Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
This week our Top-Rated Agents series focuses on a key Northwest market, Boise, Idaho. We are still refining our methods to deliver the superstars of real estate in America. We’ve discovered, unintentionally, that current rating systems are highly subjective. That said, this week’s professional list will be those professionals ranked highest by Google, Zillow, and our own criteria.
With a mortgage rates spike set to hit any day now because of the economic situation, Boise real estate news will certainly reflect a downtrend in sales. So, right now seems the perfect time to spotlight the professionals in this buzzing city who are most experienced/capable of assisting buyers and sellers. We’ve chosen Boise this week for a couple of reasons. First, of all the markets we’ve looked at recently, more brokers here seem ahead of the marketing curve than in other midsize cities in the U.S. Secondly, because Boise was recently one of America’s hottest markets, and it seems sales are drying up.
Dawn Templeton ticks all the boxes we’ve looked at. With 158 perfect reviews on Google, and 228 5-star ratings on Zillow, the Boise broker/owner of Templeton Real Estate is exemplary. From her website to social profiles her firm markets properties. Templeton is certainly in the top 10% of all the professionals we’ve profiled. As a ‘for instance,” her website is NOT a cookie-cutter placeholder like most brokers use, and the SEO is far above the average, as well. A MOZ SEMRUSH analysis I ran revealed organic traffic above 1,000 per month, over 7,000 backlinks, and overall site health of almost 80%. From a user perspective, the site is not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also proves ultimately useful for finding home listings and key information.
Facebook (1,642 engaged followers), Instagram, Youtube, and even Yelp (perfect reviews) are utilized well by her agency. If I have one criticism, it’s a dead link on the website to Templeton’s LinkedIn profile. But, what’s most important, branding and marketing-wise, is the fact that Templeton has marketed her business across the media landscape. She’s on USA Today, in Better Homes and Gardens, as well in local news. Now project such understanding and prowess into, let’s say, selling your home. Templeton also took home a Top 100 award in 2021 from Real Estate Staging Association®. I rest my case on selecting her to top this Boise list.
Matt Bauscher is a founding partner at Amherst Madison, one of Idaho’s most successful real estate firms. The youngest agent in Idaho history to sell over 100 properties for five consecutive years (2016-2020), he’s perfect according to reviewers on Zillow (183), and Google (372), with thousands of followers on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.
The former Boise State University and Europe Pro leagues guard also knows the media business and often garners local news for real estate and his sports commentary. Like Dawn Templeton above, Bauscher’s team has created an exceptional website when compared to the normal agency. He's pretty photogenic, as well, as our feature image reveals.
The SEO prominence and aesthetics of the domain are not jaw-dropping, traffic of 1,600 visitors per month, and 1,300 good backlinks tell us Bauscher and partners have hired expertise. I took particular note of the frequently updated blog the company utilizes. A telltale sign branding and SEO are ongoing.
Right on the heels of Matt Bauscher, Christina Ward is another industry professional with flawless reviews at Zillow (215) and Google (178). Strangely, her Christina and Company website has almost no traffic or domain authority with over 14,000 backlinks? The Keller Williams Boise broker must have recently redone the site, which was well designed by Bullsai digital marketing. Like most other truly successful agents, the Boise broker maintains viable Facebook (1,400+ fans), Instagram (only 509 followers), Youtube, and LinkedIn profiles.
The fact that 89% of her team's sales come from referral or repeat business explains to a degree her agency’s relatively subdued digital marketing footprint thus far. Like Bauscher, Ward is also an athlete with strong competitive instincts, so perhaps she’ll accept my prodding to do more on the web. She already gets better than her fair share of local media coverage, so perhaps a new Instagram push might make a difference? A blog would not hurt either.
Next on this week's list, Keller Williams professional Barbara Dopp operates the Agents With a Smile Real Estate Team which has also garnered stellar Google (157), and Zillow (190) reviews. A perennial Top Producer, Dopp has over 2,200 transactions totaling almost half a billion dollars since she began in the business a dozen years ago.
Using the same criteria as the others we've profiled here, Dopp's website is the least prominent of the bunch. It's too soon to discuss if this criterion bears deeper implications, but ranking highest with only 480 hits for the search term "Keller Williams Boise" is not world-changing.
Moving on to Dopp's overall media presence, Facebook (1,796 likes + 4,291 friends), and Instagram (608 followers) appear as half-hearted efforts. A dead link on the website to LinkedIn (I managed to find it) does not thrill me, and her last post 23 weeks ago on Instagram is a negative, as well.
Honorable mention in this list goes first to RE/Max Elite agent Morey Allaway, who knows enough to advertise his 282 sales in the last 12 months on Zillow. Other agents, who shall remain anonymous for now, seem to have tried gaming the reviews systems of various platforms. That said, we seem to be headed in the right direction for establishing a better method of objective evaluations of agents. The various tools users rely on each seem to have their own relative bias. First, and foremost, rating sites are almost all user-centric and biased based on selected criteria/data. Anyhow, using Google (100+ reviews/5 stars), and Zillow (ratings/numbers of reviews) seems like our best starting point. As for SEO and other criteria, there's no better ruler than MOZ or SEMRUSH for comparing sites/efforts.
Photo credit: Feature image of Matt and Lindsay Bauscher via the broker's Facebook.
