How I Lost A Listing

by Phil Hoover, Real Estate Broker

77% of all homebuyers start their search on the internet, yet many sellers don’t understand or appreciate the importance of effective internet marketing.

I was reminded of this fact last week when I lost a listing to another agent who doesn’t even have her own website.

I did a little sleuthing and typed in my competition’s name on Yahoo!, which yielded her web PAGE buried deep inside her broker’s website with a subdomain name that no one would ever find unless they searched by the agent’s name (no buyer is going to do that unless they know her).

Then, I searched the two most popular search phrases for our market, “Boise Real Estate” and “Boise Idaho Real Estate”, and her broker’s website didn’t even appear in the first several pages of search results.

Then, I double-checked my results for “Boise Real Estate” and “Boise Idaho Real Estate” and confirmed that I had first-page, #3 and #4 organic rankings for my website www.BoiseReal.com, out of millions of results.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, because her broker is still chopping down forests and publishing his own real estate tabloid in our local newspaper every Saturday ~ complete with little bitty heads and little bitty photos of homes, replete with “Hurry, this one won’t last” ad copy.

The frustrating part?

When I asked the seller if she understood that my competition didn’t even have a website, she argued that she did because she had seen it. She didn’t know the difference between a web page and a website!

Obviously, I never got the opportunity to explain the difference between organic rankings and paid placement.

I continue to be amazed by how many agents lack their own web presence, have static “business card” web pages on their brokers’ websites, and have e-mail addresses tied to their brokers’ business presence ~ in a world where the consumer is moving ever closer to the internet and e-mail as their preferred way of doing business.