I want to dispel any notion that just because I work at HomeGain and I do consult my clients to utilize Buyerlink for their pay-per-click campaign, I’m a “one-size-fits-all” brute that can’t take honest criticism. 
I will be the first one to admit that HomeGain.com’s Buyerlink, or any of its other programs for the matter (Agent View, Agent Evaluator, or AIMS), is not a generic, one-size –fits-all solution for every realtor out there. That would like saying the Atkins Diet Program will work for every single overweight person. Simply not true. I’m open to constructive criticism so let’s delve a bit deeper into the logic behind this agent’s argument.
The realtor’s argument is summarized in the following order:
- HomeGain is at the top search engine results on Google for just about any “city, state real estate” keyword combination because HomeGain spends big dollars to make sure they it stays at the top of Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc
- HomeGain’s BuyerLink is a program where HomeGain redirects
website traffic from their website to a real estate agent’s websites for a pay-per-click fee
- The HomeGain site advertises that you can search for homes. Consumers click on the search for homes button, then they click on their state, then their metro area, and finally they click on the town they are interested in.
- Suddenly, the consumer finds themselves on a completely different website, a real estate agent’s IDX search page.
CONCLUSION:
6) They are hijacking the real estate agent’s website content and listing 
search functions and selling them back to agents at $0.75 – $1.50 per click.
This realtor was on such a good start, making some valid objective points, but then unashamedly abandons logic to fumble to his malicious conclusion.
If HomeGain.com attracts millions of visitors a month because we have put forth great effort in our Search Engine Optimization Strategy, built key strategic partnerships with over 300 affiliate partners, and manage a fine-tuned Search Engine Marketing campaign, and then connect these consumers directly with Real Estate Professionals through our Buyerlink program, are we guilty of Hijacking?
His logic would not hold even in Judge Judy’s court of law. If we extended his reasoning to its logical ends then I could argue that even he himself as a realtor is a middle man “hijacking” buyers and sellers who could conduct a transaction by themselves if they really had enough time to worry about all the legalities and details and save 6% while they are at it!
Heck, using this line of reasoning, we should perhaps start picketing outside of Costco and Walmart. They leverage their multi-million dollar budget to aggregate consumer products in quantities and prices that no individual 
consumer can get and pass that on to their members for a little mark up. Sounds eerily similar to HomeGain’s Buyerlink strategy, no? Perhaps we should churn our own butter, grow our own vegetables, make trips to Wall Street to trade our own stocks, buy cars directly from Detroit, you get my point.
All sarcasm aside, a world with no middle men simply does not exist. While waxing eloquent about this “idealistic” marketplace may make great blogging material, but it is utterly futile in practical application. In a free market capitalistic economy, or what is left of it today, there will always be technology vendors that provide TOOLS to empower agents to run their business efficiently and productively.
Can HomeGain’s Buyerlink be used as a TOOL for a realtor, which if yeilded correctly can great return on investment for realtors? 350 transactions good enough for you?
To be continued…
Online Reputation Management- Project HomeGain Buyerlink
April 17, 2009
In the current uber connected online climate, where just
about anyone with a keyboard and internet connection can be a source of information (a la Wikipedia), celebrities are not the only ones who need to be concerned about “Reputation Management.” Any viable business needs to be aware of their reputation in top search engines like Google and Yahoo.
There’s nothing more painful than the experience of 
performing a google search for your own company’s name, or one of its flagship products, only to find that the highest organic results are blog rants from a furious consumer who thinks you are the worst thing since Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. Unfortunately, there is no way to “unapprove” those comments no matter how incredulous or unreasonable they may be. As you will discover, I speak from personal experience…
I was performing a google search for my own beloved 
company’s program, Buyerlink when, to my unpleasant surprise, the second organic result was a blog post written by an agent on Active Rain entitled, “HomeGain Buyerlink –You’re fired”. My stomach turned into a knot and I felt like one of those poor contestants on the The Apprentice, who just heard those fateful words from Donald Trump.
In a mad fury of research I managed to find some techniques that would hopefully deal with this rogue review of HomeGain’s Buyerlink program. I found some amazingly practical and easy ways to help with HomeGain’s Reputation management, such as creating multiple profiles on social media outlets and piggy backing off of their SEO value to bury negative comments. However, 
every single source of information unanimously agreed on the value of providing rich new content via blogs for the google bots to gobble up. So I’ll be starting a series of posts in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully I’ll be able to aide in HomeGain’s Reputation management with more informative posts on Buyerlink in addition to sensibly addressing and refuting this agent’s conclusion about HomeGain’s Buyerlink product. Stay tuned!
