However, it appears that even Google may be hitting a ceiling. The Adwords system is based on an escalating bid war between competing advertisers. The thinking is that the cost for an ad click will rise with demand for a keyword market. While this has proven true in years past, this market space may be experiencing its first signs of decline.

According to an AP-NYTimes online ads earnings report article, Google “fetched less money per click on its ubiquitous online ads” in the 4th quarter of last year than expected. This was bad news for Google and their stock took a hit because of it. This comes at a bad time when Google is already in a portal war with Facebook.

However, Google wasn’t the only company that suffered in this regard. Microsoft/Bing also experienced a decline. Microsoft’s online services division “lost $458 million in the latest quarter” and was down 18 percent from the previous year.

Even Yahoo had problems. Their revenue was “$20 million below analyst projections” with the last quarter being their 13th quarter in a row of revenue declines.

Now everyone can speculate on the reasons for the declines above, which happened to occur in the 4th quarter, a time when ad revenue customarily experiences gains due to holiday shopping. However, the fact that all three major search portals have been hit by the declines is not a good sign. We may indeed be seeing the beginning of the decline of PPC marketing.

With the Internet boom, it became obvious to franchisors that the web was the place to be marketing. As a result, these franchisors have put a lot of resources toward developing their own real estate portals to primarily feed the business of franchisees. Of course, every real estate website, regardless of size and scale, is dependent on the listing of homes to attract visitors and potential prospects. The home data featured is provided via Internet Data Exchange (IDX) agreements with local Multiple Listing Services (MLS) of which franchisee real estate brokers are members.

Per a previous N.A.R. rule change in January of this year, franchisors were permitted to showcase IDX data on their website by virtue of having a representative franchisee who was an existing local MLS participant. An example of one such IDX agent feed is on a website like this one for Highlands Ranch, Colorado real estate.

The previous rule change created some trouble, however, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there are some franchisees that don’t want help from their franchisor in this regard. They have their own website portals for serving a regional area and didn’t want to be forced to compete with their own franchisor to garner website traffic.

Secondly, there are independent websites and companies that also compete directly with real estate franchisors for traffic. It is their view that the January rule change gave franchisors and unfair competitive advantage in advertising home data to which they were not entitled.

So as a compromise, the N.A.R. board pushed the new “opt-in” rule change through. However, the matter is certainly not settled and one can expect to see more fireworks as real estate companies, brokers and agents continue to struggle over the territories in the web space.

Bing leap-frogged Yahoo, who has been in a steady search decline for a number of years now. In fact, Yahoo inked a deal with Microsoft for Bing to power their future search results. So while Microsoft can certainly be happy with their new position of prominence, the result is not that surprising to industry insiders who have been watching the two companies form their alliance over the past year.

By the numbers, while Bing may be #2 in search, they still trail Google in a big way at a distant second. With their 65.1% share of the search market, Google doesn’t look like they need to sweat the competition anytime soon. Especially in the wake of recent events, with the launch of Google Instant, Google seems to be poised to dominate the search market more authoritatively than ever before.

For those unfamiliar with either YSM or Microsoft Adcenter, each is a pay-per-click (PPC) system for sponsoring ads that appear in sponsored search results. YSM and Adcenter are very similar to Google’s Adwords in this regard, although it was actually Yahoo and its previous YSM incarnation of Overture that really got the PPC ball rolling in the early days of search results ad buying.

Many have never used the Microsoft Adcenter system. While it cannot be used as rigorously and is not as flexible as Google Adwords, the Adcenter system is still very effective. It is fairly elegant and easy to use, an edge I believe it actually has over the current YSM system which is a bit clunky and non-intuitive.

Not to mention that the merge into Adcenter will bring a broader base of eyeballs for ads. Yahoo states that it will give businesses and their ads “access to up to 154 million searchers,” and that is good news to any search marketer.

Having observed and worked with Google now for at least a decade, this is a big deal. Not so much because Google has been reticent in making changes to their search page, but because it highlights a small victory for left-side navigation.

In the area of website design, we encounter lots of opinions and preferences for different layouts and site navigation styles. We try to develop what is best for users working off of some core principles for website design like Eyetrack studies and other research.

Alternative navigation strategies abound on the Internet. You have different varieties of top nav, right-side nav, and embedded navigation styles to go along with left-side navigation.

The fact that Google has elected to go with a left-side navigation format on their new search page is a profound development. The main reason being that Google doesn’t make a major move like this without extensive testing and research. If tried and true Google, who has managed to dominate the search landscape with one of the most simple search page designs in history, made the judgment call to go with left-side navigation, then I am willing to accept that all of the prior testing and research they did points to this being the best option.

Google has already integrated real-time data into its search results through data deals with the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. But stakes are higher than mere quality search results at this point. Google’s position as the dominant web portal is now being threatened.

Google’s most recent answer is Google Buzz. Google Buzz is a handy social networking system built into Gmail that enables social networking activities like instead messaging and file sharing. You can get real-time updates on topics of interest as well as enabling you to connect to pre-existing social networking services like Flickr and Twitter.

Google is a bit late to the party, but with its heavy mass of Gmail users, Buzz could easily catch on and become the next social networking fad.

During the past week, Google cemented their effort even further by working out deals with Facebook and MySpace. They made the official announcements on their Google Blog.

We are already seeing tweets and other real-time data popping up all over the SERPS. Expect to see even more with Facebook and MySpace in the mix.

Get To Know Your Buyer Prospects

Last year was a banner year for first-time buyers. “First-Time home buyers reached the highest market share on record” (47%) last year dating all the way back to 1981. The report also stated the median age of first-time buyers was 30 with an average income of $61,600.

