Google invest heavily in their customers, who are the browsers on their search engine. It is their focus to enable the browser to navigate as quickly as possible to the information they are searching on.

This is equally as important to their advertisers. Google strongly suggests that advertisers construct their ads so that when the browser clicks on the ad they are taken directly to what the advertiser is promoting. And, they will reward advertisers with a “quality score” that brings down their cost per click and elevates their ad higher in the rankings.

For example, if the heading of your text ad were to read “Lorne Accommodation” your destination URL should deliver the browser directly to the page on your site that is offering accommodation in Lorne.

Furthermore, there should be a heading on this page that reads Lorne Accommodation (not in an image format). And, your content should be for Lorne accommodation. If done this way you will be given a high “quality score”.

Go to your AdWords account, open your campaign, select your ad group and then open the “keywords” tab. Next to each keyword is a magnifying glass. When you run your mouse over this it should reveal a “quality score” out of ten.

Having said that the opposite will apply if the browser does not land directly on what you are promoting. I have seen a number of accommodation homes using keywords for towns that are 100 kilometres from their establishment. The effects of this are a low quality score, higher cost per click and a browser that is not happy for their time being wasted. This can also adversely affect your brand.

Do not let your AdWords manager use keywords that give 1000’s of impressions but no clicks. They will tell you it has cost nothing because no one has clicked on your ad. However, the hidden cost will be a higher click through rate and a lower ad ranking.

The following are some statistics for a Google Mobile Phone search on accommodation. These statistics are gathered from January 1, 2010 until April 29, 2010. I am using these statistics based on the search term Lorne Accommodation. As a comparison I will give the stats for the same search term when a browser searches via their computer.

Mobile Phone Statistics January 1 – April 29

* Mobile Phone – Search term (Lorne accommodation) 594 Impressions*
* Computer – Search term (Lorne accommodation) 68,044 Impressions*

* the amount of times browsers type in the search term

This is a massive difference in how a browser tries to find accommodation in this region.

Below are stats on a real estate agency based in southern Victoria. It shows the amount of visits dating from January 1, 2010 until April 28, 2010. The first row shows how many times people accessed the site using their mobile and the second row show how many visits via the browsers computer.

Real Estate Agent Website Analytics January 1 – April 29

* Mobile – 442 visits, 1770 page views, average time on site 3mins 24secs
* Computer – 19,904 visits, 116,768 page views, average time on site 4mins 26secs

Firstly, I have to say that the App itself is very impressive. I love iPhone Apps that “use” the functionality of the handset. Too many Apps are just conservative, dry extensions of the company’s website (see Domain’s App as a good example of this). They’re functional, they do a job, but are pretty uneventful, never interactive and pretty boring. The Comm Bank App uses every ounce of the handset’s horse power, and is the better for it.

Augmented reality (using the camera, GPS and orientation gizmo) is mind blowing, user friendly and very useful. During the live demo they took us outside and we stood outside a property that was for sale, pointed the camera at the property, and everything came to life…… so much information at your fingertips. You can search in more traditional ways, but the AR was the real show stopper.

Secondly, another masterstroke is buddying up with RPData and realestate.com.au for content. I’ll let you download it and judge for yourself, but it’s the sort of App that one of the portals SHOULD have created, and didn’t.

I applaud Comm Bank for a job well done (and for the great coffee at the launch).

Topics where multi-agent systems research may deliver an appropriate approach include online trading, disaster response, and modelling social structures.

Business2 was created by Peter Ricci who owns and operates Agentpoint Pty Ltd (ACN 107 583 693). Agentpoint is a real estate web development company which designs and develops websites and real estate portals for clients in Australia and New Zealand. The companies flagship product Zoo Property allows Agents to list and manage all of their vendor’s property data and have that data exported to real estate portals across the World.

Peter has been writing about Real Estate on Business2.com.au since 2002 and is passionate about real estate and technology. Today Business2 has over 450 articles and has a growing list of contributors to the site.

However, in some situations the term “real estate” refers to the land and fixtures together, as distinguished from “real property”, referring to ownership of land and appurtenances, including anything of a permanent nature such as structures, trees, minerals, and the interest, benefits, and inherent rights thereof. Real property is typically considered to be immovable property. The terms real estate and real property are used primarily in common law, while civil law jurisdictions refer instead to immovable property.