The case for original content…

Long post ahead, beware. It’s worth reading.

Recently, someone asked on a real estate forum about a specific insurance site and how much use of duplicate content is allowed before (essentially) affecting things.

I noted that indeed the forum that even the forum that we were on at the time was strictly moderated for original content. And for good reason. But the question was raised that once a site became an “authority” site in the search engine’s eyes, then was more leeway granted as far as duplicate content.

My answer to that will be a non answer. Not because I don’t want to address the question, but rather because I think it is the wrong question to ask. I think the right question to ask is, “How important is orginal content to building the overall asset that is my site vs. the time and expense of doing it?”

I’d like to correlate that question with a previous post of mine about publishers going to Google and requesting preferrential treatment. These guys are primarily newspaper sites, and since the site I was asked about was an industry related news site, I think the comparisons are applicable.

The Newspaper sites claim that they are the ORIGINATORS of the news and thus deserve to be the canonical references to it online and that SEO’s are usurping that by posting an article (on an ad filled page) about it and systematically linking to it to get it to rank.

First off, most newspapers are not the SOURCE of news and therefore should NOT be the canonical reference. Most times they are regurgitating rip and read news off of the wires.

On that basis, how can they claim to be the most relevant? (i.e., the most worthy for the top spots?)

So my answer for any type of news or business related sites? Have a take. Have an angle. Spend (errr…INVEST) the time to post unique information. This does TWO very important things.

1) It makes it of more value to your readers. Plain and simple.

2) It encourages links to the story on YOUR site. Links to a news story ONLY come from being the first on the scene with a powerful microphone or having a FRESH take on a situation. (This is the money quote of the post here. Read it twice. ). Second place is TRULY first loser.

So based on the above, posting a news story and having a unique take on it from a site that is already AUTHORITATIVE is the ULTIMATE. You can RANK for it. Generate new readers. Generate more links. And your unique content will do ALL of those more effectively than “rip and read”.

Is this approach worth the time. YES. Is it expensive in terms of time / money? YES. Is it defensible? YES!

If you are going to succeed long term in the search engines, you MUST be willing to invest in a quality product that provides relevance. Search engines crave that and they reward it.

Duplication of someone else’s work can NEVER (in the long run) be considered RELEVENT. It simply can’t. Can you scam the search engines short term with it? Yes. But we here at EricOnSearch are into building assets…and building lasting authority. Spamming for short term gain? Not so much.

HomeGain widgets vs Trulia Widgets – explained

Several months ago, Trulia’s agressive widgetbaiting program caught the attention of many of the blogging crowd in the real estate sector. Here is a Google search of the relevant posts.

I too posted about their efforts and what I thought was wrong with them. I specifically pointed out a couple of flaws in their program. #1) The aggressiveness of their techniques to get the widgets on unsuspecting REALTORS blogs / sites in the very city where they were competing with them and #2) (and most importantly) where they even slipped them into internal pages of sites where the owners did not know that they put them there, but the (in my opinion) unscrupulous action of their website builder Number1Expert played a game of “hide the link” with their own customers.

Folks suspected privately that there HAD to be some sort of a payoff between the two companies, which was denied.

After all of the furor died down, the main thing to come out of it was that Number1Expert folks were given three choices: No widget, a different widget, or the Trulia widget.  The fact remained that Number 1 Expert customer had had a widget added to their site that strengthened their competitors search results without their knowledge.

Well, today HomeGain has announced that they are releasing widgets as well. So you would think that I would jump all over them, right? I mean widgets are evil, right?

Ummm, no.

I write widgets for part of my living. Writing great widgetbait is NOT a bad thing…when done and distributed CORRECTLY. (For transparency’s sake – I had NOTHING to do with the writing of the HomeGain widgets…no am I their “homer”.

I simply thought that this would be a good time to explain what I mean by that because in HomeGain’s effort, I see some things done right.

Step One: They are “Opt-in” vs “Opt-Out”.  This is crucial because Opt Out widgets rely on the inertia of the website not to take them out. BESIDES, to do an Opt-out widget, you MUST have complicity with someone who can “hide the link” or “hide the widget” in the site. Usually this is a webmaster who is counting on less than savvy site owners NOT to notice. (Can one REALLY do this to paying customers? Yes. If the terms of service allow it or if the customer does not rise up and say “Knock it off.” It can and does happen.

The HomeGain widgets are opt-in, meaning that a person wanting to deploy them has to initiate it. Not HomeGain.

