An agent has to do so much right now – know your market, know how to negotiate, get leads, convert leads, market homes, service clients, close sales, be a part of the community, master technology — it can be overwhelming. If one wants to keep his/her eye on their business, they should be wary about the distraction of becoming a blogger. Be a real estate agent who uses blogging (and social media) as a marketing tool — don’t become a blogger who also does real estate. Another angle – don’t set out to create a great blog; use blogging tools and disciplines to create a great real estate web site. It’s a nuanced, but important distinction…. I think.

Booo to bloggers! Booo!!! Just kidding. It’s really late…. I should be working on my site (or going to bed).

Your observation about blogs and real estate sites can get you tarred and feathered in some places, especially this week. We will get into this in detail.

The questions you pose in #4 (or #3?) are all calls to action if answered by the visitor.

1. LIke you say, keep it simple. Home Buyers/Sellers care about homes, the market and the process to buy/sell. Strip away everything else. Most of our customers have many distractions and have tiny attention-spans. It’s too bad that delivering “Simple” can be so complex.

2. IMO, Buyers/Sellers don’t care about blogs. I *think* that the traditional blog format organized around sequential posts is not the ideal organization of information for consumers. I *do* think that a blog architecture is ideal for a real estate site. WP is ideal for delivering fresh, organized and rich content — consumers definitely want this. But, they don’t want a blog. A great blog site may not be the best model of organization for a real estate site. IMO.

4. In addition to “What’s the call to action?”, another question to answer on each page/area is “How am I connecting to consumers?” How can I help? How can I provide expertise? How will my reader relate to me?

I look forward to following this discussion and learning something.

-Tyler

Your home page has a lot going on. Conversion is the result of funneling the visitor to the point where they need to make one of a few choices. If you give people too many choices, they tend not to make one.

The next post will discuss site navigation, info overload, and for for those hanging in Vegas right now at REBWE, card counting.

I saw @1000wattmarc tweet the following and agree 1000%::
“Next time ur web vendor tries 2 sell u a load of ideas, be like Google and ask 4 data 2 support their “ideas” http://bit.ly/4CefhI“.

From where I sit, I think many confuse tools with methods. I noticed that there is a panel at REBW on measuring ROI of SM. I would like those folks to first show me conversion rates before they talk about ROI. #WWGD

Mack – Thanks. One thing about this is we are still in the gestation period. No labor pains yet so delivery and slapping this baby on the butt isnt happening overnight.