Self-made

I dusted off this very old thing because I can't long form post from Linkedin!

I was reading an article in Forbes on the RIM Cofounders' potential bid to buy back the company.  Names are hyperlinked for profile information.  The profiles on Forbes contain net worth and source of wealth.  For Mike, it stated:  "Source of Wealth: Research in Motion, self-made."  It made me reflect on the term self-made because I've heard numerous people referred to lately as 'self-made'.  In my experience, there is no such thing.

I believe the words of one of my former employers who had read something to the effect, "success happens when preparedness meets opportunity." Becoming prepared in that sense certainly takes a lot of hard work.  I also believe that opportunities can be manufactured through smarts and learning from the best.  But more than anything, I believe the events that shape our lives and the people we meet that influence us, have a lot to do with luck, chance and good fortune.  A myriad of people have taught me, inspired me, and have afforded me opportunities that have lead me to where I am.  Today and each and every day, there are a ton of people with whom my ongoing success depends on and thus we are truly interdependent.  So I don't believe that anyone is self-made and I really think the term is almost an affront.

Share

It's About Authenticity

Sport Illustrated writer Luke Winn just wrote one of my favorite articles of the Winter Olympics titled "Ain't not party like a gold medal party" about the celebration of the Canadian Olympic Women's Hockey Team. In light of the controversy created by what Winn called the "latest moronic piece of news," he writes an article about the "most authentically cool celebration [he's] seen at the games".

The IOC falls into a bucket of people that do not understand the forces behind the progressive maturation of our culture. Social technologies have made us all more transparent and honest in the way we communicate and act. We see more and more salutes to people in positions of power who lighten up and communicate openly and honestly rather than behind the veil of scripted, well rehearsed, politically correct rhetoric (as with Arnold's video tweet).

This isn't surprising to those of us that actively follow trends and research in today's communications. We try and help businesses understand research showing us:

• 75% of people don't believe that companies tell the truth in advertisements (Yankelovich)

• Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities). (Yankelovich)

• 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know (EConsultancy);

These trends are telling people that there is low trust in traditional communications, the way we've scripted and shaped and delivered messaging. This is not just related to advertising, but to media and communications in general. People report their own news on blogs now and turn to each other for product and service recommendations.

Maggie Hendricks from Yahoo reported on Jon Montgomery's "needless apology", telling Jon and the rest of us that we don't always have to listen to our PR people. Luckily, Jon showed us all including the Olympic women's team that people want to see us be ourselves because we relate. Until I saw the girls celebrate, Jon's victory walk was my favorite moment of the games.

For those out there that remind us that this issue is about under age drinking and smoking bylaws, I'll submit that last week's story about Alexa Gonzalez showed us that 'zero tolerance means zero intelligence'. As Winn reminds us of how much we appreciate authenticity, perhaps the IOC can show us that they recognize the spirit of our athletes and the work they have put into their victory.

But as a more general theme about our changing communication, we feel that people want truth not spin. We want positive, not negative. We want to celebrate achievement rather then harp on disappointment. We want understanding, not judgement. And most of all, we want authenticity. Way to go girls - luv ya!

Share

How can you build trust and why is it important

The following is a good bit of content that Michael Charles wrote for our 'about' page on Mashedin.com. I'm publishing it here because I think it does a good job of explaining why trust is important. For more on this topic, see this post by Greg Ferenstein.

so, what exactly is this mashedin thing all about?

It's about creating a sense of trust among people who've never met.

In the offline world, when we're introduced to someone, we quickly discover mutual connections that allow us to make judgments about the trustworthiness of the new acquaintance. So you used to work at WidgetCorp? Do you know Jane Schlumpford?

We've created a way to replicate that experience online. Whether you're displaying the MashedIn widget on your website or blog, or just linking to your MashedIn profile on outgoing emails, now you can show strangers how they're connected to you through the social networks you already use. Maybe they're not strangers after all.

how will this help me build my online reputation?

MashedIn really becomes potent when you add the ability for visitors to leave recommendations that can be viewed by other visitors.