Step Two: HomeGain went to another step. Check this out. That is their newsletter where they spell out CLEARLY who the widget is intended for and where it is best used. It is clear, concise and not intended to confuse or take advantage of the less than savvy.

So, before you ask, I will answer: When is it OK to put widgets on my site?

Fair question. All pieces of software included in a blog or site that come from an author can and do deserve to have some form of credit back to the author if requested by them. Widgets included, themes included.

Some widgets are good enough to warrant it. Some are not. Some WP Themes warrant it. Some do not even ask for it. What it really boils down to is will the amount of traffic that the widget brings in offset the value of the link(s) to the site…

The step that HomeGain took was to give the potential customer of their widget the information AND ability to make their own decision. I applaud that. They work in a sector where far to 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. HomeGain has not.

LILO – the new internet startup model

A few weeks back, my friend Glenn Kelman over at RedFin posted about how much it cost to startup a real estate site that would have lasting impact. I countered in the comments that I thought the number was much lower and that much of the MBA-izing of the site was not needed.

I like Glenn. He’s had the courage to do what a few other have doen before him as well. Namely the dot.com 1.0 guys. They have cut down tons of trees to forge a wide path. It is essentially unprofitable to cut down trees but that’s OK by me. It IS profitable to drive a truck down the road they’ve created. That’s my business model. Driving the truck of profitability up the roads created by others.

I commented about it here on EricOnSearch a while ago.

Now the guys at Time have created an acromyn for this type of business. LILO startups. Little in / Lots Out. I like that. Great article.

It fits SO well with phrases like Sweat Equity. And Earned Media. And Stephen Covey’s “Begin with the End in Mind”.

I’d like to add something to Mr. Covey’s profundity. Or maybe take something away.Here’s my corollary on creating online businesses:

“Begin with the end.”  – Eric Blackwell

Seriously.

My friend Jon Karlen refers to “beginning with the end” as not being an “Underpants Gnome“. There’s a ton of insight from South Park on that.

There are a whole bunch of low cost / revenue producing sites out there. Bootstrap it. Don’t have enough search engine experience. PARTNER.  You don’t need an MBA to do this stuff. You do need a work ethic, an idea, some savvy, and some would claim copious quantities of Diet Mt. Dew….

Do you have examples of great bootstrappers who have made it online? Send their examples / stories to me! I will be happy to have you guest post on EoS about them.

I want people to see how possible this really is.

Seriously.

HomeGain – I’m there in August

I promised myself that I was going to get out and do some teaching this year. I have wanted to help REALTORS successfully build their online marketing programs and I am going to do it.

I am not sure what the name of the conference is that Louis Cammarrosano invited me to, he just indicated that it was going to be a conference for Home Gain customers, so on my calendar it just sits there:

HomeGain

Here’s the fun part. I will be going to the Real Estate Webmasters conference in beautiful Nanaimo, BC. Then I plan to hit the ferry to Seattle and fly down to San Francisco for “Home Gain”. (Louis, what’s the official title of this thing?)

With the Bloodhound Blog Unchained event in Phoenix and the training I do here in Louisville, this is shaping up to be a pretty good year.

Anyway, Louis. Thanks for the invite, my friend. Invitation accepted! Happy to have some fun, teach correct basic search engine marketing principles and get to know a LOT of REALTORS and make some new friends along the way.

I am also looking forward to seeing California again. It is where I grew up, and I have not been back in a long time. Will be good to drop in for 48 hours or so!

Google Publishers Advisory Council – My take.

So. It came to light this past week that Google has been inviting the BIG adsense publishers and other big media folks to an advisory committee.  And others did as well.  And here. And here. And Ad Age even called us little guys “parasites” here. There…that’s a pretty good reporting of the issue.

Much of the “little guy” publishing world (bloggers)  is up in arms about Google meeting with BIG TIME adsense publishers and the fact that those big time publishers are crying in their beer and asking for a little (cough–a lot)  preferential treatment over the little guys (us) in the Search Engine Results. The little guys are crying “foul”.

HERE’S my take:

First off, I have ZERO problem with the big guys talking with Google. I think Google SHOULD talk with them. Matt Cutts and the rest of the webmaster liasion crew at Google have provided much insight and communicated better than any of the other search engines with Webmasters big and small. Talk is good. Communication benefits EVERYONE.

Now for my take on preferential treatment for big media. (here’s where it gets fun, kids…grin). This is more of a challenge to big media than anything…who died and appointed you God? On what basis should you be afforded preferential treatment?

