Following Eye’s report on Friday about the allAgents deal with eMoov, allowing it to have a directory listing even where it has no properties, the website has announced changes.
eMoov had taken full advantage after allAgents introduced a “global” advertising package.
allAgents had defended it, saying that any advertiser could buy it, but admitted that it particularly appealed to online agents.
The move was heavily criticised by local high street estate agents.
Now Martin McKenzie of allAgents has told Eye: “Following on from your story and feedback from some of our premium support agents, we have now implemented changes to the global directory listing on our website.
“From today, any firm who takes out this global listing will only show in places where there are no ‘premium support plus’ agents.
“We believe this is a perfect compromise for firms who wish to upgrade to our all-inclusive support / advertising / vendor and landlord lead generation package.
“Firms that have upgraded to our global listing feature (like eMoov) will only show in areas where we have free or no listing agents.”
He is even hoping that Eye readers will like this tempter: “We would like to offer Property Industry Eye readers the opportunity to upgrade to our PS+ package with a discount of 30%. Any readers interested can fill out our ‘contact us’ form on our website quoting PIE30.”
What do you think?
Allagents or Google? And why would any professionally run business want to link away to an external site?
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Google's a given but you have to pay attention to public review sites not least because of the weighting that Google gives to them.
Regardless of whether business like them or not social media review sites are loved by the public and their prominence is only going to grow. Tripadviser gives you all the clues you need in this area.
Trying to work to improve the peer review process is where efforts should be focused not sticking head in the stand hoping that the public won't notice them. If you look at what a march the likes of Paramount, Streets Ahead and Thomas Morris have stolen on competitors by enthusiastically engaging with AllAgents you can see what's possible.
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Just Google [your estate agent name]+[location] or [estate agent]+[location]. I rest my case.
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Reggie, not at all. Because if as many vendors would type in ' estate agent review' then look at who's coming up. As I say regardless of what you think of them Google places a greater weight on peer review sites.
As ever it's a mix, I'm certainly not for a scattergun approach and spreading yourself too thinly but the public are already there, whether you choose to engage with them is another matter
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I think what I am trying to say is that, regardless of how much weight Google place on peer review sites, Google reviews are (and always will be) shown first.
On top of that, the user has to be registered with Google to post a review, so there's a pretty good element of verification as well.
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This proves my comment in last week's story that AA just go with the money. Seems they had a bit of a back-lash from some of their regular (paying) subscribers. (I think this must be the first time they have been 'brought-in-line'!)
There are plenty of both free and paid-for review sites – all of the ones I have seen are more professional/ethical than AA. And once you've got your reviews going google will find them and list them for you.
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MF – absolutely agree. In fact, I would go even further and say concentrate on Google, it's what everyone sees (first and mostly only) – and they control the mechanism as well.
If landlords and sellers – the fee earners – want a (new) agent, the first thing they do is google, if your agency looks good there they'll pick up the phone. They simply will not bother with the extra click to another site, especially when they begin to understand that Google reviews are genuine (at least traceable) and those on some other sites can be tampered with.
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I agree with you Reggie – Google is the perfect place for reviews especially when you consider that those good reviews will likely move you up the search rankings as well. Problem I have had in the past is that Google requires the reviewer to be registered with them first, and many just couldn't be bothered with all that.
That was two or three years ago though and it's time I tried again!!
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It's a pity Google have made posting a review more difficult, but I think that's a price worth paying for credibility. In our experience getting clients to post a review involves one of two things on the part of the business: either a 'begging email' followed by a 'begging call' or straightforward bribery (Amazon vouchers are popular – but don't make the request conditional on a 5* review, Google won't like that)!
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Aha! Thanks for the tips Reggie. We've done the begging stuff, but haven't tried the 'bribery' 🙂
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