People no longer trust testimonials published by website owners rather than by fellow users. Why should we believe that "Bob from Arizona" is a real person? Wouldn't you rather be endorsed by someone whose authenticity can be confirmed by checking their Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn profile?

MashedIn makes it easy to gather recommendations from your existing customers and contacts - simply by sending them a link to your widget and asking for their kind words. Your MashedIn widget can be placed on multiple sites so recommendations can be gathered wherever you have a presence. All of your recommendations will be displayed everywhere your widget appears.

is this really the best way to build trust online?

We've got some evidence to back us up:

• "90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users." (Econsultancy, July 2009)
• "Recommendations from family and friends trump all other consumer touchpoints when it comes to influencing purchases, according to ZenithOptimedia." (AdAge, April 2008)
• "Consumers trust friends above experts when it comes to product recommendations (65% trust friends, 27% trust experts, 8% trust celebrities)." (Yankelovich)
• "67% of shoppers spend more online after recommendations from online community of friends."(Internet Retailer, September 2009)
• "Customer reviews are the most effective social tactic for driving sales, followed by question-and-answer features and a Facebook fan page where companies post information." (Etailing survey of 117 companies, September 2009)
• "Some 70% of Americans say they consult product reviews or consumer ratings before making a purchase, according to an October 2008 survey by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, a research and consulting firm." (Business Week, October 2009)
• "The Trust in Advertising survey of 26,000+ found that Consumer Recommendations are the most credible form of advertising." ("Social Media Marketing: The Right Strategy for Tough Economic Times", Awareness, 2008)
• "56% of UK website owners say that user-generated content lifts conversion levels; 77% say it increases traffic; and 42% say it increases the average spend on site. (eConsultancy survey of 360 website owners across all sectors, November 2008)
• "84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing's primary objective."(1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)

Share

What are the odds we're connected?

I've had a lot of people trying out MashedIn after our official release last Thursday. Most of them fill have a ton of common connections because I know them so the shared connections box fills up. But one assumption we are going on right now is that if a local small business, a business professional or a local contractor finds one or 2 common connections with a new visitor to their website or profile, it's a huge success. Is that a good assumption? How many connections is it necessary to show?

Share

A New Way to See Common Connections

Any of our current MashedIn beta users will notice that we have now included Linkedin as a widget option. This means that widget owners will be able to add Facebook, Twitter and now Linkedin to let visitors to see common connections. If you are already using a widget, the linkedin option will now be visible to your visitors. Give it a whirl and let us know of any bugs you see happening.

Share

One Great Way 'Friending' More People Can Help Your Business

Today more and more businesses are listening to the popular advice that they must use social media to market their business. Over 700,000 small and medium businesses have created fan pages. While following the trend to jump on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and join the blogging world, many business owners struggle to see concrete results that these activities bring.

Many small business owners are consumed with running their business operations and so time spent on other activities is precious. To actively build community online and engage social media, the appropriate time must be put in. As a small business owner, have you ever felt that it's a bother to reach out and connect to everyone you know on this social network and that social network? If you are a business owner who has yet to really dive into social networking because the returns are unclear, here's a reason to do so now.

It's common sales knowledge that if you have a mutual acquaintance or contact, that connection increases that chance you'll be able to generate a transaction. Traditionally, it's been hard to explore common interests or connections with traffic or leads that you source online. Well follow along: The average Facebook user has 130 connections according to Facebook statistics. Imagine that you're a go getter however and you go out there and hook up 200 people on your account (this isn't unrealistic at all). That creates a 26,000 possibles ways that you could share a connection with someone you don't know.

Now imagine that you also join LinkedIn. The average Linkedin user is estimated to have about 61 connections. Say you go out there and hook up with an above average 100 business professionals. Some experts find that there is about a 30% overlap in Linkedin and Facebook connections. Let's take 30% off both numbers so that you have 42.7 connections for the average user that do not overlap with Facebook; and we'll assume you connect with 70 people that do not overlap with your Facebook conections. You have 2989 possible chances of being connected to another Linkedin user.

