Portal Follower

After a day jam packed with agent promotion for the launch of onthemarket.com I found myself a little concerned at what appears to be short sightedness by some agents. Before I go any further I don’t wish to offend any agents with this post but I do feel that I need to highlight one or two things in particular following the new portal launch.

I quote a recent tweet from Vital Space (@VitalSpace) an agent signed up to OTM that I was in conversation with in the early hours of this morning “Why is SEO important?”

oh…

It has become clear to me (a bystander) that Agent’s Mutual have gone in hard with the ‘agency owned’, ‘we can take on Rightmove and Zoopla’ approach which I’m sure would have had all agents cheering and asking where they could all sign up. For me, this has led to a blinkered approach by all agents. I believe that they were so caught up on the idea of claiming some sort of victory and independence from Rightmove and Zoopla that they have forgotten to think and therefore ask some key questions regarding the new portal, specifically when it comes to digital marketing.

I spent the best part of 14 hours talking with agents on Twitter yesterday about OTM, most of which are on the new portal. It became clear to me that stock was very important to the agents, particularly where OTM had more stock than Rightmove and Zoopla. However what these agents do not seem to understand is that a website with a lot of stock is one thing but if there are no consumers to see that stock then what is the point?!

Again I refer to one such tweet, this time from Thomas Morris (@ThomasMorrisEA), another agent signed up to OTM “Hey – I’m just an agent. RM and ZPG are formidable but ALREADY OTM are 2nd in MOST of our towns for stock!”

Hmm…

Sure, a tv campaign will generate a spike but in the long term where is the traffic going to come from? Do the agents understand that it takes years to successfully SEO a national property portal? What’s more Rightmove and Zoopla have a huge head start, the duo are generally 1st and 2nd on Google for the majority of search terms such as:

homes for sale, property for sale, homes for sale in [location] etc etc.

If my experience is anything to go by, organic (free) traffic will make up at least 50% of all traffic to Rightmove and Zoopla.

Even if OTM can successfully SEO the site in a short period of time, they will not be knocking Rightmove and Zoopla from the top two positions. ‘But they will be third’ I hear agents calling. Even if they can get to the third spot for the thousands of search terms required to generate good quality organic traffic that’s still a small percentage in comparison to those sites that receive traffic from being number one and two in Google.

My concern for all agents that have signed up is that the OTM marketing fund isn’t a  bottomless pit, tv campaigns run into the £millions. National PPC campaigns cost tens of thousands of pounds each month. Will the new portal generate enough quality leads in the coming months to keep member agents happy? When will the anxiety set in? Will Agent’s Mutual be asking their agents for more money to prop up the fund? If the property market takes a turn for the worse then OTM could prove a costly gamble for all involved. If that is the case and the volume of leads is not sufficient how long will it be before the agents go back to Rightmove and Zoopla and will the fees be the same as when they left?

Yesterday’s launch of onthemarket.com seems to have underwhelmed investors as shares in rival Zoopla soared 10.4% and resolved confidence in the portal.

“In our mind the much awaited launch of Agents’ Mutual’s OTM has not lived up to the hype,” said Jefferies analyst Anthony Codling in a note yesterday.

“We appreciate that more listings may follow in the days to come because despite having more than one year to prepare, some of OTM’s customers were not ready for the big launch.”

Today could go down in history with estate agents across the UK as the Agent’s Mutual led onthemarket.com opens its doors. With 2,200 estate agents signed up (around 25% of all agents) the site aims to combat the duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla. However the site has had its fair share of sceptics. Despite the huge effort put in to promote the site by member agents there are doubts over the consumer based marketing campaign. A series of tv, press, digital and social campaigns are due to be launched soon with the tv campaign set to start on Sunday 1st February however will this simply provide a spike in traffic for a website that requires tens of millions of visitors per month to rival Rightmove and Zoopla.

Only time will tell…

Welcome to portalfollower.com

A little about me… I’m an ex property portal development director and have worked within the portal industry for over 8 years. I’ll be commenting on the portal industry and how consumers are increasingly using property portals to buy, sell, rent and let property.