Why are IDX (and MLS) plugins necessary for real estate website success? It’s no secret that real estate agents can significantly benefit from having their own personal website, not just any old web presence will do.
As a real estate professional, you want to create a beautiful, content-driven website that drives traffic and increases leads. However, you also want to ensure that your potential clients are getting their eyes on the most current listing information through the MLS database.
Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. This is where the IDX plugin comes in.
If you’re not using an IDX plugin in conjunction with your real estate website, you’re not using the power of the Internet to its fullest potential. Learn more about five reasons why IDX plugins are necessary to create a successful real estate website as a real estate agent.
1. Direct Data
An IDX plugin offers MLS data directly through your real estate website. IDX, or Internet Data Exchange, represents a system of software tools, protocols, rules, and WordPress plugins for real estate websites regulated by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
An IDX plugin is an MLS plugin for websites that allows you to display up-to-date MLS listings on your real estate website without sending visitors to a third-party site. A real estate website with an IDX plugin will allow buyers to search for properties and filter results based on an array of options like size, bedroom count, price, location, etc.
In other words, you can deliver MLS data directly to prospective buyers with an IDX plugin. This is beneficial not only to the buyers, but also to you!
2. Saves valuable time
There’s no doubt that today’s WordPress website builders help professionals across all industries develop stunning custom websites. However, for real estate agents, migrating current MLS listings into their websites has long been a challenge, to say the least.
The old way of designing custom posts for individual listings and inputting properties one by one wastes valuable time that could be spent on other significant marketing efforts.
Fortunately, WordPress plugins for real estate websites exist to ease that burden, such as the VistaWP plugin that offers several features in one.
3. IDX Plugin and SEO
Every real estate agent recognizes the importance of having quality content to boost organic search engine optimization (SEO) and drive the traffic necessary for online success. When you offer a reliable MLS property search function using a real estate CRM plugin, you will immediately improve your website’s authority by keeping visitors around longer and giving them reasons to continue to come back.
When it comes to SEO, you’ll want to choose a real estate plugin that allows you to incorporate MLS listings into every piece of online content, whether it’s a landing page or a blog post. You’ll also want a WordPress IDX plugin that doesn’t slow down your website, which can hinder your SEO efforts.
4. Establishes Authority and Broadens Your Reach
Beyond your SEO efforts, having a real estate website without an IDX plugin, which essentially means you don’t have an MLS search option, is like having no website at all. In other words, your site is useless.
While that may sound harsh, especially if you spend a lot of time uploading your own listings, without an MLS plugin for your website you simply cannot compete with your competitors.
Sure, your priority should be your own clients’ listings, but focusing exclusively on those listings will stunt your long-term growth.
5. MLS Plugins for Websites Keep Getting Better
You’ll find quite a few WordPress plugins for real estate websites on the market today that directly integrate the MLS database into your website. Unfortunately, many of the most popular, established real estate plugins have many shortcomings. For example, many WordPress IDX plugins use dated templates that will make your website look like everyone else’s.
You want your real estate website to stand out and you need a tool that will allow you to stylize and customize a website that reflects you and your brand. VistaWP, the market’s newest and best real estate plugin, does just that and much more.
VistaWP is a WordPress IDX plugin that truly changes how real estate websites are built by liberating your MLS data and turning it into a robust framework for your real estate website.
Learn more about the VistaWP IDX plugin and how it can improve your real estate website.