Search engines crave RELEVANCE. That is what they MUST have to survive. What gives them this RELEVENCE?

Journalism Degrees?

It isn’t a J-school diploma hanging on the wall. I can show you PLENTY of crappy, slanted, inaccurate stories written by big, mainstream media guys with a J-school diploma. Ummm…remember Dan Rather? It was bloggers who blew the whistle on him over years ago. Are you saying a Journalism degree makes you relevant because you are objective? or even Fair and Balanced? Please…

National vs Local?

So are you saying that a New York Times writer who posts about how bad the real estate market is currently should have precedence over a local REALTOR who posts about their current market conditions? Which of these examples is more relevant to a Louisville area searcher on Google, hmmm?

Timeliness?

One of the things that the blogger world kicks the Mainstream media’s rear end on day in and day out is  the timeliness of their media. Timeliness IS a component of relevance! One of the reasons that newspapers are going down is that there IS NO NEWS CYCLE anymore.

One of the main traffic builders for Google and the other search engines is to quickly find the BEST articles on a given hot news subject and get them to the top. That’s what I did for this post! You do not have a corner on that market big media. And you are typically slower to react than most bloggers. Welcome to the concept of an Army of Davids. Get over it.

The Bottom Line

Might does not make right. Right makes right. You publishers are asking for an unfair advantage in a world where you are used to being able to be in control by buying ink by the barrel.

I think it’s great that Google is talking with you. I think it is great that the conversations are taking place. BUT…At the end of the day, you folks need to compete in the same arena of ideas, facts, opinions, and points of view that we all do. And you do NOT deserve “extra special” treatment because you are ummm….well..you. Ad age? Parasites? Please. Fact checkers. Opinion shapers? Yes. Parasites. Please.

ONE LAST POINT.

If you Google “Google Publisher Advisory Council”, you will be directed to many of the same links that I linked to above. WHY? Because the mainstream media simply isn’t writing about this. You want your credibility, but IMO you want it selectively. Again…who died and appointed you god?

I challenge you to make the case that you are, in fact, more relevant. I cannot see that you are.

The Recession and Online Marketing – for the Real Estate Industry

Let me say right off that this is just one guy’s view of a pretty big elephant. I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but Glenn’s post over at the Bloodhound Blog, sparked me into writing my thoughts (as he often does.).

Glenn asks about the future of the landscape in the real estate space. More brokers or less? Big VC players using BIG ideas and BIG capital or smaller sized players that have proven profitability, yet may be slower to grow due to lack of capital.

In the current environment, VC’s have shut down the flow of capital (essentially) into the pipe. This leaves the big idea crowd in a tough spot. Yes, as Glenn claims, it is true that relatively few have hit Tech Crunch’s dead pool to date. If this flow of capital doesn’t change for say another 18 months, though, MANY will, IMO.  Glenn would know this better than I…given their current burn rate, how long can many of these firms last without profitability? Have they managed cash by cutting staff and reducing expenses? To a point they have done well. But the key to ANY VC these days is gonna be PROFITABILITY. The P word. Plain and simple.

Will some survive? YES. Must they drive towards profitability? YES. What we are seeing is that an organization like Zillow or Trulia for example, throws out a cool looking interface for the public. They are the FIRST. Bleeding edge. They cut down the trees and create a road. Then, savvy REALTORS (a VERY small subset of REALTORS in general mind you), drive down that road and collect much of the goodness. Currently there is no way to monetize the logging business on the net. Timber has no value. The ROAD IS the value and thanks to open source CMS’s like WordPress, Joomla, vBulletin, and MANY others, toll on that road is forever and increasingly cheap.

The takeaway: In a recessionary environment, BIG ideas cost BIG money and are often easily imitated or tweaked by enterprising folks that have the tools to re-create the goodness at 1/100th the cost. Why should a VC invest the capital when they presume that the BIG idea is not defensible. If it is defensible, it is profitable.

Second point. Earned media. One thing that aided Big Idea folks in the past is the concept of big media buys were the only way of building defensible and profitable traffic. The only ones doing that successfully these days in the real estate space that I am aware of are HomeGain and REMAX.com. HomeGain uses PPC and other media buys to drive traffic to their sites. Their organic search component is a relatively VERY small component of their mix. RE/MAX uses large media buys to promote REMAX.com very successfully. They have generated over 6 MM leads to date with the millions they spend. It is defensible because RE/MAX brokerages do not see them as competition. They receive the leads at ZERO referral fee. They (associates)  have already paid into the effort with their advertising funds. This is a cooperative effort that produces results.

