For example, during a presentation regarding online leads, panel members mentioned things like:

1. We only give online leads to agents who’ve blogged on our site at least once in the past 30 days. Active online agents.

2. We follow up on all eLeads within 5 minutes.

In both cases, the technology is not what’s making them succeed. Clearly, they have quality websites or they wouldn’t have put lead routing expectations and procedures in place, but their real success is going to come from responding to those leads in a timely manner by people who are qualified to do so.

This is just one of many examples I saw of companies building systems suitable to their culture that leverage emerging technologies. The above examples may not fit your own company’s culture (although I think most people would agree that a timely response to online leads is the perfect first impression on the path to doing business together).

At WhereToLive.com, we create real estate web technologies that help our clients market and communicate more efficiently with prospects, customers, and internally. We also coach our clients on how to make the best use of web technologies to grow their businesses. However, in the end, success comes down to the systems businesses create themselves and take ownership in.

Find the right tools with the right team of people behind them; smart people who will continue to innovate to keep you ahead of the curve on technology. Then create usable systems and execute like crazy. That’s the winning formula.

Faster Indexing

As Google explained on their blog, the first major benefit should be faster indexing of new content on the web. Google’s robots are continuously scanning the web for new content. This change should allow them to get more fresh content into their search results faster. For real estate, this may mean faster indexing of new listings or blog posts.

Annotating Content

Former Google employee, Vanessa Fox, writing at Search Engine World, explains that Google will be able to associate more information with the content they index:

The Caffeine infrastructure provides more flexibility in the type of details that can be stored with a document. As the web changes and new valuable data about web content emerges, Google won’t have to build new code to take advantage of it. This means that while Caffeine itself is not a ranking algorithm change, it could impact ranking in the future (as new signals are associated with pages).

So, what does that mean? Here are a few possibilities. This doesn’t mean that Google is or will do any of these, but they seem possible.

1. Better tracking of country of origin (mentioned in Fox’s piece) in order to help people find content from their own country.

2. Geocoding of content. If an address or lat/long are included with a page, Google could use that to improve “what’s nearby” type searches.

3. Industry specific content. If Google could detect and classify content as real estate related, they could use that to improve results for terms that have proven to be real estate related.

In practice, Google may be able to do provide better results than they do today for terms like “3 bedroom 2 bath home for sale”. Today, that term appears to be too broad to deliver quality results. However, if Google detects where you are (they can do to varying degrees based on what you allow them to do), determines that this is a real estate related search, checks their index for relevant real estate related content, then serves it up in a relevant manner, they’ll provide a better experience to searchers.

What do real estate sites need to do to take advantage of this? The same sort of things they should be doing today:

A. Make sure Google can see your website’s content. If they can’t, you simply will not show up in search results.

B. Make sure you’re creating original content for your site. If you have the exact same content as every other site competing in your market, you’re not giving Google a particularly good reason to bother indexing your site. Blog posts are one of the easiest ways to publish original content.

C. Make sure your site has high authority. Google’s measure for this is called PageRank. If two page have identical or nearly identical content, which one will Google rank higher in their results, or bother indexing at all? The one that they’ve determined has higher authority. This comes down to link popularity. The quantity and quality of websites that link to your website help Google determine whether your site is an authority site. Fly by night sites have a hard time gaining links. If you’re a credible business, people will link to you. And people will link to you more often and faster if you’re creating the type of content that they want to talk about, such as definitive blog posts on why certain neighborhoods are family friendly.

In conclusion, Google’s goals haven’t changed. They want to provide high quality results to searchers in order to keep them coming back and occasionally clicking on an ad. If you’re creating quality content on your website, you should be rewarded for this if you’ve done your A-B-C’s.

Getting to know more people in your community has no downside in real estate. And, since you’re meeting people who spend time on the web, the chances of them visiting your website and telling their friends about it are much higher than average.

So, where to look for online connections? Here are a few sites and tactics that may be worth checking out.

Yelp & Urbanspoon

Both Yelp and Urbanspoon are popular business review sites. Yelp tends to allow reviews of any business while Urbanspoon is solely focused on the restaurant scene. If you look at the Top Contributors page on Urbanspoon for your community, you can see who is going out on the town the most, reviewing the most restaurants, etc.

These are web savvy people who manage to get out of the house from time to time. And, if they can afford to dine out often, they may have some financial means.

Twitter Search

Twitter’s search engine allows for geo-targeted searching, so you can combine a topic that interests you together with your location to find people that may be of interest to you. For example, a link to a search result for mentions of “High School” within 25 miles of Minneapolis . . .

. . . brings back a wide variety of mentions of that topic. Not all will be relevant, of course, but you may find some interesting people in your community that are worth following on Twitter in order to start to get to know them.

Attend Tweetups

Assuming you’re using Twitter, keep an eye out for mentions of tweetups in your community or in cities you’re visiting. Happy hours or other events that bring together Twitter users help close the gap between online and offline relationships. If no such event exists in your town today, consider being the person who starts it. Mashable has some excellent tips on how to start a Tweetup in your town.

