Lighthouse 1204 & Misleading Marketing Claims

A good friend of mine & colleague runs a real estate brokerage out of Gulf Shores, AL. We have known each other for ~5 years, mostly through the niche (now not so niche) group of agents who do a ton of online marketing. We were worried about link profiles before SEO was cool. :)

Since we’ve done this for a while, we both get a laugh (and a little irritation) out of misguided and misleading marketing attempts made by competitors who either understand online marketing and make intentionally misleading claims, or who don’t understand online marketing and like the taste of boot. This morning, I was emailed the following print ad:

The first step of any search marketing campaign (SEO or PPC) is keyword analysis – determining how much traffic a given keyword will generate, and how competitive that keyword is. Not surprisingly, Lighthouse 1204 doesn’t generate a ton of traffic. Using the keyword selector tool provided by Google, I see that the traffic is so low, they can’t even estimate it. You can probably count on one hand how many people search for this term on an annual basis.

If I were managing Meyer Real Estate’s online marketing, I would highly advise them to not waste a dollar or a minute going after “Lighthouse 1204″ because it’s highly unlikely that ranking for this term would result in a sale.

Now, there is quite a bit of traffic to be had for the longtail, which is why an indexable RETS/IDX system is important, but that’s a conversation for another day. Ranking for these longtail terms does nothing to serve the seller, but does help out the broker/agency/agent quite a bit. When a buyer/renter searches for a direct address or MLS #, they will find RETS/IDX data (nearly identical data) on 60-70% of page 1, so they’re almost always represented. As a listing agent, you’re servicing your client no better by ranking on page 1 for their address, but you can definitely serve yourself.

Lighthouse 1204 Around the Web:

• Lou Lynch’s take on Lighthouse 1204
• Eric Blackwell on Lighthouse 1204