Combine Facebook and Linkedin and you have 28,989 ways you could be connected to someone that's on linkedin and Facebook. I don't have Twitter stats handy so let's use the number we have for our purposes here but you can imagine how Twitter starts to add to this.

MashedIn.com has created a simple tool that you can mount on your website, blog or link to in email communications. It allows visitors to your website or people reading your email to see if they are connected to you in Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. On average, we see there could be 28,989 ways that someone could be connected to you. The chances that someone is connected to you increases as you add Facebook friends, Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections. What you have is like a warm introduction to someone who is otherwise anonymous or rather, they have a warm introduction to you.

The Web2.0 movement brought transparency to the web. People who used to just read content now contribute content. Consumers of media have become publishers of media and as more people publish their experiences - conversations, organizations, businesses are all more transparent. Social connections provide context. The more transparency, context and information people have, the more trust we can build with them. MashedIn is one small tool that can help you build a little piece of trust with people that do not yet know you.

Share

MashedIn: The Super Nutshell Version

Have you ever been to a party or business 'networking' function and been standing around not knowing how to connect with anyone. You sit and say to yourself "how much longer do I have to be here?". Then, someone start a short conversation with you. It's a little strained but you both are trying to make an effort. Then, all the sudden, that someone mentions the name of a person you know and you think "holy crap, you know so and so, and OMG I can talk about so and so..." and then you have a totally engaging conversation. You've connected because you share a common connection. Well that's what MashedIn does.

Share

StepRep Update: Reputation Management One Account at a Time

This morning I published a post called Strengthen Your Online Search Reputation on the StepRep blog. This post is a continuation of the previous 2 posts on linking. Your linking can greatly affect your search profile - the results that someone sees when they search for you or your company. Hopefully these 3 posts are helpful for people that are looking for a high level plan to start improving their online reputation.

Yesterday the VendAsta team attended the CSSS career fair at the University of Saskatchewan Computer Science Department. It was great to get out and talk to students that will be coming out of the program. We've already received applications for summer students and from graduating students. Hopefully we find some good matches.

By way of an update on our 2 initiatives:

Today, the HomeBook team wrapped up a sprint and started in on the planning of our last 30 day sprint before our public beta launch of HomeBook. We're super pumped to get it out to the world for a first look!

The StepRep team is winding down their StepRep improvement sprint. We're doing a few things in this milestone. We have some improvements and general styling to finish and we're also doing some architecture work for functionality that will be released in the next sprint (30 day milestone). We'll be wrapping this one up next week.

StepRep will officially be 1 month old on Sunday. Today, I'm gathering up a lot of feedback that we've generated from our first group of users and I'll post a bunch of them on the StepRep blog at the beginning of the week. I'll do this just to let everyone know that we are listening, we appreciate the feedback and we are acting on the feedback.

Lastly, I wanted to say a big thanks to Joel Burslem and Inman News for mentioning StepRep. Also wanted to thanks Missy Caulk, our favorite Ann Arbor Real Estate blogger (there's a little link love for you Missy!), for her post about us on ActiveRain. Of course, I was notified of these posts right away by StepRep! Whether a comment is good or bad, you have to be responsive. Luckily, we're seeing a lot of positive feedback...

Share

Fusing the Age of Social Media with Marketing Principles

I bookmarked a good article on how to evolve marketing by fusing web 2.0 with sound marketing principles. Besides the very obvious plug for SilverPop, the article is has some good suggestions. Some of the better ones I have some comments on:

1. Speak from a place of service - Rather than blatant self promotion. Sounds obvious, but too many people don't get it. If you are using your blog or twitter account to spam thousands of people while trying to build awareness, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Especially on twitter, the best way to build your followers is to publish frequent, valuable content. People find you through feeds and if your tweets have value, you'll get followed. Further, using twitter's content search, people will find you through relevant information you publish on topics they are interested in. You can't splatter your name or your brand all over social media without adding value.

