Most local and national realty associations keep crowing about how many of their agent members have Web sites and use e-mail as part of their marketing mix. However, I think that there is far, far more smoke here than there is fire. Don’t believe me? Just check around your own office and see if what I say below is not true.

I think this: most agents, who have them, went out and bought Web sites because they heard that you had to have one. They got e-mail for the same reason---it was the vogue thing to do and you might lose a listing to some other agent if that agent had a site and e-mail and you didn’t. Also, some clients like corresponding through e-mail. So agents everywhere got hooked up to the Internet in case they did someday find a client like that.

However, many agents that I interview have never gotten a single lead on their Web sites. What’s more, their sites never come up on the first, second, or third, or even tenth page of search engine results. Ask yourself, when is the last time that you went much farther back than page one when searching for something on a search engine results page? If an agent’s site is not found on the Web, how can homebuyers and sellers find that agent?

Yet, most agents do not have the foggiest idea of how to get their site to show up better. Worse, most agents don’t care and aren’t even contacting professionals who could make their site better found.

If their sites did come up high on search engines and thus started to get inquiries, they might have to learn a lot more about how to answer e-mails effectively. Egad, they might even have to take a course, read a book, or sit with an instructor. That would cost money, and take time, too. And be boring, besides.

E-mail technologies are crucial for agents to know, yet most agents don’t even know how to paste a picture into a Rich Text (HTML) e-mail message or even what it means to say that. Most don’t know how to scan a picture into their computer, or how to locate a scanned picture, say of a home’s kitchen, and attach it to an e-mail message.

Most also don’t know how to change fonts or make characters different sizes or change the color of text or make some words one color and the rest another color for emphasis. Or, even how to put some words into italics. Or how to automatically make a bulleted or numbered list. Or how to center a headline or picture atop an e-mail message.

Many do not know how to download software programs effectively or install them properly. A great many require assistance when using XMLS programs. Or Lightning, Top Producer or StellarView. Many are clueless when remote clients ask them to e-mail them digital pictures of a home they’d viewed while in town. Digital pictures? C’mon. Most agents don’t even have a digital camera, despite the fact that it, and the digital photos it takes, may be the two most powerful marketing tools available to agents today.

Fortunately, most real estate offices have either a dedicated person or an unappreciated volunteer who helps everyone wallow through this mine field. We’re not talking rocket science here, but of quite simple, but non-learned, tasks that are done only through the benevolence of a surrogate administrative person or semi-annoyed agent-friend who did happen to learn some of this stuff.

Why aren’t most agents learning this stuff? Two reasons, one is they think they don't need it and two, their associations aren't supporting them.

I say it’s because a small percentage (5%) enjoy high sales without learning to effectively communicate online and just decided that by gosh they just aren’t ever going to bother learning this new stuff before they retire. Lesser producing agents figure that if the top people won’t bother, why should they?

Is that smart? Well, I guess if you are netting $15,000 to $40,000 in commissions a month it might be smart to just ride your horse in the direction that it is going. However, for those 95% who aren’t top producers, I think that it is foolish to refuse to take the time to learn. If learning a little more could bring one extra sale a year, I say that for most agents it’s worth it.

How long would it take to learn how to be effective in e-mailing? It takes about four hours to know the ins and outs of e-mail mechanics cold. I teach most committed people that in far less time. The marketing tactics, of course, take longer to cover.

I say that the industry “research studies” hide the truth. The bigger real estate associations do all their surveys that state how many agents have Web sites and how many agents use e-mail and aren’t those figures impressive compared to two years ago? Well, natch. They’d be even more impressive if you compared them to 1996, but that’s meaningless because the Web was just getting rolling then.

I say it’s also meaningless for the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) and state associations to cite how many agents have web pages and e-mail---and not research their ability to use such things with skill. What counts is whether agents are using e-tools effectively to help consumers buy and sell homes better, faster, and in a way that helps them make the best decisions and get the best deal. Those missing factors should be studied.

The problem is, agents aren’t necessarily all so up front when answering such surveys. They tend to be embarrassed about being Web-challenged. Dozens of times I’ve had agents tell me that they have a full-functioning, content-filled Web site when all they have is a little free or token page from Realtor.com or Homeseekers.com or some directory site.

