any particular month. So we know shoppers are there.”
What’s your video strategy?

Kimberly Stonehouse
Industry Development Manager
Google

Angry Birds are they social? After 8 years and 51 tries Rovio lays a golden egg

Hurrah for Entrepreneur Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio.
Games are something almost every computer user plays... but is Rovio's Angry Birds a social phenom? Will it have staying power? Where is the economic model to pivot and twist into a global brand... that helps to build the connected brain tissues amongst us. While we have to take hats off to Mighty Eagle, Peter Vesterbacka, the game is still a one person event. This is true of most games and while I added the story from Forbes to profile their wonderful success I question their logic when they say ''We think we can be bigger than Disney in China.'' (PV).

In the recent Forbes article below it states that "It took Rovio nearly eight years and 51 tries to lay this golden egg." You have say one thing about those overnight successes, they are sometimes hard fraught and equal to the determination of a bird trying to build a nest in a windstorm on the side of a cliff... but where is the social event? As you walk up the aisle of an airplane before take off you will not see so many Solitaire games or people playing Sudoku as you will birds being pitched at pigs... What is the social aspect of this? Do we sit around the coffee machine at Starbucks and compare scores with our Barrista? So while these phenoms will come and go they represent little in terms of opportunity for social marketing. Without the connected tissues between us to develop they will die and go on to other one trick ponies. It is this thing we crave, showing off to our friends and 7th grade girlfriends that we are cool and smart and that we know what is the next big thing that drives us onto these social stages (I think). Sure you can do product placement... OK and even make a game of your app or service to entice people to "play along". But I think these are bumps in the road to the real interest and to the staying power of building additional connected brain tissues between and will otherwise fade-away as when we all had the need to have everyone talking on a CB radio while we are driving along (hey that might come back with google+... but really). I think something like Foresquare or other adventure games are more likely to succeed over time. Is this a one trick pony? How many of you have asked Groupon to stop sending you their daily emails?

Great article:

Cosmic Panda for YouTube ... now the bear of doing more Artwork for free for our clients?