Now there were special factors influencing the results above, like tax incentives and higher affordability, but last year’s first-time buyer increase is part of a trend (the previous year was 41%) which reveals that nearly half of the buyers market is made up of first-time buyers.

When it comes to marketing your website, this information is a clear indicator of some of the content you need. Of course, a property search is a given. Beyond that, your website should also have content geared toward providing information that is useful for first-time buyers. Some ideas would be articles on the factors that determine home price, explanations of the different types of available loans, descriptions of the home buying process and how to be prepared. Any content of this type would serve as good sticky content to better inform prospective buyers and establish loyalty.

These buyers are also relatively young, in their mid-thirties, and we know that these younger buyers are technology addicts. Find and serve them where they are; through your own branded website or blog on the Internet, in social media spaces like Facebook and Twitter, through video on portals like YouTube, as well as in ad spaces for mobile devices.

Buyers Are On The Internet

Of course, buyers use many resources when looking for a home. However, “90 percent use the Internet.” Let’s say that again, 90% of buyers use the Internet when searching for a home. If you currently are not actively marketing your real estate business on the Internet, you are missing the boat, big time.

Of that 90% that are searching for a home on the Internet, 87% still rely on a real estate agent to help them in the process. This is even further supported by the fact that “8 out of 10 home buyers who used the Internet to search for a home purchased through a real estate agent.” This is great news for Realtors and clearly indicates that buyers recognize the need for professional assistance when working through the home buying process, even when they begin that process online.

Also keep in mind that the average buyer spent 12 weeks (roughly 2 1/2 months) searching and viewed 12 homes before making a final decision to buy. Some patience and a good follow-up marketing effort (like a drip email campaign) is clearly crucial in converting prospects.

The report mentioned that 40% of buyers “look at print or newspaper ads” when home searching. And it stated that a meager 3% of buyers learned about the home they purchased through print, newspaper ads, a home book, or a magazine. The trend is clear. While there are still opportunities for hooking buyers in print, it would be wise to consider spending the majority of your marketing dollars in prospecting online.

What were the most popular Internet resources for buyers? 60% used local metropolitan listing services, 46% visited real estate company websites and Realtor.com, 45% frequented real estate agent websites, 30% used other websites with real estate listings, 17% checked out for-sale-by-owner sites, and 9% tried local newspaper sites.

The data above clearly indicates that buyers wanted to see real estate listing information more than anything else. This is vital to keep in mind when showcasing content on your website. Firstly, make sure you have property search capability on your website. Secondly, be sure to feature your property search and listings in a prominent way. Give those buyers the information they really want. Don’t make them dig for anything.

Don’t Forget About Sellers

With 2009 being a buyers market, it’s no surprise that the NAR report emphasized buyer trends and data. However, there is still some good seller information there too. Namely, if 47% of the buyers were first-timers, then that means 53% of the buyers had something to sell. This point should never be lost in your prospecting strategies both online and offline.

“Eighty-Five percent of sellers used a real estate professional” and 80% of that group used a full-service brokerage. Homes sold without a Realtor’s assistance hit a record low of 6 percent. These are daunting numbers for anyone trying to sell a home on their own without professional help. Add to those facts that the “median home price for sellers who used an agent was $215,000 vs. $172,000 for a home sold directly by an owner” and the choice to use a Realtor when selling a home has never been more obvious.

A resounding “64 percent of sellers chose their agent based on referral or had used the same agent in the past.” Additionally, reputation and trustworthiness were the most important factors for respondents in choosing a Realtor. This data points to maintaining a strong follow-up campaign with previous clients and your sphere of influence. Increase the reach and strength of your follow-up by integrating social networking technologies (once again, portals like Facebook and Twitter) into your online marketing effort. Doing this successfully will not only keep your previous clients in the loop of your activities, but gain you some referrals as well.

Based on the new NAR buyer and seller data, it is evident that an online marketing strategy is crucial to prospecting for both buyers and sellers. The tried and true property search is still the feature element of any real estate website, but creating some informative content can go a long way to helping the large pool of first-time buyers in the marketplace. Internet marketing is also key in picking up sellers with social networking being the main strategy to scoring referrals and repeat business in 2010.

Web Pro News also did another excellent interview with Google SEO Engineer Matt Cutts. The main topics discussed in the interview provided some more information on the launch of Google Caffeine as well as some recommendations on optimizing for website speed.

While Cutts didn’t state that faster page performance will be a new ranking factor for websites, he did mention that it is under consideration. Keep in mind that Google is always looking to improve the end-user experience and fast site performance definitely fits that bill. After all, nobody likes waiting around for pages to load.

Here is a short list of some of the tools that Cutts recommended for website speed evaluation:

• Google Code – Excellent resource for articles and tools on improving website performance.
• Web Page Test – Another tool for testing website performance.
• Google Closure Tools – Library of fast performing scripts and templates, as well as a compiler for crunching bloated code.

Improving site performance is not only recommended for the sake of your website visitors, but it can only help prepare your website for a future where Google may consider speed a ranking factor.

IE8 showed a small gain (+0.6%), but once again appeared to cannibalize its previous versions which saw heavy losses; Internet Explorer 7 (-1.2%) and Internet Explorer 6 (-1.5%).

Google’s Chrome browser appeared to benefit from the crowd abandoning the older versions of Explorer. Chrome showed a nice boost (+0.9%) and is gaining quickly on Internet Explorer’s #2 position.