2. Cross-link all of your profiles and social groups. Common sense and I discussed it in my last two blog posts on linking and building a search profile on our StepRep blog. Don't forget to list these profiles, blogs and don't forget about your email footers and other marketing materials.

3. While I noted the obvious plug for SilverPop, I don't think this is a bad product. A more important point here is to clarify what viral should mean. Viral marketing is not trying to produce a video that is soo crazy millions of people are going to share it. A viral product is one that naturally spreads when it is used. Rather, the use of the product spreads it. While SP makes it easier for email messages to spread, an overall focus should be on trying to create something that is spread through it's practical use.

4. Lastly, the point on exclusivity is a good one. If you have several profiles that you are actively trying to promote and build, you have to make the content on them somewhat unique. Sounds simple but it multiplies the workload.

(Oh, and I had to comment - I liked the title of the article ;-) Catchy)

Share

Are Old School Linking Strategies Still Relevant?

The short answer is yes. Typically, websites have used linking to build page rank and compete for search terms. Over the past number of years, those search terms (across the board) have become more and more competitive. Linking to build site traffic is harder and harder. But one area of linking that is very effective and relatively easy is the area of ORM or reputation management.

Not a lot of people take ORM seriously and thus competing in search for your name is easier, in general, than competing for broad search terms. Obviously ORM for search is harder, the more common your name is, but using links properly can catapult rankings for even very common names.

I wrote a basic background on linking over the our StepRep ORM blog this afternoon. Next week, I'll be supplying some concrete strategies for building a personal search profile.

Share

Traditional Models and New Media

I was reading Seth Godin's latest post called That's a Special Case and it got me thinking about traditional businesses and online models. He says that everything is online because there is a different experience, different expectations and different rules.

I don't think there is such a clear line in the sand. Traditional businesses are being affected by online models because user expectations are changing. The problem is that the 'online user' defines almost everyone. Search created a greater expectation and desire for instant gratification (instant results). I think that social media played a big part in the US election. I think you can say that social media is creating a larger desire to participate and be heard. Social media is creating a greater expectation around openness,transparency and truth.

The mobile world is creating a more connected individuals. People are now always connected to their online tools.

The game is changing now for all businesses because the mobile Internet and social media are changing they way people do things and what they expect. It's no longer a matter of companies 'needing' to get online or have a website because other businesses do. They need to recognize how technology is changing expectations and behavior.

Share

Advertising and Promotion in 2009 and Beyond

I tossed up a post on our StepRep blog about Belkin paying people to write positive reviews. I really hate the practice - it's just generally bad form, but it had me thinking how it's really different from other forms of advertising. How do you think advertising is going to change in the future. Love to hear some thoughts from others. Join the conversation.

Share

Yahoo Real Estate Getting it Right... But Could Be Better

A couple weeks ago, Yahoo! Real Estate launched and new and improved real estate section. I've spent a lot of my time in the past few years thinking about real estate search so I'm going to fire away some of my likes and dislikes.

1. First, it has a nice homey look and feel on the front landing page. This is the way a real estate site should look:


2. The slider bars for narrowing search criteria are really the best way I've seen for effectively narrrowing search criteria (Roost does a nice job using these too).


3. The Map Search on the other hand is in sufficient IMHO. My best experience with a map is when I can select an area either with cross hairs ( or draw a polygon !) and then use advanced search options like the sliders to refine the home price and size criteria for that area. To be perfectly honest, the vast majority of map implementations just make my life more frustrating. They are too clucky and slow.

4. When I search down into an area, such as Denver, when I click on the top menu to find foreclosures, or REALTORS®, I'm taken back to a landing page for that section, rather than foreclosures and REALTORS® in Denver. You have to maintain the user's context.


5. I love the image overlay telling you how many photos a listing has. The most important content for people searching real estate is photo and video content. So part b) to this point is that I don't think Yahoo! should be displaying listings without photos. They are useless to home hunters. Moreover, a listing with no photos certainly should NOT be a featured listing. It's the Prudential agent's fault here, but it makes Yahoo! look bad.


