October 2011 IDX Broker Office Newsletter

Interested in learning more about your IDX Broker Office account? Sign up for this month's Office Training Webinar, scheduled for October 26th, from 10-11 AM PST.

We also have a new referral program for Offices! Your Agents now receive FREE SETUP when you refer them to IDX Broker. Even better, YOU will receive an affiliate credit of $25 per Agent account that you refer to IDX Broker services. It's easy to get started - simply signup for our Affiliate program and request a free setup signup link for your Agents. Promote your relationship with IDX Broker, help your Agents acquire more leads, and earn a small commission for every Agent account that you refer.

For this month's newsletter, we've focused on some of the hidden features in IDX Broker. We'll show you how to build custom, area-based listing showcases. Add these to neighborhood pages or any page on your website. We'll also show you how to add a CC email address to lead notification emails that go out to your Agents. Lastly, we’ll show you how to customize the city, county, and zip code lists on your IDX Broker search pages.

As always, our Support team is on hand 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 Custom Showcases

One of the most popular and effective ways to showcase real estate on your website is to create separate, dedicated community or neighborhood pages for your market area. A community or neighborhood page will have a description of the area, photos of the area, demographic or school information, and a preview of listings for sale in that area. Add a few area-based listings to your neighborhood pages using IDX Broker's Custom Showcases.

To create a Custom Showcase, login to IDX Broker and go to Widgets -> Custom Showcases. Start by choosing a search method from the small menu under the header text. You can create the same results set that you would get by using standard IDX search forms. To create neighborhood showcases based on a field like Subdivision or Area, use the Advanced Search.



Simply name your showcase and choose your search criteria. Then, specify the number of rows and columns you would like to display in your showcase. The row and column numbers will determine the number of listings displayed in your showcase.




Click the Generate Code button at the top of the screen. The code for your showcase will appear in red. Simply copy and paste this code snippet into the HTML for your neighborhood page, into your WordPress HTML/Text Widget, or on any other web authoring tool that allows you to display Javascript Widgets.


View the neighborhood page on your website to see your new Custom Showcase displayed. Listings in this showcase will automatically update to show the latest MLS listings. You can find more information about all of the features associated with Custom Showcases here in our Knowledge Base.


Custom Showcases make a nice addition to your neighborhood page content, sidebar, and website. Use this Widget to create custom landing pages that you control!

Set A Carbon Copy Email Address for Lead Notifications

As the administrator of an IDX Broker Office account, you have the option to be copied on all new lead notification emails that are sent to your Agents. This allows you to closely monitor the lead activity to your account and your agents. To set this up, go to Lead Management -> Contact Routing. Find the field labeled Contact Routing Carbon Copies Address, enter in your email address and click Save.


That's it! You will now receive emails as soon as any new lead comes into your account.


Customize Your City, County & Zip Code Lists

Your IDX search pages will display all cities, counties, and zip codes for all active listings in your MLS. If your office covers only a small area in your MLS, then you may only want to encourage your site visitors to search listings within a handful of cities. You can accomplish this in IDX Broker using Custom Search Lists.

Set up your Custom Search Lists by going to My Preferences -> Custom Search Lists. Use the small links under the header text to choose to customize your cities, counties, or zip codes.


The box on the left will display all of the cities, counties, and zip codes provided by your current MLS data, and the box on the right will display any items you currently have in your custom list. Simply choose the items you would like to add to your custom list from the box on the left, and click Add Selected Cities To List to move them to your custom list on the right. Use the red circle icons or checkboxes to remove items from your custom list.


You can also add cities, counties, and zip codes that are NOT included in your MLS's data to your custom list by using the state lists in the dropdown menu.


Use the Custom List Settings at the bottom of the screen to activate your custom lists on your basic search, advanced search, or both and save your changes. Once these settings are saved, your custom lists will automatically display on all of your IDX search pages!


We hope you enjoyed your October newsletter!