Real Estate BarCamps

Real Estate BarCamps bring together people involved in the real estate industry for learning and networking. Topics vary, but anything related to social media and web technology is usually on the agenda, but there is no limit on where topics may range. Plus, you can always break off with peers to discuss what’s on your mind. If the idea of networking with your competitors doesn’t interest you, keep in mind that other real estate industry professionals also attend BarCamps. Another option is to attend a BarCamp is a different city. This could turn you into the one agent people know from your town. That has referral potential written all over it.

Each of the above tactics involves getting in touch with people who both live in your community and are active online. They’re the type of people who’ll use your website, tell others about it, and link to it from their blogs, Twitter, or Facebook. Tech savvy social butterflies. Get to know them.

Now it’s your turn. What else would you add to this list?

Unfortunately, mimicking the gadgets and gizmos on Zillow.com is no guarantee of additional traffic. The site is far from a case study in “if you build it, they will come”. In fact, they do some of the best online marketing I see today.

One particular tactic Zillow uses extraordinarily effectively deserves more attention. But before getting to that, keep in mind that the online marketing ecosystem is largely link driven. Every link to your website brings in additional traffic both directly through that link and also through the impact it has on your website’s search engine rankings. So tactics that get more people to link to you are sure-fire ways to increase your traffic both short and long term.

So, what is this tactic that Zillow uses so well: Blogging about celebrity homes.

People love talking about real estate. And they really love talking about celebrities. Zillow has successfully combined the two to create a tremendous volume of conversation around a small portion of the content on their website.

By simply letting people know through a blog post that a particular listing is a celebrity’s home (and which celebrity), they set of a firestorm of conversations on online forums, Twitter, Facebook, and other blogs. This drives traffic short-term, and generates links that lead to higher search engine rankings long-term.

Zillow is smart about putting this type of content out as blog posts, which are easy to link to and – unlike listings – can stick around long after the home goes off the market. So if people, years from now, want to find out what Britney’s home or the Ferris Bueller home were listed for, they can Google for appropriate terms and go directly, again, to Zillow.

Zillow plays this game at a national level, but it can work just as well locally by featuring homes of prominent members of your community. Sure, you may need to be a bit more careful than Zillow in how you present this type of data (you wouldn’t want to lose a client over it) but I think it can be done with some creative thinking. Give it a try.

For a fairly in-depth look at LEMON Leadershp, consider finding an hour to watch this presentation at Google by The Institute’s founder, Brett Johnson:

Whether you have an hour or not, here is what this has to do with real estate broker websites.

Successful real estate brokers tend to have a mix of LEMON types within their organization. Many people who own brokerages are Networkers, who used to sell real estate. They are very good at what they do, but, like each LEMON type, they have strengths and weaknesses. Entrepreneurs are quite common type among brokers as well.

Looking at the day to day operation of a real estate website, Networkers or Entrepreneurs are not going to be involved. It simply does not fit their personalities. Networkers can’t sit still long enough, and entrepreneurs are out working on their next deal.

Purchasing a real estate broker website is not a case of set it and forget it; something a Luminary, Entrepreneur, or Networker could find time to do (then move on to other things). This type of website succeeds when they have lots and lots of photos of agents and properties, lots of local content created by agents (bios, property descriptions, and blog posts). Systems makes it win. Consistency makes it win. Enabling Networker and Entreprenuer agents with systems and tools that help them present themselves professionally online (then get back to selling) wins.

Who does systems and consistency the best? Quality Managers.

Making sure you have the right types of people on your team can have a significant impact on your website’s success. If you’re an Entrepreneur or Networker, be sure to find someone who does not think like you to fill the role and a daily point person for the website.

Creating professional looking websites with intuitive search functionality and plenty of related information is a great start, but it’s hard to have a competitive advantage when you’re doing something your competitors could buy tomorrow. Because of this, I think it’s worth stepping back for a second to consider where a site’s competitive advantage comes from.

Here’s the challenge: Lots of companies can create professional looking websites. A few companies can create create usable real estate search functionality. Most companies can syndicate 3rd party content onto your website. If that’s as far as you go with your website, you’ve done little to stand out from the crowd.

What is Original Content?

In this context, original content to me is the type of content that goes above and beyond what your competition can syndicate (listings, school info, neighborhood info, trend data) just as easily as you can. Examples include:

1. Enhanced listings – photos of higher quality and volume than can be found on your competitor’s sites.

2. Full agent sites – think “beyond the profile”

3. Neighborhood information – Not just specs, but original stories and news pieces about places.

4. City information – again, not just specs that your competition can syndicate as well. If you’re really experts in your market, demonstrate it.

These are just four examples of types of content that can differentiate you from your competition. Creating a website people will visit, link to, and share with their friends, is done by creating content people want to visit, link to, and share with their friends. Content that’s better, more interesting, and unique gets that done, which means real estate sites are becoming media sites.