6. This could start a huge never ending debate, but if Yahoo wanted to fully support it's content, it's search engine should return results from Yahoo first. Why wouldn't they? I don't mean to get into the whole natural, organic, unfiltered, and egalitarian virtues of search results. Yahoo! search should return content on their portal first if available.


7. YRE should filter out duplicate listings better. This one in particular doesn't even come from different sources. They both link back to metrolist!


8. Spare me the click through! As a user, I can't figure out if YRE is part of a search engine or a portal. It integrates a lot of information in one place like a portal would but then sends me off to the broker portals for more info. In the complicated real estate business, this seems like a reasonable compromise to YRE and real estate brokers, but as a user, it frustrates the hell out of me.

So if the appropriate phone number and email address show up, why is it necessary to send me on a mad user experience nightmare to view listings and see all the info for each listing on hundreds of different sites? Furthermore, if the agents or brokers recieve the phone calls and emails and also get analytics to show their clients, it seems like it shouldn't matter where the view is ...
You see the problem it creates for the user in the image above. If you have any doubts whether you can create a comprehensive portal with all the listing information available, one only needs to look to Realtor.ca.

... So just a quick look from my perspective. Some things can be fixed easily here, others are symptomatic of larger issues.

Share

Some Small Business Looking to Increase Ad Spending in 09

Ad-ology has released results from a Small Business Marketing Outlook survey it conducted. Perhaps surprising to some, it found that in 2009, a quarter of small business owners plan to spend more on advertising while another 60% plan to spend about the same as they did this year.

When broken down by media type, over half of small business advertisers plan to spend the same or more on the following:

• Online advertising (69%)
• Yellow Pages (54%)
• Newspapers (51%)
• Direct mail (51%)

Other key findings include:

• “Knows my company/line of business” is the top attribute small business owners look for in a media advertising sales rep. “Delivers what they promise” is the second most desirable attribute.
• 52% of small business owners surveyed agree with the statement “you can gain market share by marketing while your competitors are cutting back.”
• 74% believe their company “must be one of the first 2-3 that come to a customer’s mind” when they need what the small business owner is selling.
• More than half of respondents plan to spend the same or more time and money on their Web sites and email marketing in 2009.
• The majority of small businesses are not using other emerging media: 77% do not use online video, 83% do not podcast, and 82% do not use mobile advertising.

While many small businesses appear to be budgeting more for online advertising in, some Adsense users are reporting decreases in revenue in late 08. I'm curious to if the trend in 2009 will be to seek more innovative online promotion methods.

Share

Why people don't trust your blog

I'm always returning to a state of trying to figure out how to reinvent my blog. Why's that? Well I think the biggest problem is that I'm a lazy blogger. After a lull in the action, I let weeks, even months go by with no posts and I start thinking how I can get into the groove of blogging more.

Here are some of my thoughts from this morning: I just read a really good article on WebProNews titled People Don't Trust Your Blog. First off, it has a nice graph on the types of information sources and the level that people trust them. Emails from friends are at the top while corporate blogs are at the bottom. It's wicked information for anyone in marketing. Richard MacManus dissects the report a bit, but here is where it takes my thinking:

- This is no wonder when I see an ads telling me that Ford is now the same quality as Honda and Toyota. You can't keep promoting on a blog or you are just trying to sell me. Consider a conversation with a friend who just got into the insurance industry and he/she keeps hounding you to sit down and look at insurance packages... that's an annoying friend.

- Have you ever had a know it all friend. A friend that just spews out useless facts about stuff you don't care about? Come on, we all have. They are annoying too. I think a good blog has to have useful information that I can rely on. From the real estate space, Norm write a great blog. I don't read it regularly because I'm not always thinking about real estate. But whenever I want information or stats, I always start with Norm. It helps me that the blog is always focused and on topic

- Ever had a friend that isn't genuine? You grow tired of them don't you? A blogger needs to care. Respond to comments and be real. When people voice a concern, listen to them. Nothing worse than someone that doesn't really care.

