Editors Note - WordPress Wednesday is weekly information piece about the website, blogsite platform, WordPress. My friend GIlbert Peralta from WPChemist is the contributing blogger for this content. Thanks Gil!!!
IT’S WORDPRESS WEDNESDAY AGAIN!!
WordPress and your IDX.
It doesn’t really surprise me, but it always makes me shake my head when experienced real estate agents don’t know what an IDX is or even what it does. For those who aren’t in the real estate industry or those who are and still don’t know what an IDX is, please allow me to explain.
IDX is an acronym for Internet Data Exchange or Information Data Exchange; depending on which techie you are talking to. As Realtors we all know that our local MLS has a huge database of homes and content. Consumers come to us to find homes or get the value of their home. You then turn to the MLS and perform a data analysis. Consumers have long wanted to have access to that data and near the end of the 20th century, the internet and advances in computer technologies made that possible.
IDX companies can now pull that data from the MLS (with MLS permission and payment of a fee) and put in onto a website for consumers to enjoy. That’s all an IDX does. It pulls MLS data and transforms the way it looks and displays it on a website you own.
If you don’t have an IDX on your website AND make it easy to find and search NO real estate buyers or sellers will spend ANY amount of time on your poor excuse for a website.
WordPress makes it easy to display your IDX. I’m not going to go into specifics of what IDX companies are best; that is a whole other blog post. However if you want to talk privately with me about it, please contact me. I’m also not going to go into specifics in this post of how to create the pages or posts, (it would be a very long post). Just contact me and we can chat.
What do I do with the IDX?
IDX companies provide a code for you to place or embed on a specific page on your website. The IDX will display homes based on the parameters you set. Each IDX company makes their product differently and how easy it is to embed will depend on the company. However almost all IDX companies will have a back-end that will allow you to simply copy and paste a very long and complicated code directly into a page on your site. Don’t ask how it works, I really don’t know, and I don’t want to. All I know is that my two IDX companies do all the work for me, I simply copy and paste.
WordPress and IDX example
Let’s look at CondoBeacon.com for example. You will also notice that there are lists of homes pulled up on different pages with very specific parameters; bank owned lists in various cities, short sale lists in various cities, condos in various price ranges, specific condo buildings, etc. Your IDX company will most likely allow you to do specific searches (your niche), then allow you to freeze that code; for you to embed on your website. It creates more pages for your consumers to view and gives them reasons to stay on your site.
Where should I put the IDX?
I recommend real estate agents utilize both the sidebar widgets and static pages to drive web traffic to your IDX. Again, let’s look at CondoBeacon.com. The sidebar has buttons, a quick search box and quick search links; which is present on almost every page. The sidebar is responsible for over half of the clicks on condobeacon.
WordPress makes adding pages and posts very easy, so as long as the IDX you are using was built with somewhat modern code, there shouldn’t be any problems.
A few things to remember:
1. Not all IDX companies are equal. Be sure of what you want your IDX to do, and ask a lot of questions before you decide which is best for you and your business.
2. WordPress and your IDX may look seamless, but they are two different websites working together.
3. Leverage your IDX; send your buyers there to do their own searches when applicable. It will save you time and will probably do a better job of updating your buyers of the market then you will.
4. Try to use the IDX in pages, posts and sidebar widgets. Consumers are on your site to see homes, don’t make it hard for them or they will leave!
Any questions?
