Do you want your real estate website to become the most trusted source for local online real estate listings?
While accomplishing this feat may be a big challenge, a little investment can go a long way to pave the road for success for your real estate business. Today, realtors can leverage technology to generate an impressive amount of leads through websites.
How to Generate More Leads Online
The answer to this question is IDX or Internet Data Exchange. The term is also popular as Broker Reciprocity. Technically, IDX is a policy from NAR. However, most marketers and real estate agents use the term for referring to the software and tools that:
- Offer consumers a convenient way to search for active listings
- Allow consumers to choose their real estate professionals and protect their information (budget, contact details, etc.)
- Display MLS listing on agent websites
Today’s realtors can allow consumers to access all MLS data through their websites. That means you don’t have to redirect your potential clients to the local MLS or a third-party listing service. IDX keeps them on your real estate website.
Features
Strategic Agent can empower your real estate business by offering full-featured integrated IDX websites. Here is an overview of the features your real estate website must have and benefits for your visitors and potential clients.
- Real Estate Website Lead Capture
- Real Estate Listing Alerts
- Interactive Map Search: A Perfect Tool for Real Estate
- Custom Page for Local Real Estate Market
- Market Snapshot Widget
- Personal Brand on All Listings
- Featured Homes Widgets
- Mobile-Friendly Search
Real Estate Website Lead Capture
You don’t want users to use your real estate website for just searching for different properties. You can leave your IDX’ open,’ which means users can search all day without submitting their information. However, your website’s actual purpose is to generate leads. For that reason, you can limit free searches and require users to sign-up before they can continue with their search. Choosing this option generates the most leads from your IDX.
Offer an attractive incentive such as offering a ‘VIP membership’ to the users in exchange for their information.
Real Estate Listing Alerts
Once you successfully sign up potential clients on your own branded real estate website, you can send them real estate listings every day. These emails go with your photo, your contact information, and features information about all new, sold, and active listings.
Imagine the leads you generate if one or all the recipients check out the listings, modify their search criteria, or email/call you to schedule a showing. This can happen every day as soon as your website sends out these emails to your prospects once a day, week, or month. Here is a rundown of the benefits of this feature.
- You and your clients can send the listings conveniently
- Every email can have thumbnail photos of every home
- Clients can create new or modify existing searches
Interactive Map Search: A Perfect Tool for Real Estate
How can you not benefit from the world’s best map search system as a real estate agency? Today, users prefer viewing a map when searching for properties. An interactive map search allows them to click on a home icon for accessing basic information about a property. A small thumbnail image also pops up to offer a glimpse.
If users want more information, they can also access a detailed page featuring photos and specs of the property. IDX allows real estate websites to incorporate this functionality and make information access quick and easy.
Custom Page for Local Real Estate Market
There are over a million real estate agent websites in the U.S. Thus; your website must stand out by providing an intuitive and user-friendly experience in such fierce competition. The first thing to do is to incorporate visually attractive IDX Property Search on your real estate website.
It would be best if you worked on branding your company as a local real estate expert. Our innovative real estate website solutions guarantee that your users search for their desired homes, and your company establishes authority as local experts through our efficient custom market link creator system.
Market Snapshot Widget
This widget allows users to view what’s new in the local real estate market. They can check for recent listings or properties listed within the last thirty days. This feature allows users to go directly to new, changed, or sold listings through the active Google Map results page. If you have more than one market and want to display it on your website, create a new page. Add another snapshot widget to that page and add some content or a grid to your new page.
This functionality serves multiple purposes, such as:
- Highlighting your main market on your home page
- Adding separate market snapshots for customizing interior pages
- Showing activities corresponding to different slots (last thirty days, this week, and today)
- Displaying new and sold listings and any changes in the price
- Redirecting users to the actual listings
Personal Brand on All Listings
Another great benefit of our websites is that you have the power to brand yourself as a successful real estate professional.
Your contact information and pictures will be with every listing in your MLS. If a user searches for a home or a buyer, you will present yourself professionally on every page of your IDX MLS Search system. Such unique branding is sure to instill confidence in your prospects and establishes your authority as an expert in your local real estate market. However, this branding is not just limited to search pages.
With integrated branded listing alerts, each automated email that goes to your prospects features your personal information and contact information.
Featured Homes Widgets
If you like to have tons of pictures on your inner pages and your home pages, we guarantee that your website is just the way you want. The Featured Homes Grid displays multiple home images in a beautiful grid. You can add any grid to a new page to highlight a property type or an area and include some content about the properties. As homes will update in your MLS, these pages will mechanically update. This feature adds a visually engaging element to your website and works great on smartphones and tablets.
When you add these functional widgets to your homepage along with search parameters, your website is sure to rank higher on Google and other popular search engines. Add customized descriptions and Meta Tags for optimizing your content. You can index all listings on Google.
Mobile-Friendly Search
What’s a real estate agent website if it is not mobile responsive. Not too long ago, Google began penalizing websites that could not fit into mobile devices. No matter how many features and functionalities you incorporate into your real estate website. If it’s not optimized for tablets and mobiles, you can’t reach maximum users. Simplified navigation makes it easier for mobile users to access information within a few clicks. Ensure all images resize to fit correctly on the device, and your potential clients can stay on your website for hours.
Final Thoughts
At Strategic Agent, we offer intelligent and affordable mobile responsive websites to take your real estate business to new heights. We offer affordable and customized solutions to create full-featured integrated IDX websites. Whether you are an aspiring or an already established real estate agent, get in touch with us to turn your real estate website into a lead generation magnet. For more information feel free to call us at 805-413-7895.