- Ever had a good friend that doesn't keep in touch. They don't work hard enough or at all on your friendship. This goes hand in hand with the point above. A good blogger needs to post regularly and cross post. They need to stay in touch one way or another. (I need to embrace the micro post).

Ok, I need counseling now. But that was cathartic. I go through this like people trying to quit smoking or lose a few pounds. I'm like a yo-yo.

I have to say how surprised I was to see corporate blogs at the bottom of the pile. The whole idea that made corporate blogging more popular was for companies to be more transparent and engage the customers in a genuine fashion. So the thought today - can you be more like a friend and less like a company with your business blog?

Share

More on the Death of Search Ranking

There was a lot of talk at the recent Pubcon about changes in search. Bruce Clay did an interview describing why ranking is dead. While it's arguable whether or not you can say ranking is dead, search engine changes have changed the search marketing game. Recent changes in personalization will have a dramatic affect.

You can see some of the search personalization changes in Google's search results now allowing users to delete results they see and promote ones they like. An example below:

I expect the tool will affect the results that user flags themselves, but Google's entire community of searchers will also have an impact on the search results based on overall blocking and promoting.

How does this affect you? As a search marketer your web presence(s) have to add value. The content needs to be clear and valuable. Moreover, your overall reputation matters more and more. This tool directly affects your search reputation but reputation is many things. It's how people rank your site, it's how they vote on comments you make in communities, it's what you say about yourself and what others say about you. Not only do you need to manage your online reputation now, but you have to pro-actively build it and promote it.

Share

Trulia Critics - Right or Wrong?

Today Glen Roberts at Inman News reported on a debate that was stirred up by Galen Ward of Estately (there's some link juice Galen...). Galen asked why does Trulia show up in search results above the original source. His answer:

"In this case, two reasons: the original source doesn’t even display the address on the page (dude - MLS rules are stupid, but they usually let you display your own property’s address at least - you gotta fix that!). But the much more common reason is that Trulia blocks Google from following their links."

So I agree the first reason is brutal. The real estate industry needs to help themselves. Some brokers and agent use solutions such as the Point2 where property listing have their own search engine friendly URL that can be indexed (such as this example from Jay Thompson's site).

But the second reason I neither find offensive nor accurate. As Galen explains, Trulia uses 302 redirects that prevents the flow of link juice to the source site. It helps their pages maintain authority. I don't find it offensive because these sort of things are common with any general online advertising arrangement. If you complete a link exchange with another site, you purchase a follow or nofollow link. Nofollows are designed to send traffic, not search authority. Realtor.com has been doing this sort of thing forever, they rank way higher than Trulia, so why the stink now? (see the link to http://www.npreco.com/ from this listing on Realtor.com) So secondly, I don't find the evaluation completely accurate because I don't think it's the main reason Trulia ranks higher. I have a couple of points here:

The NoFollow Reason

Rudy seems to admit SEO is reason for the nofollows. It's debatable in my mind whether or not it would be detrimental for Trulia to link out in their search results. Linking out to relevant sites can help a website's trust. Rudy also states, "Let’s be honest, most broker or agent websites would not rank better than they do currently if we removed the nofollow in the outbound links (99.9% of listings pages have no page rank or page rank 1)". That's true for the most part, but links from main search result pages like Denver (PR 4), would see value - I just couldn't let that one go. But while Galen suggests the redirects are an designed to block PR from flowing to other sites, the specific intent of the method. Rather than a practice to prevent other sites from receiving value, it's design is to help large sites flow page rank to deeper levels in their site hierarchy. By controlling this flow of link juice, Trulia's primary motivation I suggest is to push page rank deeper through their site.

Real Reason's for Truila's Search Success

More importantly, these nofollows (or 302 redirects) are not the main reason for Trulia's search dominance. There's a few big ones in my opinion:

1. First they've done some great marketing and promotion now that's resulted in a PR 7. That's and achievement and not many local sites can top that. Even RE/MAX.com is only a PR 6. This has nothing to do with redirects or nofollows, and everything to do with a lot of buzz and exposure.

