Real Estate IDX Blog

I will talk about lots of things in my posts but the best thing I can do is show you actual working examples of what IDX should be.

www.magicvalleyrealty.com  has the latest features integrated into the site.

This site has many features you won't find available on other IDX vendor sites.  Their marketing director adds content and extras all the time.  There are certain areas available for editing by you on my sites that make them unique.

This site uses piclens and has the video instructions overlayed on the site from youtube.com  This will show the use of video, piclens and the new www.walkscore.com features integrated into the site.

www.johnhurbon.com has all features being added to that system in Arizona now and is a great example of IDX in Arizona.

Next step is integrating the 360 type panoramas into the mix as well.  I allow you to add things others don't and You can add them for free.  No more extra cash for virtual tours when my system does it for you. 

Generic Virtual tour pages are also available if your MLS doesn't allow you to link to your web site tour. 

Remember I have been doing this for 11 years.  I almost know what I am doing.  lol

Are you the AE of your local MLS association?

Do you know what the benefits of having all your listings available to the public?

What does it do for your membership?

www.pocatellorealestateonline.com is an example of Pocatello Real Estate.

Every member is on with profiles, photos, agent inventories

Every member gets credit for their listings.

Sellers know you are doing more.

Buyers have another source to find your listings.

Link to your personal web sites and office websites.

Listings updated daily or when feeds are available.

Great way to get all the offices and agents online and add an invaluable tool to everyone.

This site in the last year has shown to potential buyers over 1,000,000 properties.  This number is on the low side and only counts the full detail pages shown.  (I don't count when a property is shown on the front page or in the search results...Only full details in this statistic.)  When 300 people a day use a site, you know it is working.

I can set up your MLS Association in a matter of days if you are interested.

One of the biggest things that seems to be happening online is the change of Open House advertising.

I can integrate your open house marketing into your site and help you create a site dedicated to your open houses.  Advertise a little in the paper promoting your open house site and you will see a dramatic increase in your web traffic online during those weekends.  (reports to prove this).

www.twinfallsopenhouse.com is a custom domain name that a company uses to promote their open house schedule in the local paper.  They promote the Dot Com and or the open houses, just depends on the week. Great way to eliminate those who are not really interested in the property and those who are.  Why not provide nice images, a map to the property and some details before they stop by and see it in person.

It won't be long until the actual open house is a thing of the past once your associations start allowing more photos of each property to be added to your listings. 

People are already purchasing homes via photos online.  Ask Rick with www.soldonmontana.com who sells luxury homes in Big Fork Montana.

I don't do his IDX but I did do his overall site.  Rick Brunette has a great clientel that he caters to and is a very good REALTOR in Montana. He sells the lifestyle and imagery of Montana.  Check out his site and see, smell, and taste the images of Montana with Professional Photos from local photographers and some of family vacations.

Brian Blake  www.my-mlsonline.com

Want an Idea of what piclens can do?

I have put a little example of what pic lens can do with possibly a company or MLS wide inventory.

http://www.pocatellorealestateonline.com/gallery-pocatello-all.php

This is a rough example of an mls application underway. This will load 500 images at a time so beware you will need a high speed connection.  Get the piclens plug in first at www.piclens.com.  You only need to do this one time and it can be used on many different sites.  And Yes.  there is a link possibility at the top of the viewer.  Click on the circle with an arrow in it at the top left of the full screen display.

Install it.  Close all web browsers and go to the links provided here to see the examples.

I have another one at www.my-mlsonline.com  Click on example sites and then click on the view slide show.  This is the web only interface that doesn't require anyone to install the piclens plugin and also allows you to add video to this feed. (custom setup).  So you can show your house photos and end with your TV commercial or any video you want. 

The examples are really big so be patient and you will see the possibilities.  The examples from my-mlsonline finish with one of my tv commercials at the end.  Very cool and will get better with time and optimization but you will see the potential of effective use of advertising at no extra cost.  Remember you paid for the TV commercial once. Let it run for free on your site, youtube, and all the others.   

Let your money and marketing work while you sleep.

Brian Blake www.my-mlsonline.com

Content, Content, Content

If you want your site to get indexed into all major search engines you must first and foremost have good quality content on the site that search engines can read.  This means limit your graphics and add more words and text and descriptions.  The more text links and content that relates to your topic the better.  This technique will get you massive amounts of links indexed in search engines and increase your chances of being found online.

