Today’s home shopping consumers are a lot more “web-savvy” than they were many years ago. In today’s world of Internet-driven real estate search, having a presence is more important than ever. Having a presence and providing value is even more important. We know that 85-90% of today’s consumers begin their home search on the web….before ever contacting an agent.
Are you providing today’s “web-savvy”, internet-driven consumer a value-added solution in the form of a website equipped with an IDX search? If not, here are three reasons why you want to have a custom site with an IDX feed.
1. Help Your Potential Clients FIND, Not Just SEARCH For A Home
There are plenty of places for one to go and “search” for a home on the internet, right? But you don’t just want to help someone search.
You want to help them find a home – that’s where the magic happens.
That’s where the beauty of this business kicks in. Finding a home means opening a door. Finding a home means taking a tour. Finding a home means someone falling in love and writing an offer!
A custom website with a high quality, integrated IDX solution gives you that ability. That enables you to provide more information – in a focused manner. Beyond that, it helps visitors on your site get more detailed results so they’ll find exactly what they’re looking for. Learn about all the features of our IDX solution.
For example, you can create community pages with links for homes in specific price ranges – or within a certain location criteria (gated community, golf course, lake front).
Offering custom search forms to find townhomes in downtown, or farm and ranch properties in urban areas, make it easier for your visitors to find a property.
This delivers a much better experience and more accurate results, making it a much better alternative to searching through thousands of listings.
By doing this, you give the consumer a feel of comfort in your area of expertise and they become more likely to contact you for a showing of a property they found, not just using your site for an endless search.
2. MLS via IDX – Be The Source
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or enjoying pina coladas on the beach this past week, you heard the news about the upcoming potential merger of the two biggest “home search” sites out there.
We have all, to a certain extent, probably participated in the banter about the lacking accuracy of many of the third-party sites and how they display listing data to he consumer.
By creating a site with an IDX feed from your MLS, it makes your site authoritative. The source is not only correct, but up-to-date with information on homes that are actually currently on the market.
IDX is a type of data feed provided by your MLS membership. This data feed typically mirrors the data available inside the MLS and gets pushed to your site through IDX.
If your MLS provides access to this data feed, you may use that access to promote ALL listings available in your MLS on your website – not just your own featured listings. Its your (and the consumer’s) connection to the source. See all of our curent MLS feeds.
3. Capture Leads and Build Relationships
‘Lead capture’ is a dirty phrase to some, but let’s call it what it is. When a consumer or ‘lead’ visits a website and wants to move forward by making contact with you – the person who helped them find a home (not search), and has access to the source of all the listings in the MLS – how do they do that? They fill out a lead capture form inside your website.
Creating a form that allows the lead to contact you about a specific property they found is a great way to capture their information and make that initial contact.
Converting that captured lead into a client is another topic for another post, but the initial contact is made by giving them a way to say “Hello, I’d like more information on this property” OR “Hey, I want to see this house!”.
If you aren’t providing a way for a lead to reach out when they have found a home, you are losing vital opportunities to build those relationships that turn into closed transactions.
Having a quality IDX provider will also allow you to set up email reminders and announcements when a home that meets their criteria has been listed, an opportunity for you to reach back out and shake a hand again (virtually of course).
Giving today’s savvy consumers a place to find a home (rather than just search) where they can be confident it comes from the source, is a great way to capture those important leads that we all know are out there perusing the internet.
Creating a beautiful website with community pages, custom search options, and email updates on properties hitting the market, is a great way to win in today’s flooded internet space. Not to mention, it’s a great place for you to share more about who you are and why you love this business.
IDX Broker can help by providing you with a full featured IDX solution that gives endless tools the consumer will love, as well as features to make it easier for you to be found, and to convert those leads into clients. Learn more >>
This post was written by IDX Brand Evangelist Ryan Bokros.
