August 2011 IDX Broker Office Newsletter

Welcome to your August newsletter! Your training this month will focus on how to build custom area-based search results pages, how to customize field names on your Advanced Search page, and how to add agents' website URLs to their Bio pages.

Best regards,
The IDX Team
@idxbroker

Building Customized Area-Based Search Results

One of the most popular ways to use IDX Broker’s Custom Links tool is to create separate search results pages with listings broken out by neighborhood, subdivision, or area. Once you have created one of these pages, you may simply save it as a custom link in IDX Broker. Once you have saved a custom link, you may further customize the page to ensure that it contains unique text, increasing the likelihood that the page will be indexed by search engines.

Below are some examples:

Special Link Subheader
Use the Special Link Subheader to add extra content to your results page. This feature comes in handy when building neighborhood results pages. By using a subheader, you can place custom text and/or images describing the neighborhood and the types of listings site visitors may find there. This content will display directly above the search results. This content helps differentiate standard IDX results from indexable IDX results pages that DON'T include unique, keyword-rich text - making your page more useful and valuable to search engines.


Special Link Title
Give each custom link its own unique page title. You can create this title using terms describing the search results, such as city, county, community name, price range, property features, etc. This title will display in the title bar of the site visitor's web browser. The title of a page is usually what displays in search engine results - as the title of the search result itself. For instance, if you search Google for "Portland Homes for Sale" - a page title that matches that phrase may be more likely to show up in results.
 

Special Link Meta Tags: Description & Keywords
Add unique meta tags to each saved results page to optimize your custom IDX pages for SEO. The meta description should be a description of what site visitors will see when viewing the page. You can use the first couple of sentences from the content displayed on that page. Use the meta keywords to list the terms for which you feel your page is important. Make sure that you re-use some of the keywords from your page title. This content will usually display underneath the page title in search results. Note that most search engines limit the description to approximately 155 characters (including spaces).
 

 
By taking the time to customize your saved links, you are providing much more unique and relevant content to both your site visitors and search engines - attracting more leads and visitors in the process!
 

Advanced Search Field Labels

Your MLS provides many Advanced Search fields that allow you to narrow down your searches by specific criteria. Navigate to Customize -> Advanced Search if you would like to customize the fields and field names that appear on your Advanced Search page.

When we map the Advanced fields for an MLS, we assign standard labels that make sense for most websites. In some cases, you may want to re-name these fields to adapt to visitor feedback. This is very easy to do. Simply rename your advanced fields by clicking the Manage Column Labels link in your Advanced Search Management.

 
You will be taken to a list of all of the available advanced fields provided by your MLS via IDX. The Default Label column displays the field name as it displays on your IDX pages. The Custom Label column allows you to type in your own custom labels for each field and override the default labels. Simply type your new label into the Custom Label field, and save your settings.

Now view one of your IDX property detail pages to see your new field name in action!


Agent Bio Page Link Settings

You IDX Broker account includes bio pages that you may customize for each of your agents. Some of your agents may have their own personal website, and may have asked you to include that website on their Bio page. You can help your agents drive lead traffic to their personal sites by adding a website to their bio page.

Go to Manage Users/Offices -> Manage Users in IDX Broker and click on an agent’s name. Scroll down to the section called Link Settings.

  • The Redirect to Personal Website preference will send users to the agent’s personal website when they click on their name from your IDX Roster page.
  • The Enable Clickable Link on Roster preference will place a link to the agent’s personal website on the agent’s IDX bio page. This allows site visitors to visit the agent’s website, but only after they have viewed the IDX bio page with the agent’s listings.

For these settings to work correctly, the agent’s Website URL (including the http://) and Display Text For Link must be entered in the fields provided. Save your changes and your IDX Roster and Bio pages will be instantly updated with your new settings!

We hope you enjoyed your August newsletter. Please take a few minutes to complete our newsletter survey and we may incorporate your feedback into the upcoming September newsletter!