2. Secondly, they have great site architecture for SEO. The page titles, content and heading tags all have the right keyword terms. It's consistent whether you are looking for Colorado, Denver or Bear Valley Denver real estate. VERY few real estate practitioners do a good job of this.

3. While there are other reasons, the third and last one I'll mention is that they have a widget strategy - a much more brilliant and interesting thing to talk about than the 302 redirects. Trulia has built several useful widgets that relevant real estate sites like Jay's can use. You'll see at the bottom of the widget there are 2 built in links. One link goes to the Trulia home page, helping out that PR 7. The second link is a deep link into Trulia. Since Jay's site is a Denver real estate site, the Trulia link goes to their Denver page.

So now Trulia has thousands of relevant links form real estate websites linking to their home page and deep linking into their site. Note that there isn't a nofollow on those widget links (of course)! Good for Trulia! It's a brilliant strategy. They have to build tools that add a lot of value (or perceived value) to execute on such a strategy. Also note that they've done some solid business development work and have authoritative sites like RIS Media using their widget's and linking back to Trulia.

If I was a real estate agent or broker, I probably wouldn't use the widget's and give Trulia that link. And if you consider their nofollow policy on their listings and result pages, it's not really a fair link exchange if you're using a widget :-) But my bottom line is - it's all negotiable! If brokers care about SEO for their own site, they can negotiate a removal of the nofollow. If it's not negotiable, a broker doesn't have to send their listings.

Share

Real Estate SEO - Franchises Missing the Boat

Well isn’t this blog neglected! To tell you the truth, over the past couple of months, I’ve been writing business plans, grant proposals, research documents, project and technical requirements and I have to say that I haven’t had a lot of gas in tank to write for this blog. I think I have to learn the art of micro posting!

So what has awakened me from my slumber? I was reading an RIS article by Glenn Houck this morning on SEO. After leading the Homegain charge for many years, Glenn certain knows a lot about SEO but he keeps things pretty simply in this article. SEO in real estate really gets me going because so many companies are completely missing the boat. This short article reminded me of a post Joel Burslem made listing his 10 favorite real estate search sites. The new Century 21 Canada site was one of them. I have to admit that I like the look and I like the map search implementation but this site missed the SEO boat totally. Let’s back up a bit because really, why does this matter...

Search engines (google) are like today’s phone books. In the old days, you picked up a phone book, flipped to the yellow pages, found the appropriate category (real estate) and searched through the listed ads. The differences are the following. In a search engine there are too many pages to produce a book. Flipping virtual pages just wouldn’t be practical either so you search by topic rather than flipping to a yellow page topic. So the first important point to make here is that websites need to ‘tell’ a search engine what their topic is. What Century21.ca has done is the equivalent to telling the yellow pages to make a topic called “Century 21” rather than ‘real estate’. In fact, it’s like they’re also trying to say, “we transcend real estate so don’t put us in that category at all.” (it’s the only logical conclusion I can make)

Ok, so on to the second point. With a search engine, it’s like having one big phone book rather than many small local phone books. So for large businesses that have many offerings or many local business offices, they can have an ad or listing for each relevant one. I’ll clarify using Century21.ca again. Not only should they be listed under the term ‘real estate’, but they should have relevant listings for terms like ‘Ontario real estate’ and ‘Toronto real estate’ and ‘Scarborough real estate’. It’s like having many yellow page ads. So building on point 1 – not only do you have to identify the category you should be listed in, but you need to identify other sub categories and make all of your yellow page ads (in this case, web pages) discoverable so they make it into the phone book.

The 3rd point in our comparison is that content in search engines is sorted differently than phone books. Because searching is fundamentally different than flipping through pages AND there is simply too much content out there (or yellow page ads in our metaphor), you can’t sort stuff in a search engine in alphabetical order. So the way a search engine sorts content is by relevance and popularity. If people talk about your business offline, you get word of mouth advertising. If they talk about it online, they link to it. A link is considered a popularity vote as Glenn notes.

