How To Build a Great Real Estate Site – Give Your Clients What THEY Want
Having a tough time with your website/blog?
Why not try giving your clients what THEY want, not what you THINK they want! And no, your picture is not one of them!
The single most sought after feature of a real estate website is the ability to search the MLS for Real Estate listings. Buyers and sellers alike want to be able to search the MLS with an intuitive, easy to use, graphical interface. They want to choose their own criteria and then display the search results in a variety of ways like on a map or as a gallery of pictures. The results should also be sortable by various filters like “Price Low to High” or “High to Low” for example.
To really improve the user experience make some of the most common searches in your area accessible through a single click. For example you might have a search titled “Foreclosures” and another one for “Lakefront Properties.” Think about what your niche or specialization is in your area and focus your attention to that.
Once you have a great Search interface for your clients, you’ll want to make it easy to find on the internet. To be found organically (in much less time than a traditional website) you’ll need to have a blog based site and post regularly.
The WordPress blogging platform is the gold standard for real estate blogging. For an example of a WordPress based site with an amazing custom search interface built in, check out Will Rahill’s Big Bear Real Estate Website. This example is certainly not on the cheap side, but is an option for a more customized blogsite. Another great company to contact for customized blogsites would be Arranging Pixels. Of course there are other options, if a less expensive (but still very intuitive and savvy) blogsite is what your budget can handle.
There are also some amazing real estate plugins out there for adding an MLS Search to your blogsite – but with an enormous added bonus! Each of the pages created by the search results are indexed by the search engines and therefore boost your sites ranking! (Will’s site actually has two IDX providers that covers all the areas he services! Talk about giving your clients what they want!) Two of the most popular plugins that are available for blogsites are IDXPress by Diverse Solutions and IDXBroker. Both have their own unique benefits, and neither are available in every area or every State. Contact them directly to find out more info…
The ability to search, and search easily, for properties is paramount to having a site that is successful – because let’s face it, that’s what this is all about! SELLING PROPERTIES!
There are 13 responses to this post! Join in...
There is also the flexmls idx plugin for those who use their services.
I am using the idxpress plugin and there are recent updates to the feature set i.e. Property status and open house filters; and mobile is in beta. Customer service at Diverse Solutions is good. Chris, sorry to see you go, congratulations.
Thanks Suzanne for noticing, and giving honorable mention to my Big Bear Real estate Website for the integration of MLS search technology provided by http://kukui.com
You and TechSavvyAgent rock!
I’m a huge fan.
Arranging Pixels does some great work! Thanks.
Great post. I’ve often thought that even a single page site of nothing more than a IDX search engine would capture a lot of leads.
The issue though is ranking a dumb one-page site like that. Not gonna happen.
Thanks for shout out Suzanne!
Hope everyone has an awesome day.
Dale Campbell
Creative Director – Arranging Pixels
Great post! Our team owns three sites that do exactly that and are indexed nearly 20,000 times. The reason we purchased those sites is exactly what you say here about the IDX plug-in.
Navy Chief, Navy Pride
This Real Estate posting is very important article. It’s a helpful service for anybody.
Thanks
Mack
“Stratus Building Solutions”
Today I signed up for IDX Broker. Thank you for the information. As a realtor working with buyers on a daily basis, I can see a huge value in these services. Hoping to see some results.
Bryce RossCedar City Real Estate
I have a new client and working with them on a new WP website. Evaluating these two plug ins. If you were to go with just one which one would you recommend. I am trying to find out the benefits of each.
Thanks for any info.
You hit the nail on the head here!
Last week, I just started working with my local board for a RETS feed. I feel like I’m right on track with your article.
Hi, we are a Real Estate Web Design company who utilizes exactly what you have said here! Thank you, Suzanne, for this great article. We completely agree