Bart Wilson

Could there actually be an AGENT or BROKER without a Website somewhere in San Francisco or San Diego...?

According to Google, there has to be more than a few businesses out there without a website presumed hiding in San Diego or San Francisco.

Google is testing a new advertising program with a FLAT fee per lead. They are letting businesses in San Diego and San Francisco test drive a new Google Pay Per Lead advertising model that connects you to a potential customer right over the phone. Way cool. Of course, the program will work if you have a website or not. But Google's primary push is for the businesses in California that don't seem to have a website.

These businesses just want to put a dollar into a box, and they get a phone call from a potential customer. Nice idea. Now let's spin this to a GENUINE NEED for us REALTORS.

Google is innovating or reinventing themselves every few months it seems and now they're expanding on their highly profitable AdWords program.

For many of you that don't know a lot about Google AdWords; it's Google's Pay Per Click program and it's just now turned (version) 3. It's the third major upgrade since their Pay Per Click AdWords program started way back in 1999.

If you're a REALTOR or broker in the SFO bay area or in San Diego, here is how can get into this cool new program to help you land a lot more leads providing that you don't care about reading online reports about clicks or conversions. You just need leads. Fine. Put a few dollars into the box and you get phone calls. It's that simple.

It has been often said by many a seasoned REALTOR... GET me a customer on the phone. And I can sell them a house.

Well Google has heard you and they're delivering on this idea now. At least for two California markets, anyway to test it.

Here is how it works: You set up your AdWords account just as you would for any real estate centric term to the bay area, for example;

san francisco homes for sale or san francisco real estate or san francisco foreclosures

After you CREATED your AdWords ads or your banner ads, you get to make one more choice. You LINK your Pay Per Click AD to a voice phone number. (Google Voice). So people who click on your ads, will be connected to your phone. You get the Google whisper voice letting you know that your LEAD has come from your Google ad to your Google Voice number.

So what's a LEAD worth right now if Homegain calls you? 25% of your commission. Ouch. And you thought taking the Broker exam was painful.

You pay $3 for the same lead and you get connected to a buyer thanks to Google.

The DEATH of the Yellow Pages

Does anybody even use the Yellow Pages anymore? I don't. I was upset to see the yellow book tossed in my driveway packaged in a plastic wrapper a few months ago. So I called the Yellow Book people and the Other Book people and asked them to REMOVE me from all distribution.

The woman on the other end of the phone at the Yellow Pages was getting her feathers ruffled, "How are you going to find a local plumber," she scoffed.

"Google," I replied. We need stuff, we Google everything. I'm sorry lady, but your Yellow Pages are obsolete. Trust me, when people in their seventies and eighties die, you're really out of a job. People in this age group are the only ones keeping the Yellow Pages on life support."

She started to get pretty miffed at this point.

I asked her, "Do you have an 8-Track player in your car?" She immediately replied, "Of course not."

I said, "Well, you're the 8-track player for business listings, Google is the MP3 player and everybody wants the MP3 player."

She hung up on me. Well, that was no surprise.

Goodbye HomeGain, Farwell Reply!, So Long HouseValues. Hello Google

I used to work for a luxury broker here in Santa Fe. Every once in a while, one of the Lead Sharks would call us with a qualified buyer with fabulous FICO scores. I know that HomeGain and others still call agents today and try to get them to AGREE to the lead for 25% - 30% of your hard earned commissions.

If Google's new AdWords and Google Voice program is successful in the two test markets, I can see the death of HomeGain, Reply!, LendingTree and even HouseValues in 2010.

What REALTOR in their right mind will want to pay 25% of your hard earned commissions when you can get the same lead for $3 bucks?

Trust me. That day is coming.

-- bart

Could there actually be an AGENT or BROKER without a Website somewhere in San Francisco or San Diego...?

According to Google, there has to be more than a few businesses out there without a website presumed hiding in San Diego or San Francisco.

Google is testing a new advertising program with a FLAT fee per lead. They are letting businesses in San Diego and San Francisco test drive a new Google Pay Per Lead advertising model that connects you to a potential customer right over the phone. Way cool. Of course, the program will work if you have a website or not. But Google's primary push is for the businesses in California that don't seem to have a website.

These businesses just want to put a dollar into a box, and they get a phone call from a potential customer. Nice idea. Now let's spin this to a GENUINE NEED for us REALTORS.

Google is innovating or reinventing themselves every few months it seems and now they're expanding on their highly profitable AdWords program.

For many of you that don't know a lot about Google AdWords; it's Google's Pay Per Click program and it's just now turned (version) 3. It's the third major upgrade since their Pay Per Click AdWords program started way back in 1999.

If you're a REALTOR or broker in the SFO bay area or in San Diego, here is how can get into this cool new program to help you land a lot more leads providing that you don't care about reading online reports about clicks or conversions. You just need leads. Fine. Put a few dollars into the box and you get phone calls. It's that simple.

It has been often said by many a seasoned REALTOR... GET me a customer on the phone. And I can sell them a house.

Well Google has heard you and they're delivering on this idea now. At least for two California markets, anyway to test it.

Here is how it works: You set up your AdWords account just as you would for any real estate centric term to the bay area, for example;

san francisco homes for sale or san francisco real estate or san francisco foreclosures

After you CREATED your AdWords ads or your banner ads, you get to make one more choice. You LINK your Pay Per Click AD to a voice phone number. (Google Voice). So people who click on your ads, will be connected to your phone. You get the Google whisper voice letting you know that your LEAD has come from your Google ad to your Google Voice number.

