Realtor.com entering the SEO fray

Well for a while they were actually using a pay per click campaign but I am sure that got costly fast for them because I don't see them doing pay per click anymore unless I am mistaken. I agree with you Eric that R puts on a front to align their own pockets. Glad to know we have to compete against the big R now in the seo game but what can you do?

I'm showing Homes dot com in AL searches and R dot com in GA searches.  Is there still an alliance there?  I never trusted the whole R dot com thing, too many strange bedfellows.

@thataway - I honestly dunno, Will look into the connection. Interesting thought

@brandonre - you do the same thing as for other folks like T or Z...R.com is no different. Outwit. Outplay and outlast..... and soon you are a survivor IMO

best

Eric

It used to be that ranking in Google was just a matter of putting in some effort. Nowadays, with so many larger sites entering the frey, ranking has become more difficult. It's too bad the competition is now coming from within our own. Doesn't surprise me. Colleen and I sat through a seminar hosed by realtor.com titled something like, "Technology for Real Estate Agents." What is turned out to be was 25% helpful tips for agents, with the remaining 75% being a sales pitch for their products. Of course, the agents were like "sheep before a slaughter" as they rushed forward to get the "last remaining spots" available. Probably the last remaining spots that are available to everyone in every seminar they put on.
 

Joe,

I could not agree more. I have the privilege of teaching the SEO seminar at RE/MAX's convention this year (more on this in an upcoming post) and you can BET that it will be 99% good basic information and 1% "BTW my name is Eric Blackwell and etc.

Those seminars are simply designed to push their products...grrr..

About larger sites entering the fray, yes, they are coming out of the woodwork and putting the pressure on. Many are in financial stress. We can win, but it is going to be a tougher battle than yesteryear.

I think we need to not only SEO well, but also become involved in our local boards as an asset protecting measure to help prevent them from doing things like were done recently in Indianapolis and in Austin TX.  Thoughts?

@Eric - I'm familiar with Indy, but what happened in Austin?

"...but also become involved in our local boards..." 

Amen.  Colleen was just elected to sit on the board of our area's Board of Realtors. 

They aren't that strong in Sarasota yet. Yet. SEO has become much more competitive over the last few years. Its pretty tough to compete with the well capitalized sleeping gorilla. Perhaps the gorilla isn't sleeping anymore.

I wish I could get involved with the local board but that is too much drama.

@Marc- You should be the poster boy for what happens when a board starts eating its young. (painful grin) I am just trying to help others avoid similar issues.

@Joe = Tell Colleen congrats!

@Csl- I will be posting soon about Austin - we had some conversations about it at the REW conference (in the hall, and after hours) that showed me how ignorant of the motives of third party lead generators like Trulia and Zillow a board of REALTORS could be. They actually PAID some of these fplks to take the listings and put them on their site! It is too long to post here in the comments, but I promise I will share it in due course.

Some of the reason to participate locally is to protect yourself IMO. Some is to prrotect other REALTORS from themselves. AMAZING....