Newbie Agents BEWARE! Online Marketing Predators are on the prowl…or leprechauns with fools gold
April 2, 2009
Are Real Estate Online Marketing Companies preying upon the Naivete of newbie agents? written by David Yim
Being a salesman in any industry comes with baggage, and in my experience in online marketing sales there are a few bad companies that turn the carry-on into an immigration suitcase.
I just got off the phone with a newly licensed agent in Las Vegas and he was 
expressing his frustration with online marketing companies that were promising rainbows with pots of real estate gold at the end (who knows how far away that end is). He summarized it poignantly as he complained, “they are preying upon their perception of my naiveté and all I want are some realistic expectations!”
How many of you can share in the frustration of this agent who is trying to read in between the lines of the exquisitely sounding salesmanship? I don’t know how to use pollster yet, but I would put one here if I could =)
Being on the other side of the sales conversation for most of my day, perhaps I can help you expose the leprechauns and false rainbows with some straight talk. Here are some general considerations to make when shopping for your online marketing solution:
1) You need your own website! In 2009, if you don’t have your own website that you can take with you through the broker divorces that are inevitable in your career, then you don’t have any competitive edge. Don’t rely upon the subdomain that your broker gives you – www.davidyim.makemybrokermoney.com If you should move on to a different brokerage due to irreconcilable differences, namely commission splits, or worse, your broker goes out of business, you need to be able to pack your website and hit the road.
2) Make sure you OWN your domain name. Some online marketing companies will purchase domain names for you. While this may seem like red carpet service, it is actually the biggest disservice you can do for yourself. When (and I stress “when”, not “if”) you switch your website platform, the domain stays with the owner. So if you’re online marketing company owns the domain, you’ve just built them a brand name that they can sell to the next new kid on the block.
3) Swear by this one: Make certain that your website is IDX enabled. In plain speak, if consumers cannot search for homes in the MLS on your website, it’s no more valuable than a classic Martin Guitar without strings. Buyers care only about how easy it is for them to search for homes in the MLS.
3.1) Don’t use website companies that merely “borrow” or “frame” your MLS board’s data into your website. This provides a terrible experience for the consumer who clicks on your Search for Homes button and is taken to a whole new window! Make sure that your IDX provider actually gets a raw data feed from the MLS and “crunches” the data into your solution so people can search for homes in the MLS right on your website and never leave.
4) Make sure IDX solution has some kind of registration process where it requires the consumer to provide their contact information at a certain 
point, preferably a delayed registration – see my last post on the rationale. If you leave your MLS search process completely wide open (no registration required), the statistics show that 1 out of 100 visitors will actually volunteer their information or call you. Granted that 1 person is probably a high quality prospect, but you can see how this would burn a hole in your wallet faster than your teenage daughter if you’re employing a pay per click strategy.
5) Make sure your website solution provides a smart, intuitive, and painless way of managing, monitoring, and cultivating your online leads. What good are 50 leads in your database if you cannot even monitor the activity of these prospects? If you have to use Microsoft Excel to manage your leads, fire your online marketing solutions provider immediately!
6) Make sure you have some way to drive consumers to this new darling of yours. You just spent a couple of Benjamins (or in some cases thousands of dollars) on a beautiful site that you proudly trophy to your family members, co-workers, and the friends you have in your life. As essential as word of mouth marketing is, what are the chances that Uncle Louis or your racquetball partner Michael will buy enough homes from you to make a decent living? Unless you’re a former A-list movie star turned realtor, chances are you’ll need to employ a pay per visitor marketing campaign. This is the only cost effective strategy to drive high quality consumers searching for homes in your market area directly to your MLS Search enabled website. May I shamelessly plug HomeGain’s Buyerlink as your solution par excellence? 
I need to stop before this list takes on a life of its own and expands beyond your blog reading capacities, so I’ll save it for some delicious posts in the near future. Don’t let the incredibly smooth taste fool you, and fight the marketing leprechauns with pots of fools gold by asking the right questions!
