The Impact of Online Directories for Real Estate

Guest Blogger Travis Saxton is vice president of technology for REAL Trends

Real estate firms have a growing problem—literally. I recently met with a top brokerage. The morning of our meeting, I used Google Maps to get to their office. When I arrived, the receptionist told me they had moved two years ago. Luckily, I gave myself plenty of time.

A Difficult Concept
Currently, there are nearly 100 main online directories where you can find business information, such as Google, Google Local, Google+, Facebook, Yelp, Yahoo, Bing, Yellow Pages, CityPages and more.

It would be nearly impossible for you to stay on top of your business location on all of these sites. These sites aggregate information much like the listing portals. One bad piece of information from one site can resurface on other sites, even when you think you have the problem solved.

You may be saying to yourself, “If I take care of the big sites, I don’t care about the other 75 or so that nobody visits.” Not true, you should care. Here’s why.

Imagine you are in an unfamiliar city and you want to find a great restaurant. You ask a few friends, and they all mention one restaurant. Several people knew the name, others were hazy, and the location wasn’t clear. You go online, and you see several different locations. So, where the heck is this place? You get so confused that you don’t even bother going there.

Inaccurate Listing=Low Google Rankings
If you search your business, and you have inaccurate listings, Google will spot that and give you lower confidence in their search results. Let me apply this to your business the real estate brokerage. Let’s say you have 100 agents, 5 offices, and mortgage, title, and commercial divisions. You moved a couple of your offices once or twice. How many times have agents claimed your offices?

Agents come and go, sometimes they have inaccurate information and sometimes you have agents that no longer work at your company showing up on these sites. With the example above of 100 agents and five offices, you can potentially have 42,000 entries online.

The Solution
What is the solution, and who has the time to monitor and change information on all these sites? The big chain stores learned early on that they need a service to do this for them. Of course, many of those services charge $1,000 per year, per office — not very economical.

Good news, in 2016, REAL Trends is privately rolling out a tool to our clients that has a direct API connection to all of these sites. We can take an office, get the correct information and connect with every site to update your information all over the web, and we’re doing it for a lot less than other services.

Editor’s Note
REAL Trends will eventually make this service available on Realtrends.com. In the meantime, you may wish to consider an in-state search-engine optimization company such as Loud Rumor in Scottsdale or webMO in Tucson. Both are Google Partners and members of Local First Arizona.

Arizona REALTORS® does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, processes, or services.

Related story: How To Troubleshoot A Sudden Drop In Google Search Rankings – Forbes (Feb. 8, 2016)

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