7 Ways to Get More From Your IDX Site 

A little sweat-equity will bring more buyers and sellers to your IDX website.

IDX websites; we know ‘em, we build ‘em, we love ‘em! We also know that not everyone gets the most out of their IDX site. Sure, having a way for clients to view listings on your site is important, but what do you get out of it? We’ve pulled together our top ways to turn your IDX site into the star of your marketing, lead gen, and client retention efforts!

1. Use landing pages.

When it comes to the primary areas you work in, landing pages go a long way. Having a space dedicated to a specific neighborhood with real-time IDX results keeps users (and Google) coming back for updates. It’s also a great way to highlight your love of your specific region. Niche-area landing pages help potential customers easily find homes and information about the neighborhoods they want.

2. Send in-search links to clients and prospects.

A good IDX site will make it easy for potential buyers to see relevant listings in just a few clicks. Generally speaking, you’ll have an idea of what your potential clients are looking for. So why not take a few minutes to set up a search for them - filter it by the area they want, price range, number of bedrooms, etc. - then send them a link to the already populated search.  This gets them from your email to live, relevant listings in one click.

Setting up a search (if you have a modern, powerful IDX) is a quick and easy way to help your clients do some online digging. It also shows them that you’re paying attention AND can be a resource on and offline. Instead of clients getting lost down the Zillow wormhole, you can send them a targeted search that will actually help.

This also works well with prospects. If you know a general area or type of house someone might be interested in, sending them a sales email with a pre-populated search puts you a step ahead. (This also helps weed out people who just want to browse houses for fun.)

3. Make use of your property details pages.

A good IDX site should have a lot of useful functionality on property detail pages. One of the best functions is the ability to easily share listings. Having buttons to share info about a property directly to social media or via email makes it easy for clients and prospects to send listings they’re interested in to friends, family, or their agent (aka you!)

Share buttons are also great for posting listings to your own social media accounts. 

Bonus tip: when you share a listing on social media, the link will automatically pull the first photo from the listing into your post. If that’s not the best image, be sure to replace it with a better one!

4. Blog!

Adding content to your site is one of the most important ways to grow your site's presence. If you want Google (and other search engines) to pull your site to the top of their results, you need content! Having an IDX search is useful once someone finds your site, but if you want them to find you in the first place, you’re gonna need content. Blogging is one of the best ways to add a significant amount of content across lots of topic areas. 

You can write about the neighborhoods you work in, share interview testimonials with past customers, write Q&A posts for first time buyers or how-to’s for staging a home, share updates about your open houses... the list goes on and on. The key to a successful blog is making it useful! What does your target audience need to know? What interests them? By writing according to their needs, your blog becomes a source of information that draws people to your site.

5. Share all of your tools.

Sure, your clients are looking to buy or sell a house. But there’s A LOT that goes with that! They need more than just listings and open houses. So share everything you’ve got! A quality IDX site will come with other resources, like a mortgage calculator. Ours also includes a drive-time estimator on every listing detail page, which is a great way for potential buyers to easily track how a listing would fit into their daily routine. 

We also recommend having a resources page with links to relevant information buyers and sellers might need - tax information for the area, county records, Yelp or Tripadvisor lists of things to do in the area, etc. Think about what would help someone moving into a new area and fill the page up with links and resources they can turn to.

6. Enhance your featured listings.

IDX sites pull listing information from the MLS, which only provides the basics. If you have a video, virtual tour, or other additions for your featured listings, a good IDX site will have a way to easily add these enhancements. The more information you can provide before a potential buyer even sets foot on the property, the better!

7. Know your site’s features, then share your knowledge!

Finally, one of the best ways to get the most from your IDX is to be extremely familiar with all of the cool tools, bells, and whistles it provides. Once you know the ins and outs of your system, share “Did you know” updates to your social media pages or blog to let others know about your site’s capabilities. Lots of professionals boast that their site has the ability to search the whole MLS, but few think to mention other useful features like the mortgage calculator or drive time estimator which are extremely valuable for users.

Bottom Line

People use sites like Zillow out of convenience. So if you have a site that’s easier to use and offers better tools, they’ll be more than happy to stop searching elsewhere and use yours instead. The key to getting the most from your IDX site is to make it a useful, easy-to-navigate space that buyers and sellers can rely on. And if your current IDX site isn’t capable of all of these things...it might be time to look for something new.