Seattle based Internet marketing firm SEOMoz launched its new Trifecta tool this week. This tool tries to measure the importance of a website, it collates a number of factors including Google Page Rank, incoming links, news articles and traffic sources - such as Alexa.

It is a pretty rough guide, but in principal it should work reasonable well. Many companies want this space, because with it comes advertisers….and they pay. Google, Yahoo and MSN are all getting in on the act as well.

This survey is all about real estate, and what they have tried to do is put together a big list of all of the major players in the market, you can read it here, however a list is provided below. Australia’s own Realestate.com.au is actually ranked number 4, which is pretty impressive.

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How do you know how much to spend marketing real estate?

Some interesting survey data that just became available should be of help. A video marketing company in the US surveyed 1,304 real estate agents to see how much they spent. There isn’t a lot of info here, but what there is is gold.

One thing that jumped out at me: The agents surveyed said a significant portion of their listing budget was spent on newspapers, even though only 20.4 percent said they think this medium is “effective.”

Yet, 49 percent felt that online ads were “very effective.” The reason more agents aren’t putting their money where the results are is that they feel the vendors want print advertising.

Read the press release.

Read the eMarketer story.

Google (in the US of A) have added Google Real Estate Search to their Google Maps application. Now you can search for real estate in America on Google Maps. The data comes from their Google Base application, however it seems they are going to add data from other sources also. You can try it out by going to http://maps.google.com and then adding (left sidebar) Google Real Estate Search under see more maps!

Here are some articles on this subject:
Google Maps is Going To Be My New Real Estate Search Page
Google Maps Adds Real Estate Search
Another Hint at Google Real Estate?

There are certainly interesting times ahead. I have no idea why Google has not released Google Base in Australia, but they should get their act together and release it shortly. It is not as if it would be a hard thing to do (add country, regions, suburbs) and I cannot wait until it does happen.

Registering and using multiple domains names was strategy used by many as a great tool for building your business and creating a bigger online presence. Because of the higher costs and strict controls placed on .com.au domain names many agents chose to collect .com domains which are cheap and easy to get.Collecting multiple domains were promoted as a way :

1. Keep your competition from registering a domain name that draws visitors to them instead of you.
2. Increase your exposure in the search engines provide customers more ways to find you when searching the Internet which drives more traffic to your Web sites.
3. Create distinct advertising and promotion strategies that target different markets.
4. Protect your brand and online identity from those who may have unsavoury purpose

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Does climate change really matter to the real estate industry? With an ever increasing focus now on global warming both from a hesitant federal government and now the media, it is maybe time to have a look at global warming and its effect on not only our planet but the real estate industry.

I want to state here that I believe that this is a real and present threat and that I make no bones about coming from this viewpoint.

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