Why You Need IDX on Your Real Estate Website

You’ve probably come across many articles, bloggers, and some internet marketers saying you don’t need IDX on your real estate website. Their reason is that the top 10 real estate websites led by Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com, account for about half of all real estate website traffic, and therefore, it is “useless” and “a waste of money” to try to compete with them.

The term IDX gets thrown around a lot. When people hear IDX, they automatically think it’s just home search for your real estate website. While property search is the main component of IDX, many don’t realize how to utilize it to the fullest and the valuable lead generating tools it provides.

Besides providing home search on your real estate website, I’m going to explain some reasons why IDX is a must-have for any real estate website.

“Product” of Your Business

When speaking to real estate professionals, I always make this analogy. As a real estate professional you are a business. You can think of your real estate website as your “store”. The MLS listings on your website is your “inventory”. The listings are all the products that exist in your “store” where visitors can browse around and purchase. What happens when you have somebody visit your “store” but you have no product to offer? That person would do exactly what you and I would do…leave and go somewhere else where there is product to look at and possibly purchase.

These are valuable leads you will be losing if you don’t have IDX on your real estate website. Unless you are solely generating business on referrals, your real estate website (store) must have IDX (product).

You Can Build Listing Pages

IDX gives you access to all the hundreds to thousands of listings in your MLS. Like I mentioned above, this is your inventory, and it’s like having thousands of products on your website.

Having access to all the listings, you can create listing pages that focus on a specific search criteria. For example, you can create a listing page that shows all listings under a specific price. Or you can create a listing page that displays listings in a specific subdivision, area, community, or school district. These listing pages provide a better experience for users in that they help direct your real estate website visitors to listings they are looking for. Even more valuable is that these listing pages are search engine friendly which is what I will talk about next.

Generate Leads from Google Search

All of your IDX pages that Profusion360 provide are SEO friendly and are indexed by Google, Bing, and all other major search engines. This means all the listing pages within the IDX system are indexed by Google and is excellent source of organic leads. For example, for one of our clients, we created an IDX page that displays homes for sale in the school district of Squires Elementary.

Look at what happens when you Google
“Homes for Sale Squires Elementary School District”

Yes, our client using our website with IDX is ranked #1 out of 1,640,000 Google search results above Zillow and Realtor.com!

With IDX you can build hundreds of these real estate listings pages and all of them will appear in Google search results! Do you still think you can’t compete with Zillow?

Platform and Tools for Your Clients

IDX is much more that just property search for your real estate website. Many oversee or are unaware of the valuable tools that you will be providing to your clients. IDX takes your real estate website to the next level by providing a platform for your clients. Your website visitors can create an account right on your real estate website to utilize the IDX tools such as saving favorite listings and favorite searches. It’s an experience that your clients expect and will always come back to.

Automatically Email Latest Listings to Your Leads

An IDX system will be able to send your leads the latest listings automatically by email based on their search criteria. You can think of this as lead nurturing with listings. The user can define searches themselves right on your real estate website in which they want to receive the latest listings for. This is a completely automated process that will stay in touch with all your leads. When they see a listing they are interested in, they just contact you.

A Place for Your Existing Clients to Come Back To

It will cost you six to seven times more to obtain a new client than keep an existing one. Your existing clients are the key to the success of your real estate business. If you provide excellent to them, they will come back to you, and more importantly, will tell others about you. 75% of a real estate agent’s business will come from referrals.

Your existing clients will come back to you because they trust your service. If you have property search on your real estate website, they will use your website because it’s familiar to them, and they most likely will already have an account in your IDX system. For anybody that is referred to you, your real estate website must allow them to  perform property searches and the tools to assist them such as saving searches and favorite listings along with listings by email.

If you don’t provide home search on your real estate website where will all your clients go? Yes…somewhere else.

But I’m Generating All My Leads From Zillow and Trulia….

Using Zillow and Trulia is a great place to generate leads. Using your leads from Zillow and Trulia in conjunction with IDX is even more powerful! When you get a lead from Zillow/Trulia, you are give the lead’s search criteria. You can enter the lead into your IDX system and have your IDX system automatically send the latest listings by email.

Also, any existing clients you’ve initially obtained from Zillow and Trulia you’ll want to direct them to your very own real estate website and have them use your search tools. As mentioned above, retaining your existing clients cost much less than trying to obtain new ones, plus the benefits of referrals.

Remember, Zillow and Trulia is a marketplace promoting other real estate agents. You are competing with hundreds of other real estate agents for leads. If you are directing your clients to Zillow and Trulia you are risking losing them.

Offering a Much More Personal Experience

Large real estate websites such as Zillow and realtor.com are very commercialized and can be intimidating to a user. Your real estate website is much more personable and offers trust and a level of comfort. Since your real estate website will be focused on an area, this will also be much more familiar to your website visitors as they will know you are an real estate expert in the area they are looking to purchase.

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 with IDX, you create a very effective and powerful lead generating system.

You can create listing pages within IDX and utilize those pages for your landing pages. For example, you can promote a landing page that gives users access to all homes under $600K in the city of Clairemont. When a lead completes the form of your landing page, you can direct them to a listing page in your IDX system that displays these listings. Without IDX on your real estate website, a system like this would not be possible.

Your Listings on Your Real Estate Website

Displaying your own listings on your real estate website is an absolute must. With IDX, all of your listings will automatically appear on your real estate website. Your listings will always be up-to-date because it’s a feed from the MLS. You don’t want to have to manually add, remove, or change the status of your listings. This would take too much of your time and it would cost more to manage your listings that having IDX on your real estate website.

Syncing Listings into Profusion360

If you are a Profusion360 customer with IDX, your listings will automatically be synced into our marketing platform. This is a huge time saver as you won’t have to enter listings manually and you can immediately take advantage of all our our listing marketing such as virtual tours, property websites, landing pages, showing feedback flyers, ad generator, and more.

Do you need IDX on your real estate website? YES. IDX is a must-have for your real estate website for all the reasons mentioned above. It’s much more than just having property search on your real estate website. The cost of having IDX on your real estate website is very minute compared to all the benefits you will get from it. Closing just one deal generated from your real estate website with IDX can pay for your IDX and website service for 5-10 years!

All you have to do is look at the real estate websites of the most successful real estate agents. Do they have IDX on their real estate website?

About Profusion360
Profusion360 provides a real estate marketing platform for real estate agents, teams, offices, and brokers. To learn more about Profusion360’s real estate websites and IDX service, please visit www.profusion360.com

If you have any questions about IDX and real estate websites, please email us at info@profusion360.com