To get started do what I do.  Use www.webceo.com to analyse your site and it's content.  Then run reports and see where you stack up against your competition. 

Get statistics tracking on your site from Google.com/Analytics and really start to see what people are interested in and where your business comes from.  I can send you some really impressive reports if you are interested in how it all works.

By having the right IDX site you can achieve tens of thousands of pages indexed in search engines.  Not just a couple like the standard framed IDX site has.  Remember...when you have a site and it frames another URL it acutally doesn't improve your search engine rankings.  It will index the site that provides your IDX not your actual dot com name.

So the more content you can get behind your URL the better.  Example... http://www.twinfallssubdivisions.com has thousands of links in search engines.  This is a custom site I do for this agent. Actually they maintain most of the content and extras. 

So if you want to really have a huge impact get a custom site and get thousands of pages that run on your dot com and submit to every site you can.

The more content the better your chances are of being found.  And if it is all good content the public wants you are going to do better than your competition by far.

I do offer framing of IDX but also more custom sites that suit your personality and style. 

The standard is a free setup and the customs do cost a bit more. 

I know this is a little scatterd but I have limited time lately.  Ask any questions you like.

Brian Blake  www.my-mlsonline.com

Want to really show people why they would want to buy a house in your community?

First you have to learn how to use many video sites.  http://www.youtube.com/ for example is really easy to use and add your TV commercials and videos created by you or for you by a professional.

Post your vids to your free account at http://www.youtube.com/ and all other video sites and make sure you add your URL to your site.  http://www.my-mlsonline.com/

Videos of your community are a great way to show people what others think of the community. NOT JUST YOU. 

Here is a sample page of a site with video integration... Youtube.com, Google Video and more.

Now I am not talking about Linking out to another site.  I am talking about a wow presentation of video like this.

http://www.twinfallssubdivisions.com/videos.php?agent=5021&userID=&wp_cat=video

Brian Blake www.my-mlsonline.com

Get your message out as soon as possible and to as many good sites as possible.  FREE blogs are a great way to do this.  Here are a few I use and have found very easy to use and have more features added all the time.

www.blogger.com is powered and owned by google.com

www.wordpress.org is a good one.

www.activerain.com is always great.

www.myspace.com is tossing traffic my way more and more.  Remember these kids that have grown up on MySpace in the last few years are now going to be purchasing homes.  Many are 18, 19 and up and are now in the market to buy their first homes.  Talk about a captive audience.

www.photobucket.com great for photos and slideshows.

www.flickr.com

www.youtube.com

http://video.google.com and any other video sharing site out there.

Go out and find the big sites and get free accounts with them and put your information on there.  Link to your site and link your site back to these.  You will be amazed at how it grows your Internet rankings and status.

Do you know the difference between framing your IDX search and having a site that completely Integrates the IDX?

Do you have questions about Real Estate IDX and Real estate websites?

Do you want to know if your site is doing a good job?

Do you know what your rankings are?

What are your questions?  Please waste my time and ask away I can be of assistance.

11 years experience in the Real Estate web site development industry and nearly 7 of those years as an active buyers and listing agent licensed in Idaho. Currently Not an agent ( I just work for all of them)

I want your business. Ask away.

Brian Blake  www.my-mlsonline.com

One of the fastest growing technologies is the XML RSS Feed.

These are fantastic on real estate sites because it gives you the same abilities as the huge sites with live news and content on them.

With virtually all our packages you can add news, weather, articles, or anything that may be of interest to your web site visitors.  Add local news headlines and more to keep your customers happy and coming back to your site day after day.  Give them a reason to come back.

 Example of local news on an agent site can be found at http://www.johnhurbon.com/ or http://www.arizonahomepix.com/ and many more at http://www.my-mlsonline.com/

Don't kid yourself.  If you don't know what RSS is and think it isn't important you will be left behind in the real estate marketing game.

To learn more about what RSS is please watch this video at http://www.youtube.com/

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

Brian

Looking for a really good, simple yet wow Virtual Tour?

www.photobucket.com is a fantastic place to build your virtual tours.

Once you have figured out how to make a nice little tour you should be able to add that slideshow to your blogs and sites.  With my-mlsonline.com you can actually add extra tours and links and all kinds of fun stuff to your listings from many different web services.  Photobucket is just one of many.  Here is an example of a simple slide show that will show you some of the sites created by me in the past and present.