The site that goes by the title of this post is bidding for the future to be just like the past, but with more up-to-date buzzwords. Think Web 2.0 and blogs.

The real estate industry needs to start blogging, according to this site, to avoid missing out on leads.

There's a very real possibility that an avalanche of junk blogs will make online real estate journals as useless for readers as agent Web sites have become.

Pretty randomly and impulsively, if you believe the results of the 2005 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

Some of the survey data is reported and discussed in a good article by Bob Hunt at Realty Times.

Some key numbers: 64 percent of the buyers who used an agent and 74 percent of the sellers who used an agent interviewed only one agent. The most important factor in choosing a seller's agent was reputation. Among buyers, 92 percent ranked product and market knowledge as important.

Our take-away: use the Internet to develop a reputation by show-casing your product and market knowledge. Write about the market and the homes that are available rather than simply declaring that you're an expert.

I trekked out to the nether boonies yesterday to meet with two completely clueless folks at an ad agency that touts its Web expertise.

Every attempt on my part to talk about and show off the trends and technologies that are reshaping real estate marketing on the Web was met with blank stares, total indifference. and a complete lack of curiosity. I was talking to zombies, as I often find myself doing.

The day ended on a much more positive note, in a meeting with Bob Darrow, who's writing for YoChicago's West Lakeview / Roscoe Village journal.

Bob already has an impressive mastery of a wide set of Web tools. He's developed his skills despite the fact that, by his report, his sellers don't yet attach much value to them, in anticipation of the day when his skills will become the norm. He stopped in to see us to see whether we could help him improve the ways he's using our Wibiti and YoChicago journal Web-based marketing tools.

There's a strong irony in the fact that the ad agencies and media professionals who are supposed to be the leaders in real estate marketing lag well behind the real estate agents they should be leading.

The Rain City Real Estate Guide, one of the most intelligent real estate blogs around, has an extended critique of a Chicago agent-promotional site. Worth a read.

What’s an SEO? It’s an acronym for “search engine optimizer," a firm that helps you improve your Web site’s ranking in search engine results.

What’s the risk? Well, the biggest risk is that your SEO firm takes steps that get your site dropped altogether from search engine results. It happens more often than you think.

Google provides a great guide to working with SEO firms. Google also offers a lot of helpful information on improving your Web site.

Here’s a brief and incomplete summary of what Google has to say: consistently ranking high in search results requires building a frequently updated Web site that has a lot of relevant content and that's properly structured. There’s no magic bullet, and no cookie-cutter solution.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I've been creating sample News release Home Pages for our new endeavor, HousingNewswire.com, for a week or two now. It takes a fair amount of work, which I mentioned in my last post, but the results are well worth it.

By far the most time-consuming aspect of the job isn't done on the Home Page at all - it's the search for relevant sites to provide links to. And I think this may be the most important piece of the puzzle, at least in terms of building and maintaining readership. Searching for links requires time, patience and creativity - with the prerequisite that the creative, patient person with time on their hands understands how the Internet and search engines work.

It's difficult to teach people how to actively and creatively search the web for information their audience will be interested in. I'm starting to organize a workshop for my current clients - an informal, hands-on discussion of best practices and technical issues - and I expect this to be the most challenging part of the day.

I promised a while back to showcase agents who are using Home Pages well to market themselves. Part of the delay in writing this post has to do with my other responsibilities here (it turns out blogging isn't the most important aspect of my job, unfortunately), and part of it has been a lack of examples to showcase. I've been working with a small group of agents for the last few months, and I feel like I'm just now beginning to escape from under the pressure of a fairly vicious catch-22:

-Running your own Web site, even when it's as simple as Home Pages makes it, takes a fair amount of work.
-Agents are unwilling to put in a fair amount of work until they can see tangible results.
-Tangible results won't be seen until a Web site is well run.

You can see the problem here. And it's a problem that any new product faces. Especially one that requires the development of a new set of skills. But, thanks to the faith of a few agents willing to invest some time and energy, the results are starting to become clear.

Here's an agent who's created a great resource for buyers interested in Bronzeville: www.BronzevilleUpdate.com. She's got a quick overview of market conditions, a brief look at the neighborhood at large, and handy links to properties in Bronzeville (all using Home Pages).

Using a slightly different approach, this agent has created a site at www.WestLoopUpdate.com that gives people a reason to come back regularly: he's keeping us posted on important news in the neighborhood, and providing links to neighborhood stories and resources.

The more frequently these sites and others (click here to see all the Neighborhood update Home Pages) are updated, the greater their traffic will be. You can see how high the traffic level is now by clicking on "View activity" within either site - it's pretty strong so far, and I think those numbers will go up dramatically when the agents get into the habit of making regular updates.

It's about building relationships. Inviting readers to come back. And yes, ultimately it's about getting leads and sales. I'll keep watching these conversations develop, and I'll keep an eye on how relationships help create better leads.

I tried to post a comment last week to Joe's post about pictures on Web sites. He had provided a link to an online column at BusinessWeek.com that discussed the dangers of putting your picture on your Web site. Clearly, I need to check in with the support staff here and see why my comment didn't make it through (I'm pretty sure there were no bad words). Since I get to post on this site, though, I'm not limited to the comments feature, so I'll make my comments here where I can't be censored.

The main point of the post that Joe had pointed to was that it's a bad idea to put a picture of yourself on your Web site. It's a point I instinctively disagree with, but I trust Joe, so I followed the link. And there's a brief posting that summarizes the lessons learned by the CEO of Optimost, "a New York company that optimizes e-marketing Web sites." One of those lessons is this: including on your Web site a photo of a CEO or president is a "recipe for disaster."

I found it interesting that the column starts off with - that's right - a picture of the poster. Is it possible that he missed the irony here? Or is there a difference between pictures of CEOs and pictures of regular people?

I'd like to see more research on this - not just hard numbers, but also an educated discussion on the psychological value of seeing a smiling mug. My instinct tells me that we're more likely to trust people we know, or at least that we feel like we know, and a picture can help to create that feeling. Of course, my instincts have misled me in the past, so I'll try to do some more listening and thinking on this subject.

If anyone wants to see what I look like, let me know. I'd be happy to oblige.

Seattle's Rain City Real Estate Guide writes perceptively about agent Web sites that don't work and offers tips on what consumers want from a Web site. What they don't want:

I clicked on your search site the other day for the first time, and I felt like I’d seen the site a million times before. The search is bad and does not serve your clients well. Sure you’ve published the homes that are for sale, but you haven’t added anything of value that I couldn’t get from 1000 other real estate sites in Sacramento. You haven’t taken it to the next step and provided anything particularly useful to your potential clients. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the goal of your search site is to tease your potential clients so that they will call on you to find out whether or not a particular home will work for them.

Putting a picture of yourself on your Web site can be a "recipe for disaster."

That advice comes from the CEO of a company that optimizes Web sites, via Business Week Online.