According to the definition of an exclusive buyer's agent as put forward by the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (NAEBA), the EBA is a true fiduciary and never crosses the line where there may be any confusion as to whether the agent represents anyone in the transaction other than the buyer.

According to the Real Estate Buyer's Agent Council (REBAC), buyer's agent members are close to 35,000 strong, but they are a true minority when it comes to Web marketing because most programs are geared for listing agents. So what can they do to strengthen their presence on the Web?

Work those referrals, baby

Exclusivity understandably limits the number of sides that an EBA can handle and it also limits referrals and repeat business. But slices of your business can turn into loaves, because you don't have to give those clients away for free. Start a referral network among top selling agents you can trust. Many of them will be glad to get qualified business, and will reward you by doing an excellent job for your client and paying you a referral of as much as 15 percent to 35 percent in some markets. Join online communities to get your name known by visiting places such as OneRealtorPlace.com, InternetCrusade.com, and Property.com.

Flaunt your niche

"The number one reason that our web site has been effective for us is that it focuses on a niche, in our case Exclusive Buyer's Brokerage," says John D. Peterson, vice president of GLPW Group Inc., "When people search the web for a real estate agent in any mid-sized metropolitan area, they are confronted with the daunting task of sorting through hundreds of web sites, not unlike looking at the Real Estate listings in the Yellow pages. Unlike the Yellow Pages, the consumer can't even make a judgment on size or presentation, and will most likely only look at a few near the top, or with names that resonate. One of the few ways for them to reduce the search hit clutter is to narrow the search -- the niche targeted sites then win."

Get found

Peterson hedges his search engine bets with the use of a low-cost submission site, www.selfpromotion.com, "It works reasonably well, but it takes a fair bit of time to run through one submission cycle. I suspect that you should re-register monthly but I just don't have the time to do that – more like every 6-months," says Peterson. "I am currently evaluating several different approaches to outsourcing site submission as positioning is becoming much more critical, even with a micro-brokerage. Given the ever-changing and technical nature of getting good positioning, and the fact that we view this as very important, I assume that we will outsource this task.

Keep them coming back with good content

"The third reason our site does well," says Peterson, "has been content which we created internally. Having other sites repost with permission, certainly does contribute to how a consumer views the rest of our site.

"Deciding what you should personally do, as far as creating and maintaining a web site, versus what to outsource is a difficult issue since it encompasses both skill and economic issues and will vary with each individual," explains Peterson. "In order to be identified favorably in the marketplace, you need to have convictions about that market and be able to turn them into content. If you have no convictions and thus no substantive content, you will just be one of the herd and hard for the consumer to separate out.

"As professionals providing high-dollar personal services, for us the relationship is everything -- just as it is to the Client. We provide the value that the Client expects, always striving to exceed their expectations, and the Client returns income and referrals to us. Wearing our hearts on our sleeves, as it were on the web site, via the content helps frame that relationship. Without a relationship and value given to the consumer, we would only be a cashier in a retail store, earning an income commensurate with those lowered responsibilities, with referrals based more on the availability of good parking," he says.

Learn to delegate

"From a technical sense, it is a contest between creating a very definable image and best use of time," says Peterson. "If you build it in-house (assuming you have, or can acquire the skills necessary), it will reflect your company and personality much more than if the design is hired out – typically reflecting the designer's image. If the designer is focused on the real estate industry, I suspect that the site will look like that of one of several hundred other practitioners. It's expensive to get the quality differentiation needed via the outsource route, just as it is ultimately expensive, from a loss standpoint, to be immediately identified as one of the herd with a lightweight, stock FrontPage site."

Peterson concludes," I do think that consumers respond to branding and corporate culture and this affects the type of respondent. We tend to get bright, analytic types, which is what we want, from our site. If we were marketing to a broader audience, I suspect we would try to make our site look much more like yahoo.com or amazon.com, both with technical staff that are masters at mass merchandising."

NAEBA Pitches In

Ron Henderson, NAEBA's president for 2000, explains that half of NAEBA's members including himself are also members of REBAC and the N.A.R. He says, "For years we have been barred any presence on Realtor.com because there is no access or exposure for the buyer's broker.

"The only option is personal Web sites, so we are offering our members template sites, with email, hosting services and special pricing to our membership," he says. "We're considering selling them to non-members, too. We found that we suffer some common problems with non-exclusive buyer agents with getting exposure."

Henderson believes the sites should appeal to the 35,000 member REBAC organization, which constitutes about four percent of the NAR membership. The template sites focus on buyer's agency and community information. Included in the template are five to ten pages of content, valuable links, a contact form and advertising on the NAEBA site. A onetime set up fee is about $149 and monthly hosting fees will be about $25.

Brokers pages are more enhanced, and have more interactive buttons, a more sophisticated design, up to 20 pages, with a home page, the buying process, valuable links, community information, subsections of general information and team information, and a contact form for around $399 and a monthly hosting fee of $25.

Marketing buyer's agents, let alone exclusive buyer's agents, is still early on the Web. NAEBA is looking into affiliations which may gain more exposure for members.