Do You Need IDX for Your Real Estate Website?
You've probably read articles, bloggers, and others on the internet that say that you don't require IDX on your real estate website briansclub. The reason they say this is because the most popular real estate websites that are led by Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com, account for about 50% of the traffic on websites therefore, it's "useless" and "a waste of money" to try to compete with them.
The term IDX is thrown around a lot. When people come across IDX and think of IDX, they immediately think it's just searching for homes on your real estate website. While property search is indeed the most important aspect of IDX but many aren't aware of how to utilize it to the maximum extent and the powerful lead-generating tools it can provide.
Besides providing home search on your website, I'm going to explain some reasons why IDX is a must-have to any real estate site.
"Product" of Your Business
When talking to real estate professionals I often use this analogy. As an agent in the real estate industry, you're a business. Consider your real estate website in the same way as an online "store". The MLS listings you display on your website are your "inventory". The listings are all the products that exist within the "store" where visitors can browse through and purchase. What happens if you have somebody visit the "store" but you have no merchandise to sell? That person would exactly the same thing as you and I would have to do... quit and go somewhere else where there's products to browse and perhaps purchase.
These are valuable leads you'll lose when you don't have IDX to your real property website. If you're not merely generating leads through referrals, your site (store) must have an IDX (product).
You Can Create Listing Pages
IDX allows you to access every single one of the hundreds to thousands of listings on your MLS. In the same way it's your inventory, and it's equivalent to having thousands of listings on your site.
Having access to all the listings, you can make pages of listings that target certain search criteria. For instance, you could make a listing page that shows all listings under a specific price. You can also create a listing page that displays the listings of a specific subdivision, community or school district. Listing pages are more user-friendly experience by directing your visitors on your real estate website to the properties they're looking for. Additionally, these listing pages are engine friendly , which is the reason I will talk about next.
Create Leads by leveraging Google Search
Each of the IDX pages that the platform offers are SEO-friendly and are found by Google, Bing, and all the other major search engines. This means all the listing pages on this IDX system are crawled by Google and is a fantastic lead source for organic traffic. For instance for the client we have, we created an IDX page that displays homes for sale in Squires Elementary. area of Squires Elementary.
See the results you get when you Google
"Homes for Sale Squires Elementary School District"
Yes, our customer using our website and IDX is ranked as the #1 result out of 1,640,000 Google search results . This is above Zillow and Realtor.com!
By using IDX you can build thousands of real estate listing pages, and they all will appear as Google listings! Are you still believe you're not competitive in the same way as Zillow?
Platform and Tools for Your Clients
IDX is much more that simply a property search on your real estate site. Many oversee or are unaware of the powerful tools you can offer to your customers. IDX is a way to take your real-estate websites to the next level by offering a platform for your clients. Visitors to your website can sign up for an account right on your website to utilize the IDX tools like keeping their favorite listings and searches. This is a service that your clients expect and will always be returning to.
Automatically email the latest listings to your Leads
An IDX system will allow you to give your leads the most current listings automatically by email in accordance with their search criteria. You can think of this as lead nurturing with listings. The user can define searches themselves right on your website for which they wish to receive the most up-to-date listings for. It is an entirely automated process that will stay connected to all your leads. When they come across a post they're interested in, they just contact you.
A Space for Your Current Clients to Come Back To
If you've built a relationship with your current clients, they will use the website for realtors when looking to purchase a home again. They trust you already and your website is familiar to them. They'll have an account with your IDX system where they can just log in to perform their searches and make use of the tools you provide. If you don't provide home search on your real estate website where do your customers go? Sure... someplace else.
Landing Pages + IDX = Powerful Lead Generation
Utilizing landing pages is a very popular method of generating leads, especially on Facebook. When you combine landing pages and IDX, you create an extremely effective and efficient lead-generation system.
You can create listing pages within IDX and utilize those pages to build landing pages. For example, you can create a landing site that allows users to access all homes under $600K in the City of Clairemont. If a potential buyer fills out the form on the landing page you could guide them to a listing page in your IDX system, which displays these listings. If you didn't have IDX on your real estate site, an IDX system like this wouldn't be feasible.
The Experience is more personal. Experience
Real estate websites with large scale such as Zillow and realtor.com are extremely commercialized and may appear intimidating for a potential buyer. Your website is far more personable and offers confidence and confidence. Since your website is focused on an area it will be more familiar to your website's visitors, as they know you are a real estate professional in the region they are trying to purchase.
Do you need IDX on your real estate website? Yes. IDX is a necessity for your site for all the reasons mentioned above. It is a cost to have IDX on your website is minimal compared to every benefit you get from it. The closing of just one sale by your website using IDX will pay for your IDX as well as website hosting for five to ten years!
All you need to do is look at their websites to find the most successful real estate agents. Does the agent have an IDX listed on their real estate websites?
