Syndication – How real estate is different.
August 7, 2010
I was having a conversation with a Real Estate agent who asked why I have steadfastly been against the idea of syndication , until there was no other choice in the real estate industry (which is where our brokerage is at currently). This same person was quizzing me as to why I do NOT recommend writing “FRESH” content every day 643,466 times a day on my blog.
I thought for a long time about how to explain this and since I did a pretty crappy job of convincing them in our conversation…let me try again here.
It’s ALL about Quality vs Quantity.
Syndication in MOST media is a good thing…even a GREAT thing. Why? Because a “syndicated” talk show host or a “syndicated” columnist gets their name in front of EVERY Tom, Dick and Harry in more cities each time they are syndicated. Each additional radio station adds MORE exposure and takes away a potential competitor.
Unlike a radio talk show host (who does not OWN a radio station in every town – thus each new town = a bigger microphone), websites are global in nature and one website CAN be the dominant voice for real estate in your city worldwide.
Does Syndicating Real Estate listings do that? No. HECK No, 1000 times NO. Why? Because you are not syndicating yourself. You are syndicating the listing. In essence you are handing what once was YOUR bait to other fishermen and having them fish in what used to be your pond. Does that sound like BUILDING your marketing capabilities? Didn’t think so.
All you are doing is building the competition’s ability to compete with you.
The argument from some is that syndication “differentiates” you from the competition. Once everyone syndicates, there is ZERO differentiation and the only one who wins are other fishermen who you gave the bait to and invited them to fish in YOUR fishing hole.
Need a graphic to explain this? It looks like this:
The bottom line is that we are now at a point where EVERYONE is syndicating. Noone is getting differentiation and (at least in Louisville, although not true in some other cities) the syndicators are not generating much buyer traffic at all and their main concern is how much of the REALTOR advertising dollar they are receiving.
A final thought. Zillow traffic: 10 million visitors per month Ummm..OK… Accepting that at face value 10 million visitors / 5 million listings = 2 visitors PER MONTH PER LISTING on average – and you have to take out the number of visitors that visit their site looking for Joe Blow Celebrity’s new home for sale AND you also need to subtract a large percentage for persons looking for home values, as well as sellers looking at their own listing… – so its not even generating near that much on average.
I can think of many other advertising venues that generate greater exposure and have a significantly better long term ROI (because NOTHING is free forever 
).
So are we syndicating? Yes. Competitively we now must (and we will.) Do I think it is good for the industry. No. Never have.
Interesting post, Eric. Very. Fortunately the big sites (Zillow, Trulia, Realtor) do not have a stronghold on my local market. I would really hate to be competing against the big guys who only have content because WE, the real estate industry, feed it to them (and then they turn around, compete with us, and monetize it).
Question though, you said you do NOT recommend putting ‘fresh’ content a bizillion times a day on your blog. I get the point, writing daily would undermine the quality of the content, but how often would you recommend writing for those establishing their sites? Would the same rules of your PR5 blog apply to lowly bloggers starting out?
Great question Alex!
(warning- long comment ahead)
Here’s my take… (not sure it is THE answer…but it is MY answer). grin. It is something I will be covering at the REW Summit as well as we look to build authority on 30 minutes a day.
My PR5 blog did not start out that way. I wrote very similarly then as I do now. Perhaps a bit more frequently then, but not much. The question IMO of how often to write revolves around what your purpose is.
For a blog, each post can serve several purposes. It can help you forge a specific connection in an industry. It can help you connect with new friends and build your online authority. It can be a phrase that you want to rank for to build RELEVANT traffic. and finally it can be controversial and build your notoriety in an online community. A side effect of MOST of these purposes is that they will build links and authority as part of accomplishing the purpose. I am sure there are other purposes as well, but I am just listing a few.
So let’s look at an example. How many of my purposes listed above did my post on Carolyn Capalbo accomplish. (Hint: Quite a few.)
So, looking back on it I am pleased with the ROI of that post.
To me, it takes a really good meeting to beat no meeting at all and a really good post to beat no post at all.
I think oftentimes REALTORS fill their blogs as well with City Market Update type of posts that do not accomplish much in terms of building traffic. I think they are better served using an indexable IDX to generate the content that can be ranked. Link to it internally. And use the blog as the connection point and write to build authority from there more than write to add indexed pages to the site.
Thoughts?
Thoughts? Yeah, I really wish I was heading to the REW Summit! Grrr… Back to post, I can definitely see your point, many PR5/PR6 blogs don’t update very often. Clearly they have built authority through time by keeping their content relevant and ‘link-worthy’. And sure, posting just for the sake of posting can be quite counter-productive by spending time that could be spent doing something with a higher ROI and turning off visitors by low-quality content. However, as a relatively new blogger, I can say firsthand that it’s difficult not to want to be as proactive/productive as possible right off the bat. I have shifted my focus so instead of bombarding my hyper-local blog continuously, I have become a contributor on a few other blogs (BH, BP, HG) in order to: a) gain exposure to a bigger audience, and b) be able to write content besides Maui info/data. Not sure that it’s paying off yet, but enjoying the ride so far.
Too bad you are not coming to the Summit! It will be fun..will be taking pictures and posting them this year..I say that every year, but this time I mean it…hehe
@Not sure that it’s paying off yet, but enjoying the ride so far. — Dude, you are doing GREAT…It is TOTALLY paying off and I can show you where and how I know. I am headed home tonight, but will be in the office tomorrow, ping me when you have a minute and I will show you what I am seeing. To be honest, I have not seen anyone take it on like you have in a while…
Thanks for the kind words, Eric. I was actually getting pretty down as far as SERP progress (or the lack thereof), but on the day my site turned 6 months old I saw some VERY significant changes on the Google SERPs, so I feel much better that the basic principles of SEO that I’ve been pushing can/will pay off. Btw, I’m guest-blogging on FOREM this week, check it out if you can.
Alex,
I can speak from visiting a ton of real estate blogs that I’ve been reading in the past couple of months is that you are everywhere and I actually remember your URL without even thinking about it. You are cementing yourself as a leader in the real estate industry with the quality content you are writing.
Links will follow and then you can start on the Blackwell journey. BTW Eric is an animal when it comes to building authority.