RISMEDIA, September 2, 2010—Lately I have been talking to a lot of mortgage lenders and title reps who are trying to find ways to get real estate agents and brokers to start sending business their way in the form of home loans and title services.
The common complaint from the mortgage reps is that they are supposed to go out and knock on doors and shake hands but have very little leverage and provide no reciprocation to secure a working relationship with real estate agents.
The same complaint also comes from real estate agents. I was recently speaking to one real estate agent who flat out said: “We need more than coffee and donuts from mortgage and title companies if they want our business.”
Although the quote got a good laugh from the meeting attendees, it is actually a very serious subject for mortgage and title companies who provide necessary services to new home buyers and need relationships with agents to grow and expand their business.
The good news for the title and mortgage companies is that they are now able to generate home buyer leads through a new cutting edge MLS SEO technology that adds and builds Web pages onto their existing website (or a new one) and secure business from real estate agents by giving them leads for home buyers and sellers.
Although the technology is referred to as “MLS SEO,” it actually in many cases uses data from Google Base to create thousands of Web pages that go in and target long tailed keywords.
Google Base does not have the same restrictions as MLS data and includes bank owned listings and For Sale by Owner properties that are not listed on the MLS.
Fortune 500 companies like Amazon.com, Netflix and iTunes already know that long tailed keywords provide high conversions for sales coming from the Internet and now the real estate industry is also starting to wake up and start moving in that direction as well.
Long tailed keyword searches account for about 70% of all real estate searches done by online consumers and the quality of the leads is generally better since the searches are much more targeted and specific.
In addition, many large real estate brokerages are finding that the more places they export their listings, the more visibility and sales they get. Exporting listing data to Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate, Google Base and other major portals are becoming mainstream places to list properties for large and medium sized real estate brokerages looking to expand visibility and SEO capabilities.
By using the listing data from Google Base, this new technology can create thousands of Web pages with each one targeting a specific long tailed keyword being used by consumers anywhere in the USA, Canada, Australia and around the world.
One title company in Phoenix recently sponsored a “Super Site,” which built out Phoenix and 300 local communities and the response was overwhelming. Agents were scrambling to secure areas on the website to get leads and the title company did something that very few others have been able to do, and that is set up a system to provide leads for real estate agents and build their referral network business.
Mortgage companies and title companies are starting to come out of their shells and realize that if they can produce home buyer leads, they not only have an audience to offer their services to, but also can secure a small army of loyal real estate agents who will be happy to reciprocate the business and throw loans and title service customers back their way.
The day is coming where mortgage and title companies who expect to grow and survive will realize that implementing new MLS SEO technology and feeding agents leads is a much healthier way to run a business than feeding them
donuts. More importantly, this patent pending technology gives power back to the reps knocking on doors to secure relationships of real estate agents by offering something tangible in return—and that is more home sales.
Sean Callahan is an Internet Marketing Consultant and founder of Real Estate Marketing Nerds and co-founder of Multimedia Icon Inc. He has worked with thousands of real estate agents and brokers over the last 10 years providing Internet marketing services and information. He is also a public speaker and has helped teach thousands of small business owners how to effectively market themselves online.
For more information, visit www.realestatemarketingnerds.com.
