Real Estate SEO, Lead Gen and Conversion

Lou Lynch – Internet Technology Professional

I used the acronym IDX because most of you guys would easily identify it but the truth is this plugin doesn’t use IDX at all (well not directly anyway). A company called RealShout has introduced a new plugin for WordPress that enables any WordPress blog to display real estate listings without the need for IDX. The quality (freshness) of the data isn’t as good as a direct feed but will more than likely improve with time. Apparently it has been out for a while now but the word hasn’t spread as widely and quickly as anticipated. I installed it in just a few minutes and had it setup to pull listings in my area in no time flat.

More about the plugin

The plugin uses Google Base’s massive pool of listings which is now being supplied with MLS data from almost every part of the country. The plugin can be setup to draw from a specific set of criteria creating a searchable inventory of listings that are market specific. It has simple and advanced search options on the front end that can be used on your side bar as widgets. The listing display is pretty good too, with multiple photos, neighborhood info, maps, etc. It has some lead management, but I haven’t gotten into that a whole lot. It even has SEO feindly URL rewrites for the listings. It is obviously in its infancy but a pretty good first run.

The underlying issue

What seems to be most interesting is not the plugin itself, but the concept behind it. Now real estate agents have the ability to circumvent the MLS (including any accompanying IDX agreements) when putting MLS data on their websites. The leverage once used by MLS systems to enforce IDX regulations flies out the proverbial window along with any of the associated fees. As the data and data tools get better, there will eventually be no need for an MLS at all.

Data can get better, but it can also get worse

The biggest kick in the pants is that the listing data we work so hard to collect and maintain is more available than ever without any controls on integrity. We now have bigger problems than Trulia or Zillow using our data to outrank us and sell us products, we now have to worry about every Tom, Dick and Harry using listing data entrusted to us by our sellers in ways that we can only imagine.

When building a real estate website, it is easy to get carried away with the way it looks rather than the information that it provides. While it is important to have an attractive website it is more important to have good content that is well written and to the point. The information your website provides is not only important to your real estate customers, it is instrumental in getting your website ranked in the search engines. Read the rest of this entry »