Dozens of times, too, I’ve asked agents to give me their Web site addresses, and they give me something with an “@” sign in it, which of course is an e-mail address. They did not know the difference between their Web site address and their e-mail address? How foolish they must look doing this when a Web-savvy client who asks them for their Web site address?

Most agents think that a “hit” on their Web site is the same as a “unique visitor.” RRRRRRRWRRRRRONG! Every image big or small on a Web page, plus the entire page itself, each counts as one hit. So if a visitor looks at your home page and it has 15 images on it, that is 16 “hits.” However, he counts as only ONE unique visitor.

You can see from just this example how that endless Sargasso Sea of purveyors of Web gimmicks for agents can easily make claims that sound appealing. They often promise how many “hits” an agent will receive each month if only he’ll buy a Web site from that purveyor (a site that happens to have 40 images on each page, of course).

Worse yet, new and younger agents, most of whom---happily-for-the-industry’s-future--- grew up with computers, see these more experienced “old timers” refusing to learn how to do effective e-mails and often decide that it isn’t an important part of their own marketing mix.

How did we get in this fix? We got there by NAR and other associations being impressed with their memberships’ only apparent adoption of the most basic, basic, basic e-mail and Web site trappings. No one stopped to ask, “But do they know how to market themselves and their clients’ properties with these tools? Or do they just happen to have them because we all said that they must?”

What should the local and national associations be doing? Every local realty board and association should be offering on-site classes for real estate agents in how to communicate effectively by e-mail with their clients. Do they? A few of the smarter ones do. But often board members of associations are the very same well-established agents who haven’t themselves bothered to learn effective online communications. How, then, can we expect them to vote funds dedicated to teaching the rest of the membership?

In that regard, we have before us a nationwide Catch-22. On the one hand, the industry pats agents on the back for all those agents paying for and getting Web sites and e-mail, and on the other hand, the same industry refuses to allocate funds to teach agents to communicate well when using these new tools.

Yes, yes, some of you will say that your association has cleverly brought in outside firms to gratuitously teach this stuff. I say bunk! They did that because there is no cost involved to the association since the affiliate members and other such vendors offered to “teach” the agents for free. Why? In order to get a forum before a room full of captive agents.

Many of my friends and I have been to those seminars, and in most cases---not all---they are about 70% a sales pitch for the presenting title, escrow, insurance, appraisal, or whatever vendor firm, and, oh yes, a smattering about online communication methods and tactics.

Let’s get off the “Gee, aren’t we special?” high horse and call it the way it is. Most agents have sites and e-mail because someone told them they had to in order to stay competitive.

The next step is for the industry today is to quit flaunting superficial facts and begin seriously teaching about 90% of agents the most fundamental ways to use Web sites and e-mail in order to help their clients and to help themselves.

What will this take? I believe that it will take hiring onsite instructors to do the teaching. Why can’t the local associations just subsidize agents to take such courses at local colleges through adult education classes? They could, but while such courses can most adequately teach agents how to have a good web site, and how to make it get found and how to compose, color, vary fonts in, add borders, use stationery, etc. in e-mails, they typically do not teach an agent how to do “real estate-related” e-marketing. That is why teaching courses right at the association’s facility, or a venue that is designated, is ultimately best. The curriculum should be set by a committee of Web-savvy agents.

I know that some people reading this are in complete agreement because I have heard association people daydream to me that such courses should be offered. I even know of one association that set up one of the best such training facilities in the country. Then closed it all down and had title, escrow, Web site and other firms come in and do the teaching. They viewed this move as fiscally sound, even though they are a wealthy and large association. They forgot to examine the costs to consumers and agents of shutting their excellent curriculum down.

When you examine the e-marketing skills of the board members who voted to disassemble this already nationally respected e-marketing program, you quickly see that nonbelievers in Web marketing just don’t get it. I feel that teaching agents Web marketing is the very best money an association can spend today.

All right. That’s my rant. You may see it differently, but I see it as almost a crime that associations are missing the big picture when it comes to teaching agents how to be effective on the Web. If you agree, do something about it. Call or talk to your association’s board members. Send them e-mails. Forward this column to them. Forward this column to national, state, county, city, and other real estate groups everywhere. Tell them you want your dues partially spent on making you more Web-capable.

Editor's note: The NAR does have a program to train agents to be e-mail, Web site and otherwise Internet-savvy. It's called e-PRO, and agents can find information about becoming certified as e-PROs at www.epronar.com.