Real Estate Broker Eric Kodner Receives the 2010 MAAR "Exceptional Service Award" This Past Week

I'm delighted to report that I was awarded the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors 2010 "Exceptional Service Award" on Wednesday, March 16th.

The 2010 Award bears the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors name and logo, with the inscription, "In recognition of and to honor Eric Kodner as the principal advocate for amending the NAR Code of Ethics to include sexual orientation". 

Brad Fisher presented the 2010 awards, with the help of MAAR Chief Executive Officer Mark Allen.  The awards ceremony luncheon took place at the Urban Eatery, located at the Calhoun Beach Club in Minneapolis.  It was great to see my friend Todd Shipman (2010 MAAR Nominating Committee Chair) at the ceremony, along with Minnesota Association of Realtors CEO Chris Galler and many other Minnesota real estate dignitaries.

Community Involvement Award winners were Cheryl Eastbourne, Mary Thorpe Mease and Dave Philp.  Dave also won the NAR Good Neighbor Award for 2010.  Nobu Hata was the recipient of the President's Award.  And the REALTOR of the Year Award went to Mike Hoffman.

It's a huge honor to be recognized by MAAR, and particularly to be in the company of such a distinguished group of real estate colleagues.

Madeline Island Real Estate Broker Eric Kodner Quoted in a Wall Street Journal Article on the Vacation Home Market

I was delighted to be quoted in a January 10, 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Market for Vacation Homes is on the Rise".

The article last Monday, by S. Mitra Kalita, referred to our Wisconsin real estate office on Madeline Island and quoted me, along with NAR Economist Lawrence Yun, in a discussion of various luxury real estate markets that also included Cape Cod (MA), Southhampton (NY), the Pocono Mountain area (PA), Hilton Head (SC), Palm Beach (FL) and Mercer Island (WA).

Even more important than the much-appreciated PR received by our La Pointe, Wisconsin real estate company, Madeline Island Realty, was the fact that the article included Madeline Island in its list of upscale second home communities nationwide.  We've seen numerous articles in the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Minnneapolis Star Tribune about the beauty and serenity of Madeline Island, but this is the first time I've seen a major nationwide publication discuss the Island in terms of its real estate market.

[Special thanks to Minnesota CRS Chapter President Linda Johnson for the mention in her email to Minnesota CRS Chapter members]

REAL ESTATE COLLEAGUES WHO ARE ALSO GOOD FRIENDS

Every so often, I pick up the phone and call my friend Shannon Lindstrom in Minneapolis. Or occasionally she'll text message me to say "let's meet for coffee". It's not always scheduled much in advance and we don't even find time to meet on a monthly basis, so sometimes it's more like every two months. Shannon is one of the busiest agents I know and she is positively driven about providing excellent service to her customers and clients.

Shannon works in the Twin Cities as an exclusive buyer agent with The Home Buyers, Inc. She's also been kind enough to refer a seller to me. But the relationship is not about any expectation of referrals or even about business. We sip coffee and talk shop, but we also talk about family and goals. Shannon is someone who works fifty-two weeks a year, but she has a remarkable sense of family.

I've never been very good at treating fellow agents in an adversarial fashion, even when they work right in my own backyard. Maybe that's because I've been teaching courses to agents and brokers for almost seven years now and many of those competitors have been students at one time.

Agents who aren't able to see beyond the competitive urge are missing out on something. There are great people, people with skills and ethics and ideas right in our own community who are worth knowing.

Regardless of competition, I think there's room for cameraderie in real estate and it's never a bad thing to form friendships with quality people. Shannon is one of those quality people and I'm privileged to know her.

Where do you Rank on a Google Image Search?

Most of us know where we stand when we run a regular keyword search for our service area, our name and our real estate company.  Depending on whether you are an independent broker/owner or an agent, those results become a major part of our marketing goals and Web strategy.

But what about your ranking on Google Images?  Have you checked to see where you rank in an image search?

The results can be surprising.  And photos or images can make a difference on your overall page rank, as well as the ability for consumers to find you on the Web.

[Panoramio Image, courtesy of Madeline Island Realty LLC]

Since the bulk of my current listing inventory is on Madeline Island (where my northwest Wisconsin office is located), I started by running a generic search for "Madeline Island".  I used the Advanced Search feature, specifying the exact phrase in quotation marks.

Here are the results:

Our Wisconsin firm (Madeline Island Realty) was the only real estate company with an image (a photo) that showed up on the first five pages.  In fact, we were the only real estate company with property listing photos that appeared in any of the first ten pages for that specific search term.

Next, I did a new search, making the search term real estate-specific, searching under the exact phrase "Madeline Island Real Estate".

In this new search, I found ten of the twenty photo search results (50%) were all linked to our company, Madeline Island Realty.  Two of the page one results were linked to other firms, one per real estate firm.  Our photos dominated the first ten pages of Google Images search results, with only four other photos linked to competitors in the remainder of those ten pages.

Photos offer proven SEO value.   This makes the ranking of your photos and other images important.  Here's how to get the most out of your images on the Web:

-Tag your photos with detailed information.  For example, when you upload a photo to ActiveRain, you're asked to fill in an Image Description and a Title.  You also have the opportunity to turn that photo or image into a link.  In your Image Description and Title, it's a good idea to use the word "image", as well as the source of the photograph.  Google searches for the terms "image" or "picture".  Searches are often coded to look for a keyword plus either of these terms.  So again, use one of these terms in your ALT descriptions and captions.

-All photos should ideally be captioned.  Use keyword-rich captions and don't forget the "Image" or "Picture" in combination with a keyword (I'm being redunant here, but this bears repeating.)

-Link your photos to your website, your blog, your virtual tours, wherever you want to add link value.

WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS IDENTIFY YOUR LISTINGS BY ZIP CODE, AS WELL AS BY STREET ADDRESS, CITY & STATE

Are you uploading your listings to the Web by street address?  Or are you using a description like "three bedroom starter home close to downtown"?

The "three bedroom starter home" tag would make a great subheading for your listing.  But if you want to lead with something that will be found by search engines, upload and title your listings by address.

DON'T FORGET TO ADD THE PROPERTY'S ZIP CODE TO THE LISTING TITLE. 

WHY?

BECAUSE SO FEW AGENTS AND BROKERS ARE DOING IT.

Here's the result of a Google search for "(zip code) real estate"

[Image of Google search for "54850 real estate" showing Madeline Island Realty listings in postitions four, five and six on page one.]

More and more listing aggregators are using zip code as a primary search criterion.

If it provides searchers with another way to find your listings, what's the harm in trying this strategy?

[Please Note - Before you comment or write me to say that I'm "wasting time" doing this, you may notice that Trulia and HotPads are making an extra effort to optimize the terms "(zip code) real estate" for zip codes all over the United States.]