Since Sam was talking about the difference he saw when he added a fully-functional IDX MLS search to his website, I thought I’d continue with that theme.  It’s true – the better home search you have on your site, the more loyalty you’ll get from your visitors!

Custom MLS Searches

Getting someone to build a search for you is one option.  Since this option is a bit pricey for many, and since there are third-party vendors that provide good searches, this post will focus on the MLS and third-party vendor alternatives.   

Home Search from Your MLS

The easiest way to get an MLS search on your website is to get one from your MLS organization.  It might even be free.  There are some MLS organizations that are providing a feature-rich search, but those are few and far between.  Since I don’t want to pick on any one MLS, there are no examples in this post.

At a very basic level, a home search will typically let the visitor select criteria such as location, home price, etc.  But, it’s difficult to be really competitive in your market with such a search because there are usually other much more helpful searches available.

Note that I said usually.  There are still MLSs that do not share their data with any third-party vendors.  There are also MLSs that say they don’t share with third-party vendors, but actually they do.  So, it’s always best to research the issue before you decide you don’t have any alternatives.

Third-Party Vendors

Third-party vendors are companies who do nothing but create IDX MLS search facilities for use in real estate websites.  There are lots of them out there.  In some less-populated areas, you may find local third-party vendors.  And, some of those folks do a good job – pretty similar to the large vendors in the industry.

For larger MLSs, there are a number of national vendors that may have an existing agreement with your MLS to provide a search for your area.  I won’t try to list them all here.  There are a couple that I think are especially worth considering because they have good support, feature-rich searches and reasonable prices.  The objective is to give you an idea of what may be available to you if you’re currently using a pretty simple search.

Advantages of a Feature-Rich IDX MLS Search
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A question came up the other day, while I was talking to a client, about what should be on the home page of a real estate website.  Here are some things I’ve found to be important.

1.  Attracting Attention – You only have a few seconds to attract someone’s attention to encourage them to stay on your site.

Things that can help:

•  A clear indication of what the site is all about.  The first thing your visitor wants to know is whether they’ve landed on a site that meets their needs.  So, if you’re consulting on Atlanta Real Estate, that should be one of the first things your visitors see. 
• A professional design.  Make sure your design speaks to your customer base.  One agent I talked to recently asked about flashing FREE buttons on a site he’d seen.  We talked about the customer base the agent wanted to attract, and decided that his customer base probably wouldn’t be impressed by flashing FREE buttons.  Put yourself in your prospects shoes and design for them.
• Graphic “buttons” that direct visitors to the key pages of your site.  Key pages are things like an MLS search, community information, market information and any other compelling offers you’ve added to the site that will make it darn near impossible for people not to sign up to get it.  Graphic buttons make staying on your site easy.  Visitors don’t have to read anything, just click and go
• Clear and easy navigation.  My preference is to have one location/menu where a visitor can get to any page on the site.

Things that can hurt:

• Too many choices.  I know you have a lot of information you want to provide.  But, offering too many choices can be a problem.  If a site is too busy, it’s much more difficult for people to figure out what to do next.
• Too few choices.  Your visitors are looking for information.  And, if you think about it a bit, you’ll identify what they want.  Think of the questions clients ask you about your area, regulations, taxes, home prices, etc.

2.  Introducing the visitor to the tools and information on the site.  Think about what you do when you first land on a new website.  You have to orient yourself to how the site is laid out, how you move through the site, and how you can get to the information that is most important to you.

Things that can help:

• The graphic buttons you put at the top of your site help.
• Speaking directly to the various types of visitors who might land on your site helps.  In a perfect world, every visitor would find one of the buttons to meet their needs.  But, there are undoubtedly other pages on the site that may be of assistance, too.  Text links to other pages on the site could be organized by who would find them interesting.  For example, if your niche is geographic, you might have information for buyers, sellers, investors or people relocating.

Things that can hurt:

• Devoting your home page to a marketing message.  When Internet surfers first reach your site, they don’t care about you.  They’re probably not interested in choosing a professional at that point, they’re doing research.  If you can get them to adopt your site as their real estate research headquarters, they very well may become interested in you.  Put a brief marketing message on the home page with a link to your “about” page that contains a full marketing message describing your unique selling proposition.

If you have a real estate marketing or real estate website question, put it in an email!
If I answer it here on the blog, you’ll get a nice incoming link to your website – using good anchor text, too!