Interested in learning more about your IDX Broker Office account? Sign up for this month's Office Training Webinar, scheduled for January 18th from 10AM - 11AM PST.
This month's newsletter focuses on some of the hidden features available in your IDX Broker account. We'll show you how to build area-based custom links using the Address Search. We'll also show you how to upload bio pages for your agents. Lastly, we'll show you how to customize the verification auto-responder your leads receive after they sign up!
As always, our Support Team is available to answer any questions. You or your Agents are welcome to email or call our Support team (M-F, 7-5 PST). Please take a few minutes to complete our short survey and we'll do our best to incorporate your ideas into our next newsletter!
Best regards,
The IDX Team
@idxbroker
Building Customized Address-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. In many metropolitan areas, a subdivision may be contained within one single building and share the same street address. Listings in many high-rise condo complexes or townhome communities in urban areas may share a street address. In these cases, you may want to build your area-based custom links using the Address Search tool.
You can build your address-based custom links in IDX Broker under Customize -> Custom Links. Choose the Address Search option on this page.
Enter in the street address for the community you would like to feature in your custom search results. Click the Generate Link button. A link will appear at the top of the screen that you can copy and paste onto your website.
View your new link to see all of the listings at that street address.
Uploading Agent Bio Photos
Agent roster and bio pages are included in every IDX Broker Office account. One easy and effective way to customize your agent's bio pages is to upload their photos. You may upload one agent photo per bio page. Login to IDX Broker and go to Manage Users/Offices -> Manage Users. Click on an agent to bring up their bio page settings. If you have not yet set up agent bio pages on your account, you can find instructions on how to do that here.
Scroll down to the section labeled Link to a Photo. Here, you can upload an agent photo from your computer.
A common issue you may run into when uploading your photo is that it may appear much larger than the allowed photo content area on the bio page. This is because IDX Broker does not automatically re-size uploaded photos and will display them at their original size. That may result in a bio page that looks like this:
To fix this, you will just need to re-size your original photo to an appropriate width and height for the content area provided on your bio pages. You can use a simple photo editing program such as picnik to re-size the photo, or you may have a photo editing tool available right on your computer. Below, we'll go over how to re-size a photo in Paint, a program that is included with any Windows PC.
To begin, open up Paint by going to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Paint on your PC. Then, click File -> Open to open up your photo into the program. To re-size the photo, click Image -> Stretch/Skew. In the pop-up box, use the Horizontal and Vertical fields in the Stretch box to change the size of the photo to a smaller percentage than the original. Use the same values for both fields to retain the correct proportion. Click OK and save your resized photo.
Once the photo is re-sized, you login to IDX Broker and re-upload it to your agent bio page. Refresh that bio page in your web browser, and it should display at an appropriate size.
Advanced users also have the option of using Custom CSS to set a fixed size for all agent bio photos. Go to Customize -> Custom CSS and scroll down to the box labeled Bio CSS. Enter in the following line of CSS and save your changes:
.IDX-bioPhoto { max-width: 300px; }
This will ensure that all of your agent bio photos display at an appropriate size regarless of the original size of the uploaded images.
Customize the Lead Verification Auto-Responder
When your site visitors first sign up for a My Listing Manager account on your IDX pages, IDX Broker automatically sends an email asking them to verify their email address by clicking a link. This verification email may be the first correspondence a lead has with you and your brand, so it is important to send the right message. You can add your own custom content to this auto-responder in the Lead Registration Preferences area of IDX Broker.
Login to IDX Broker and go to Lead Management -> Lead Registration Preferences. Scroll down to the area labeled Lead Email Verification Options. Here, you can customize both the subject line and the body of this email message. Click the toggles to Custom and use the content editor provided to add your own message. You may add text, photos, or links to pages on your website.
Take control of the first impression you'll make on your potential clients by customizing your verification email!
We hope you enjoyed your January newsletter!
|
RSS News
twitter updates