The little guys have a different tactic: Earned media. This was not available to us 10 years ago. Or really even five yearss ago in the form it exists today. I can build an effective social networking platform (blogging, forum, etc…you name it) for literally pennies these days. I can then promote it online for pennies. Funny part is: It is everybit as effective as the big media buy. (just a different marketing channel, mind you).You can then PROMOTE it via big media (or not). Look at how much earned pub Twitter is getting from the press these days.

I think the VC’s maybe realizing that you don’t need five MBA’s, tons of capital, massive investment capital, policies, procedures and an exit strategy to execute a BIG idea.

A few savvy folks who trust each other and know an industry, some spare time and a few bucks from each may now be far more effective in simply producing profit and ROI on a smaller scale. Neccessity is the mother of invention. It also forms the friction and heat that forges strong organizations. Too much capital as often is the mother of failure as too little.

One thing about starting with nothing. You are reluctant to add costs when it is your own money. That is a good business habit in any environment, but crucial these days.

Once the concept (and profitability) is proven in the fires of lean times, then there is adequate capital opportunity and facilities from the SBA or other sources if there is need.

Now for brokerages:

I think this was one of Glenn’s best questions. He asked if there’d be a general increase or decrease in the number of brokers, in spending on web infrastructure, advertising and etc.  I indicated in my comment that it did not matter. Here’s why:

a) All real estate is transacted locally. It is geotargeted. A national site simply cannot do what a local site can PROVIDED the local site is willing to INVEST THE TIME and PROMOTE the SITE. (most are not. I grant that.) They HAVE the TIME. In a slower real estate environment they CAN do it. Labor is cheap for a REALTOR promoting their own brand when they are not busy, where a national site must hire it done.

b) I think there will be battle hardened large brokerages that have local branding dominance. They will be populated by teams who dominate niches, but do not wish to be their own brokerage. I think there will be established individual agents with large books of business in those offices who offer great service to their spheres of influence and protect those relationships. They will slowly diminish in size as these folks reach retirement and / or transition their clients to new agents. I also think there will be a large number of Jay Thomspson / Greg Swann type brokerages…small independant and feisty as hell. They are by nature internet savvy and have the local connections that a national level entity cannot easily replicate.

Most everyone else is going to suffer an ugly and painful demise. (There, I said it.)

I do think that Glenn’s model of being IN the real estate business as a broker rather than a third party along with similar strategies by folks like Galen Ward @ estately, are FAR preferable to the strategies of third party guys like Zillow and Trulia. Why? Because they actually are in the business. There is often too much time WASTED in trying to differentiate rather than simply connect with consumers. In this, I think Estately has the upper hand. Promote. Market. Traffic. Connect. and then Refer or Convert (get the cash).

There is a blogger in my office who has cashed tens of thousands of dollars off of a simple WordPress blog with the right effort, correct principles and a solid plan from the get go. $150 plus about 40 hours of solid work = tens of thousands in the last five months alone.  That’s right. The blog was started 6 months or so ago. We refer to him in our blogging group as “Direct Deposit” (hehe- True Story.). He is a living, breathing and blogging example of what Glenn was referring to in the drive to profitability being a shorter path with less steps. Why do “Off the wall, down the stairs, off the backboard, nothin’ but net!” when you can do “He shoots. He scores.”

These kinds of savvy folks (in my opinion) are the ones who will come out ahead and will shape the future of real estate after the recession.

Ok, finally. Thanks Glenn for the great questions to stimulate my mind. PLEASE critique my thoughts and add your own opinions to it. I would value that.  ( That goes likewise for everyone else as well. )

Chicago Northwest Suburbs Real Estate ;-) AR steps in it again.

The Public Relations fun and games over at Active Rain took another fun twist yesterday. And I MAY be too late to miss the fun because I was asleep at the switch.

Here’s the post I am talking about:

Northwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate

Folks at AR, listen up. Listen close and listen well. When you brag about how well your blogging ranks for some non-competitive little term…you KNOW that’s gonna invite people to point out that when it comes to SEO you have the short end of the stick.

You can say a lot of things at AR, but saying you are the tops in having posts rank in Google…and that seems to be happening regularly and getting featured…is fraudulent in my opinion. Let’s watch the search engine results over there and see who REALLY knows what they are doing, hmmm?

Launching a weekly search for online marketing excellence

OK, I am finally doing it.