Platforms that enable the broker and every agent to contribute original information builds a competitive advantage over the competition one web page at a time. If your website doesn’t offer the functionality you need to behave like a real estate media site, you’ll have a hard time differentiating your from your competition online.

Once great content exists, why not make an effort to spread it far and wide using services like Twitter? Luckily, there is a way to automate this process so you can tweet your latest blog posts – with links back to the posts – after spending less than 10 minutes setting up a Twitterfeed.com account.

Once in place, Twitterfeed.com will automatically monitor your blog for new posts. When it finds one, it will turn that into a tweet that will go out to your Twitter followers. One-time setup – long term benefits.

I’ve created a video to walk you through the setup process below. The sites you’ll need to visit during this process are Twitter, Twitterfeed, and Bit.ly.

I hope you find this valuable. As always, be sure to create valuable content so people find your blog or Twitter account worth following and sharing with their friends. That’s the key to building a loyal audience of prospective clients.

One step I took was to Google the company’s phone number. When I did this, I found one result. One. That seems rather strange since just about any company will appear in a variety of directories across the web, which would lead to multiple results on Google for a phone number specific search. After that, I took a look at the company’s website and noticed that no physical address was listed.

While this particular SEO firm may still be credible, it had two strikes against it based on what I consider to be important credibility measures.

Turning to real estate, here is how this plays into marketing yourself or your business: Real estate agents are in a phone-intensive business. There is a good chance that many of the people an agent calls will not have the agent’s contact info in their phone so they may choose to Google the unknown caller’s phone number before returning their call. If they do that, what will they find?

At a company level, here is an example of this being done well:

In the above example, the real estate broker, Century 21 Colonial in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, shows up at the top of the results when their company’s phone number is searched for on Google. Additionally, if people run that search and click on any of the top results, they’ll end up on a professionally designed website with high quality information about that broker, which surely must increase the chances of a call-back once the call recipient determines who it was that called them.

And here is an example for an agent:

The top site is his own, followed by pages on YouTube and a business directory where his cell phone number is published. And then two property tour videos generated by WhereToLive.com for his listings appear since his cell phone number is used in the description presented alongside the video. Clearly, someone who Googled the number of this agent would immediately understand who called them, what business they’re in, and that they’re someone who understands how to use the web to market themselves and properties. That’s the kind of impression that earns call-backs.

On the flip-side, what happens if nothing shows up when someone Googles your company’s phone number or any of your agent’s numbers? What happens if the top result has nothing to do with real estate? For example, there are some agents using the same phone number for side businesses which could lead to some confusion among prospective real estate clients (are they a full-time agent or not?). And what happens if the top page is incomplete, out of date, or says “no photo found”?

The nice thing here is that this is a relatively easy type of search to control. You could include your phone number on social networking sites, in business directories, on blogs, etc. to capture more of the top-10 results for this critical niche of the search landscape. Until you’ve Googled your own number to verify that you’re presented well online, you may not understand why you’re having trouble getting call-backs.

This can often be achieved by joining and participating in other websites that I’ll list below. The goal here is two-fold. First, try to control as many of the top results on the first page of Google for your own name. Second, direct visitors who click on any of those results to your primary site by linking to it from your profiles.

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. Google Profiles
4. LinkedIn
5. Flickr
6. Amazon
7. YouTube
8. Ning
9. ActiveRain
10. Scrib

Every one of the ten sites listed above is free to join and allows you to create a link within your profile to your primary website. These sites, and sites like them, tend to rank high in search results for personal names, so you should be able to control a larger percentage of your name’s search engine real estate by signing up and creating a profile under your real name.

This allows you to cast a wider net for traffic and ensures that prospective customers will likely encounter webpages that you control when people search for your name. Be sure to add some content to each of the sites so you appear professional and credible. For example, a blank Twitter account may give prospective clients some doubts about your tech skills.

1. I will update my professional photo so people will recognize me when they meet me in person.

2. I will stop relying on MLS fed photos for my listings and upload large non-watermarked versions so my listings list awesome on my website.

3. I will test my bandwidth at Speedtest.net then call my Internet Service Provider to make sure I’m getting the most bandwidth I can for my money.

4. I will replace one key piece of technology every 6 months (laptop, phone, camera, printer/scanner).

5. I will set up a Google AdWords account and bid on some important local search terms. If I already have an account, I’ll give it a fresh look to make sure I’m getting the most out of it.

6. I will reevaluate whether my email signature is up to date. And that it’s consistent on my computer and mobile devices.

7. I will find out who the top bloggers are in my community and buy one coffee or a beer each quarter.

8. I will calendar myself reminders to blog, Twitter, check Facebook, etc. on a regular basis.

9. I will set up Google Alerts for my name, company name, and other important terms so I know what people are saying about me online.

10. I will create a video about myself, a development or my community and post it to YouTube.

What would you add to this list? What do you plan to do to grow your business in 2010?