In this article from the Geek Estate blog, the author says agents should not let major portals discourage them and definitely not forget about search engines.

And we agree. Search engines are your friends.

It’s Not About the Win. It’s About EARNING the Win.

It can be hard to compete with the “big boys” of search portals, but it’s also not impossible. You may not be as big or have as many resources as an L.A. agency, but all you really need is a clean and easy site with a bunch of relevant local content for search engines like Google to pick up.

Agents don’t need to beat the portal and again it’s not about winning. All you really need are a handful of leads every week and you can do that by giving users fresh, relevant content. That’s how you win, but you earn your win.

Beside, being the fourth or fifth site a potential homebuyer or seller visits is not always a bad thing. The good news is that they’re serious. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t waste their time. Users want the facts, but they don’t want to spend a lot of time looking for them. They want something clean and easy with relevant content.

If your site has those things then you should have nothing to worry about.

Remember That Not All Leads Are Equal

According to the article, portals like Zillow or Trulia receive over 100 million leads a year, but only 5 million homes are sold per year. Besides, potential buyers and sellers are more apt to remember the local realtor’s site, especially if they’ve filled out a contact form and that local realtor gets back to them in a timely manner. It’s all about efficiency, my friend. On national sites like Zillow or Trulia, you’ll probably have four or five agents respond to your query. Do you really think you’ll remember their names a week later? Probably not.

Just remember—forget about the win and develop your website so it’s clean and easy  with local, fresh and relevant content.