Agents serving small towns and counties within 30 or so miles of metro areas have a splendid chance to gain extra sales from the Web. Sadly, big national sites are a step ahead of them, and most local agents don't even know how to compete.

Search on Google or Yahoo! for real estate or real estate agents in any small city in America of a 30,000 or less population that's located 20 to 30 miles from the nearest metro area and you'll most likely find search results for agents in the nearest big cities. Where are all of the local agents? They're there, but you couldn't tell from the Web.

In these areas, often pejoratively called "the boonies" by smug metro dwellers, you'll find that local agents are being steamrollered in their town by three factors on the search engine results pages (SERPs):

1. Nationwide real estate agent directories (agents pay for links in them).

While links in these help agents' websites get found, they tell only minimal data about the agents. Also, agents can get lost in a long list of other agents, unless the agent pays for an "enhanced" presence, which often merely means being put atop that long list.

2. Agent referral sites (agents pay them for leads and/or pay them a sales commission)

These rob agents of being the first contact with homebuyers and sellers. HomeGain.com, HouseHunt.com, Homes.com, and similar others dominate here. Leads may be of varied quality. Referral fees for the leads are sometimes required by the site. A few of the agents who are in such sites for a given city can be less than fair in comparing themselves, before consumers, to other agents. There is no harm in being listed in such a site, although having your own website is worlds better.

3. The search engines themselves, such as Yahoo! Real Estate.

Some engines form partnerships with national realty firms and then put a prominent link that appears first, on their own search engine (organic) SERPs, above all agents -- metro or rural. When negotiating such partnerships, realty firms should have protected their own agents, who already came up high for a given city by letting that agent stay number one, and not have superseded him with their own, new, search engine partnership links.

Now, any leads gained through the well-placed partnership link, go not to the agent who was usurped, but to the agent's firm for distribution to whomever agents it wants to receive them. Naturally, political intrigue and favoritism can result. Agents from other firms also get superseded when this happens, plus they lose inquiries to the search engine/realty firm combo.

These three factors, on major search engines, smother individual agents in the rural real estate markets.

Why has this domination by outsiders happened? You'd think that local agents with websites packed with community content and useful city links would come up higher on local SERPs than these huge organizations that often have only a few paragraphs on a single page about the local area, right?

Well, such local agent sites would come up higher if they were there. Many times the rural agents don't have websites at all or have a token page on their broker's website.

That is simply not enough. Research indicates that the majority of homebuyers search the internet before at the beginning of the process. That means if you aren't on the net -- you may not be found or considered a viable option.

Yet, surprisingly, all these impediments, present the perfect scenario for an enterprising, avant-garde, small town agent, over time, to dominate all other agents and realty sites in his community.

1. Local agents can hire national-in-service, leading, online realty website design firms to provide a terrific site -- and hand-feeds the site to the Internet in a way that can make it dominate on SERPs in local markets.

   An alternative would be to hire a nearby metro-based web design firm, but to only hire one who can show proof of clients whose websites already dominate for certain small cities.

2. After having a good website built, local agents can hire a metro-market Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm to tweak the site to the nth degree, so that, eventually, it is competing head-to-head with, or beating, the large directory, link and referral sites on page one of local realty SERPs.

In the end, an agent is investing a little money in having good website presence on the search engines, and in having a website that makes consumers want to do business with them.

What is standing in your way?

"It might not work for me."

It costs too much.

A website is a powerful investment. Borrow the money if you have to. Even a simple website that is easy to navigate can be a great sales feature for your business.

Remember, nearly 80 percent of people now use the web to find homes and agents. And if you get just one local sale in the first year from your website, your investment in web marketing will pay itself out many times over.

Remember the plot of most John Wayne westerns?

Merciless outsiders take over a small town and suppress the locals.

John Wayne shows up, conquers the outsiders, and the locals love him.

You be John Wayne.

Published: July 28, 2006

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .