I'm wondering if it's just an Atlanta Georgia thing or not, but Trulia just doesn't seem to be working for me. I love the technology but I've gotten zero leads and zero business after devoting a lot of time to answering questions.
Recently, I tried an experiment and signed up for an update on EVERY question and blog post on Trulia and what I found out was that Trulia is Broken.
First, we need to understand Trulia's purpose. The following is from the "WHAT WE BELIEVE" section in Trulia.
- * Looking for a home shouldn't be a miserable experience
- * Information should be made freely and easily available to everyone
- * Most home buyers/sellers will work with a real estate professional for guidance
So basically, using Trulia to find answers to Real Estate questions should be easy and it should be easy to find Real Estate Agents, including Listing Agents of a particular property.
BROKEN: Over the course of the past two months I have received updates on questions and blogs and I must say, every single day there is a question that goes something like this: I would like to make a offer for this home. Who do I need to talk to purchase this home? Seriously? There are links all over the listing page. "ASK A QUESTION!" is the biggest one, but instead of going to the listing agent it gets sent out to all of the Realtors. FIX: Redesign Listing Pages to make it easier for consumers to find what they want. Of course,
What Trulia is not is clearly stated: Lead Generation company. NOTE TO TRULIA: Advertising is a passive form of lead generation. When you become active, I will gladly pay for this additional service.
BROKEN: There are nearly 4,000 Questions about getting the right photo or asking for more photos on particular listings FIX: Moderation or Individual Questions ON listings, ala Zillow.
BROKEN: There ARE 9600 questions with the word Condition. It's useful to Agents to decipher market conditions, even though Trulia has some great tools for that, but it would seem with so many questions that Trulia really isn't delivering the information accurately. Further more, upon closer inspection, many of the questions have to deal with the condition of the property. FIX: Property Listing Pages should have questions attached to them. Again, ala Zillow.
BROKEN: This one is probably unfixable, but there are several questions on Trulia every day that can not and should not be answered by Real Estate Professionals. How much Taxes? Are the schools good? Should I use this builder? Moderation or flagging key words might work. So when a user types "Taxes" they get a prompt that sends them to a tax page.
BROKEN: Out of area Realtors Chiming in... It's just a big pet peeve. What's the point really? I don't know New Jersey law, so I'm not going to answer in New Jersey unless it's the most general question, like "Should I use a Realtor?" ... and I'm only answering that by mistake! In any case, much like this post, I've found Trulia to be a distraction from the actual business out there and not to very rewarding from helping people either. I will continue to use it but in a much reduced way.
I don't spend as much time there as I used to. I did pick up a referral partner (I'm a lender, he a realtor). I love the format, but it can be very time consuming. And yes - people leaving stupid comments that live 3000 miles away - it stinks - I guess that is why they rate the answers
I haven't used the site much...maybe I should hold off until some of these things are fixed! Interesting.
So Joshua why do you have one of their widgets in your sidebar here? Did you know that you are helping Trulia out rank you in the search engines for terms specific to your area when you give them additional links from sites that have good page rank?
Joshua- I don't spend as much time on there lately as I used to. There are also many questions where the agents wind up arguing about the topic....not for me.
Bill's comment was helpful and I didn't know that I helped Trulia outrank me...so thank you for sharing that, too.
Great post..no really great post!!! I agree. I have posted some things on Trulia only to find my efforst somewhat in vain.
Great post. I have issues with Trulia Voices too! (especially agents who are answering MORTGAGE questions!) Ha!
I have had mixed results with Trulia. I get activity from post but most never go anywhere. I limit my time on the site because I blog on other sites that have better results.
it seems like we can spend our time better on other sites. If it's broken, why bother?
I too have answered a lot of question on Trulia and it hasn't ever translated into a lead and I agree with you questions about a listing should be directed back to the agent. Maybe KW will wake up soon and realize it's fruitless effort as all the listings we upload there aren't getting leads back to us.
Oh yeah, thanks for pointing out the widget Bill, I'll be removing it from my blog.
I agree, a lot of the questions are crazy and the agents who actually answer some of them are even crazier. How can an agent say how good the schools are IT IS A VIOLATION OF FAIR HOUSING?
Bill - thanks for noticing. I'm still debating about that. I'm not sure about the widget in regards to SEO, it doesn't appear that it's putting actual content on my webpage.... much like an IFRAME, it would appear that it's not "spidered" but I may be wrong. However, the concept is still the same, they're getting clickthru traffic from my blog. So I've pulled it off.
Brian - Not sure about the strategy there. Getting the listings out to where buyers are is great. I'd rather them be routing them to a KW address than the Real Estate Book or some other website.
I would be surprised if it wasn't spidered. Trulia is pretty smart about getting us to add these kind of links. Smart on their part:)
Hi Joshua!
Trulia is not broken :)
Thanks for your feedback. Sorry to hear that Trulia hasn't been working out for you. We're scheduled to be rolling out some changes in the next couple of days that should address some of your points.
In the interim, I'll see if I can help address some points now. Once agents brand their listings for free, the "Ask a Question Button/section" changes to "Contact the Agent" and all inquiries go directly to the agent.
If you search by keyword, make sure you select a location like city & state to get more accurate results.
We agree that some questions or topics should not be answered or discussed by real estate agents. However, our community has many home buyers and sellers that answer and ask questions. Their feedback also drives conversations.
As far as agents answering questions outside their geographic area of expertise, as long as the questions are genric enough it should be fine. However, I agree with you that if the question is really specific as to market conditions for a neighborhood or community then maybe only local agents that have hands on experience there should answer. Additionally, you may have moved from state to state or city to city and have accumulated some unique experience in a variety of states, cities, towns, communities or apartment buildings. In that case, it's best to be transparent about this while offering your experience and advice. Who knows, you may have a solid referral network in place and that may be how you can help a consumer or relo.......In fact, agents are participating in this manner on Trulia and other sites with success!
I hope you hang in there Joshua. For some, connections with consumers happen after one answer or blog post, while for others it may take months.
Either way. We're here for you.
Best,
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
PS. Here are some recent Trulia Video testimonials:
NAR 2008 - http://snurl.com/nar-2008
Triple Play 2008 - http://snurl.com/triple-play