For years, clients of mine ask for examples of what I think are great online marketing efforts. I will give them one here or there. Now, I am opening up the great stuff I find each week to readers of EricOnSearch!

Here’s how it works. Eric On Excellence – the weekly challenge. You will see the details of it there. I am looking for great online marketing ideas from ANY industry and of ANY type.

Think you have what it takes? Want some authority and online exposure EricOnSearch style? Send your latest effort to me and let’s see what you got!

Best Blog Post Practices – Examples

Best Blog Post Best Practice Example #1

So why does this post work? There are 3 solid reasons. #1 – Tech Crunch tweets it posts on Twitter to its large and ever growing group of followers.  #2 – They use an existing controversy and add their own twist. They link to the people who started the controversy to enlist support. #3 – They are not afraid to aim “uphill” and take on bigger issues (like Facebook) than themselves. To win long term, you must do that consistently. Your blog always starts small and the only way to make it grow is to take on big issues. Don’t be afraid. Just be right.

Now on to a real estate related example or two.

Best Blog Post Best Practice Example #2

This post on the Jay Thompson’s blog is great because it is IMO a new way to paint a picture for an audince of what life in Phoenix is all about. He acknowledges the hot summers and then explains the other good parts of like there. From a purely SEO point of view, he did a good job of linking out to local sites and attractions in his post. Does that help? Yes. It networks you in the local business community and that is invaluable.

There are two main sources of links for a REALTOR. There are the “watercooler” type of links you get by networking with other REALTORS that are so common. Then there are the links from other local businesses. They are less common, but more valuable, because they come from folks who can actually buy a home. (Believe me, Jay does a great job of earning the watercooler kind of links as well. He works hard at it and deserves it.

Last example of a well thought out post IMO. This one is from Jay as well. Before you go thinking “Why is he glossing Jay so much?” Simple. It is because he deserved it for this post.

This post is a perfect example of what you do ONCE you have some readership, but it also is how you get readers and links. Yes, the $15,000 got cut back…but Jay was actually beating the newspapers to the punch on the actual sausage making that was in the bill. He was posting it blow by blow. Using the strength of his blog, he was ranking on Google for all sorts of terms like “$15,000 tax credit” “$15,000 tax credit phoenix” and tons of others. This was newsy. It was one that news junkies would come back to and connect with him on. **and link to as well** It is exactly what blogs were designed to do…shorten the news cycle to non-existant and profit from getting the jump on the papers.

Ok, now it’s your turn. Send me some examples of great posts (even if they are yours…grin) I promise that I won’t tell anyone that you sent them to me! If I can use them here on EricOnSearch(or elsewhere) to demonstrate great blogging, you’ll get a link and some notoriety!

Blog Coaching: Less posts… More Substance.

I hear two common refrains when it comes to doing “the work” of a search engine optimization campaign. The first? “I don’t have time to blog and do all of this.” (even to the point that folks are happy to pay people to do it for them)…the second is “How many posts do I have to write on this blog before it will rank well?”

Have you ever found yourself in the “I do not have time to write on my blog” trap? I think we all have. This is especially true if you have bought into the notion that you have to write a post every other day or some such.

Is blogging work? (yes.) Does it take effort? (yes.) Is there some magical formula when it comes to blogging and SEO about how many posts you need to have? (NO!)

My high school english teacher, used a great analogy that applies here. When I asked him how long an essay needed to be, he said there was no assigned length. but gave me the following crucial advice.

“Like a miniskirt. Long enough to cover the subject, short enough to keep it interesting.”

Jeff Peckler

Bottomline? Write QUALITY and not QUANTITY. Write stuff that is newsy, well researched and that people will link to, quote, pass on to their friends, and so forth. Seriously.

If I see one more real estate blog with 600 posts about every single subdivision in town and why they are the greatest place to live, I am gonna hurl.

A single post, well structured, well written and ESPECIALLY well promoted and marketed can rank at the top of the search engines for a relevant subject. Search engines crave this relevance, but they don’t crave contrived crap. They want the RELEVANT stuff.

I can understand why Joost De Valk said in a recent presentation, “If you are gonna bait. Use the good stuff.” His powerpoint slide to illustrate this was NATURAL fishing bait. Good old fashined, aromatic, smelly, stick your hook through it type of stuff that fish love because it is REAL.

Write less posts and articles. Write better quality. Take the time to promote each one like its own mini book tour. Folks will link to you. Folks will traffic your blog. You will be very glad that you did.

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