So what's a LEAD worth right now if Homegain calls you? 25% of your commission. Ouch. And you thought taking the Broker exam was painful.

You pay $3 for the same lead and you get connected to a buyer thanks to Google.

The DEATH of the Yellow Pages

Does anybody even use the Yellow Pages anymore? I don't. I was upset to see the yellow book tossed in my driveway packaged in a plastic wrapper a few months ago. So I called the Yellow Book people and the Other Book people and asked them to REMOVE me from all distribution.

The woman on the other end of the phone at the Yellow Pages was getting her feathers ruffled, "How are you going to find a local plumber," she scoffed.

"Google," I replied. We need stuff, we Google everything. I'm sorry lady, but your Yellow Pages are obsolete. Trust me, when people in their seventies and eighties die, you're really out of a job. People in this age group are the only ones keeping the Yellow Pages on life support."

She started to get pretty miffed at this point.

I asked her, "Do you have an 8-Track player in your car?" She immediately replied, "Of course not."

I said, "Well, you're the 8-track player for business listings, Google is the MP3 player and everybody wants the MP3 player."

She hung up on me. Well, that was no surprise.

Goodbye HomeGain, Farwell Reply!, So Long HouseValues. Hello Google

I used to work for a luxury broker here in Santa Fe. Every once in a while, one of the Lead Sharks would call us with a qualified buyer with fabulous FICO scores. I know that HomeGain and others still call agents today and try to get them to AGREE to the lead for 25% - 30% of your hard earned commissions.

If Google's new AdWords and Google Voice program is successful in the two test markets, I can see the death of HomeGain, Reply!, LendingTree and even HouseValues in 2010.

What REALTOR in their right mind will want to pay 25% of your hard earned commissions when you can get the same lead for $3 bucks?

Trust me. That day is coming.

-- bart

Attention All California REALTORS on ActiveRain.

If you can manage the time, swing by next week to SES San Jose. This is the workshop to go and get the straight skinny on SEO facts, myths and where Paid Search and even Organic SEO is headed. SES is Search Engine Strategies. This is about the most respected workshop and trade show there is on the subject of SEO and Paid Search.

The event is August 11th through the 14th. No, the Bartman isn't going to be there this year.

I have a lot of work to do selling Voyager from our Santa Fe Corporate offices. We're selling our Virtual Tour Camera side of the company so I can devote more time to SEO, book writing and software development. We have a new IDX we are developing that plugs right into your WordPress blog.

More details on that later.

IF you are in California and you can make it to the show, it's worth the drive. One day spent at SES can help you get your Website on the right track.

I'm sorry I can't make it out there this year.

- bart

According to Jeremy who works at AR, there was a new algorithm change or programming fix that re-calculated a lot of user's points.

You might have been one of them.

What I'm pissed off about is the fact NOBODY at AR said anything about this on their Website. Nobody here was informed. If they did, somebody needs to send me to the page (URL) and I'll be happy to eat some "Humble Pie."

Just this past Saturday, just as I was about to make my post that would have put me past the 30,000 point milestone -- I rudely found discovered that I was not at the 30,090 points (where I should have been), but was penalized and dropped down to 27,420.

What the f****?

So I naturally jumped on a few AR staffers. Nobody but Jeremy was the only one who responded with the explanation. Thank you Jeremy. Tell Bob and Chris I'm still pissed off at them and they both owe me a steak dinner next time I'm town.

According to AR's Jeremy, too many of us have earned points by EDITING our posts and well, saving them again. A small bug apparently existed in ActiveRain's website here.

The most disturbing part is that the HUGE 600 point benefit many of us could get by posting AR links to other websites is no longer worth anything. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I spoke to several AR members in New Mexico about that, and they've been like me... blindly pasting in the code to other sites and wondering where their 600 point bonuses went to.

Here: See for yourself. You go to the Link to Active Rain, and is there ANY mention you DON'T get 600 points? No. So I'm demanding they UPDATE this so all can see. Since this change was done several months ago, I am going to state publicly about this here so you know and so you can inform others. Apparently nobody at AR bothered to make that change which I feel is a crappy way to let us all think we STILL get points that way.

Here is what you earn, according to Jeremy.

1.) You earn 225 points for every post you make. Which to me, penalizes many AR members. Especially those of us who WRITE and inform, educate others with How To helpful guides. There are some REALTORS here who I have called out on the carpet for copying content and pasting it here. This shows no special talent whatsoever except that you can demonstrate basic Copy + Paste computer skills. Nothing special about that, but those who DO this earn 225 points per article regardless.

There are smart programmers out here. I'm just wondering why some of them aren't employed by AR. Because earning 225 points for copying and pasting when compared to someone else, who writes to inform, educate, or inspire others is a real slap in the face. No wonder our teachers in the public school systems are not very well paid. It's that kind of mentality that stinks to high heaven of indifference.

Real Estate EDUCATORS and LEADERS need to be compensated better.

My suggestion to AR Staffers would be to re-arrange the AR point scoring system per article to the following below:

- Copying and Pasting content (and word smithing it) to paste on AR: 25 points

- Writing original works, designed to EDUCATE other AR members. Like how to use Twitter. FaceBook, SEO, etc. 225 points.

- Posting a listing that is YOURS. 75 points

- Posting a listing that is NOT yours but have permission to post anyway: 50 points

Jeremy says we get POINTS for inviting others (they have NOT removed that, thank God) and you also get points for their blogging, too. But what that point score system has not yet been revealed to the Bartman.

So when I know... you will know.

- bart