A copyright notice at the bottom of Century 21 Canada shows WheretoLive.com Inc. so I assume they were contracted to build the site. If it was 1999 or 2001 I can understand a large corporation missing the SEO opportunity, but in 2008, this stuff should just be common knowledge and standard practice. There’s certainly enough information about SEO published online! Search is the way people find information today and unless a website is generating traffic, it’s a billboard in the middle of nowhere. SEO is not something that some geeky kid jumps in and performs on website. SEO is a philosophy for technical design architecture. Beyond that, SEO principles should permeate a company’s marketing so offline and online efforts all help more people find those yellow page ads.

Search engine optimization may be old news to some people and some may think that it’s a web 1.0 way of thinking. But, it still sits at the core of how we define ourselves in the online world. Because content is organized by the popularity of the documents, it is the most fundamental way we manage our reputation online. When I search for real estate in Canada, not only will I never find the content on Century21.ca, if I was actually looking for their site to show up, I would conclude that they don’t have a high enough reputation (and thus quality of content) for me to bother.

Share

Tag, I got meme'd

I don't know what this is really all about, but Brendan meme'd me a while ago. I was reminded about this while thinking about identity today.

Here is how they work according to Jay Thompson “ someone with too much time on their hands thinks up some question (typically personal) and starts a post, “tagging” others to do the same, and it flies across the Internet. Before you know it, you’ve found out more about some people than you probably want to know…” Then Jay tagged me!

Here are the rules for this one:
(1) list 7 things about yourself, (2) tag 7 people to do the meme on themselves including a link to their site.

1. I'm 35 years old and I'm 6 years YOUNGER than Brendan King, not OLDER. I'm married to Violet with a brand new son Jackson.

2. I was born in Chilliwack, B.c. and grew up in in Moose Jaw, SK.

3. I went to the U of S where I finished my Economics Degree. I was successful because I ONLY lived in Rez for 1 year! When I graduated the only thing I knew for certain about my career path is that I was NEVER going to be an economist!

4. One of my coolest trips was a backpacking adventure in 1997 to Bonavista NF for the 500th anniversary of the founding of Canada by John Cabot. The town of 6000 had 30,000 people there that week. The Queen arrived and a group sailed an exact replica of the Matthew from England to arrive exactly on June 24. The trip ended up in Ottawa for Canada Day. I met my wife to be on that trip!

5. Best trip Violet and I have been on was a 2 week voyage to Costa Rica in 2004.

6. I play almost any sport, but my favorite is golf. My first job was at a golf course where I spent my entire summer's earnings on a new set of clubs!

7. I used to have a whack of hair!

Share

MasterMinds and Snow Angels

Well, we've been busy lately with our heads down grinding out all things "startup''. Brendan wrote about how nice it is to have a great team. I share his feelings. One of the most influential books I've read is Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich. Hill describe what he called the Mastermind principle as the “coordination of knowledge and effort in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.” There are 2 characteristics of the Mastermind. One is a economic advantage that arises from sharing and cooperation with others utilizing the Philosophy of Achievement. Hill also believed that the human mind is a form of energy, part of it spiritual in nature. He states that when the minds of two people are coordinated in a spirit of harmony, the spiritual units of energy of each mind form an affinity, which constitutes the "psychic" phase of the Master Mind. Hill states: "No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind." This force, Hill reasoned, was tremendously valuable and ultimately the source of true wealth.

To me, Hill means that while there are economic advantages of combining 2 or more talents, true success is in the journey taken with others as you work together in harmony.

One of my favorite expressions from Hill is: "Whatever the mind of man [woman] can conceive and believe, it can achieve." Back in Hill''s day, no one used gender inclusive language so we excuse him for that. A great team is required to assemble that mastermind to conceptualize, believe and create that plan for achievement.

You know, it's amazing what you can do - I mean really do...

Share