The ARE-TEC Blog: All Things IDX, Website, and Techno-geek

On my mind today: I have this frequent conversation with one of my pals regarding her website.  She wants to do these lengthy explanations of things, not try to direct her site visitors down any specific path.  Which would be great - if she were running an information site, making some revenue from ads on the side.  But she's not, she's a real estate agent, trying to persuade people to do business with her.

If you're not trying to persuade someone to do something, why do you have a website?

We go back and forth about what makes a site "sticky."  I'll describe some feature or widget as "very clicky" and she'll ask me why that's a good thing.

Very simply put -> if they're not clicking, you've stopped communicating.

Clicky is good. 

Clicky means you've got a conversation going. 

People stop clicking either because they didn't find what they wanted, or because they found exactly what they wanted.  Which hopefully was you, or something you've got.

Yesterday, I made a new website, just for bank-owned homes.  It really wasn't that difficult, I just made a pretty Google map, embedded it on a blog page, and bought a domain for it.  And then the Google map has links to lists of bank-owned homes for that area on the map, it just links out to a different site.

But it looks pretty cool.  In reality, it's stuff I already had, I just framed it a little differently.  And now I can promote that I have these lists of bargain homes to attract buyers.

I was reminded of that when I read ActiveBrad's excellent post today about a woman who put a nice looking search at the bottom of her posts.  Now, buttons at the bottom of posts to search homes isn't all that new, but hers has dropdown boxes so that a reader can select what kind of home they want to search.  Now, imagine if she had a post about a specific neighborhood or home, and could have those boxes already set to search homes in that area.  That's incredible power.

It's an iframe, which means that little search widget is a tool provided to her by her IDX, so all she has to do is copy and paste that little line of code in wherever she wants a search.  So incredibly easy.  And that's the whole point of having an MLS search on your site is that you should be able to integrate listings and your posts with extreme ease.

Now, with that tool, that little quick search widget, think about what else you could make out of it.  If I wanted to target a neighborhood, I could buy a domain for that neighborhood, make a page with that quick search, write a few paragraphs about it, and promote that.  I could whip one of those up for a listing pretty quick, use that special neighborhood domain on my listing advertising.  I could put it on my single property websites - if people look at the single property website and don't like that particular house, then they can search other homes easily, right from that widget.  Heck, if the widget is the right size, you could embed it in your AR sidebar and provide a listing search - in a prominent location - for anyone that visits your blog.

With the right tools, making something from nothing is easy.  And making something that your site visitors will appreciate and return to is even better.  Sometimes, it's not about adding more stuff, it's about using the right stuff in new ways.



(By the way, our iframe quick search looks like this, and embeds just about anywhere too.)

Things have been busy at Casa de ARE-TEC. We’ve been expanding into new MLSes near weekly, and I’m negotiating into new ones as quickly as possible. In the process of ramping up sales, I’ve been talking with agents all over the country and there’s a common theme.  It appears December is the month to reflect on the prior year, plan for adjustments for the upcoming year, set goals, set budgets.

There’s not many that can afford to spend frivolously in this market and economy. Now, more than ever, you’ve got to squeeze every last cent of value out of your purchases. As an agent myself, I’m right there with ya.

So here’s what I’m doing:

In my area, the luxury market has completely dropped out. High end homes aren’t selling. But – the investors are back. Not the I-bought-a-video-and-now-I’m-going-to-buy-a-duplex-with-no-money-down “investors”, but the real ones, the ones who stopped buying when our prices skyrocketed a few years ago.

And they’re buying the bargains, which around here, means they’re buying bank-owned homes. So I need to target the bargain hunters by showing them what’s available.

BUT – “bank-owned” is not a field in my MLS that I can search on, though we’re required to disclose that in the description. Which means it could say lender-owned, or REO, or bank-owned somewhere in the listing, either in the public description or in the agent-only comments. But I can’t search on that easily. However…

My IDX has a full text search, which I can make into an RSS feed. Which means I can do a text search for those “bank owned” type phrases, and make a feed of them. And with that, I can make a whole new website that automatically updates with listings that are only bank-owned homes. And since it’s just an RSS feed in disguise, people can subscribe to listing updates anyway they want to – via email, text message, through a feed reader, whatever they like.

And I never have to update it. It updates automatically, from my IDX. Sweet, no?

With the right tools, I can adjust to any market, and target the people who are ready to buy and sell in whatever market I’m in. And that’s an incredible value for my dollar.

HEY.  ---> Look here...

See that?  That's our rockstar of a client, and the first from San Antonio.  Which means:

ARE-TEC is pleased to announce that our IDX solution is now available to all members of SABOR - the San Antonio Board of Realtors. 

It takes a lot of time and energy to start a business and grow it into something sucessful.  You all know that from developing own businesses as agents.  So we hope you won't mind if we take a minute to share our successes and growth.

I know Matt is still working on the rest of his site, tweaking his design and content and whatnot.  He's also got a blog here at AR.  But the MLS search for San Antonio on his site?  Ready to go.  I'm so excited for him, I can't wait to see his final version and to help him figure out how best to integrate our MLS search and widgets into his site. 

This is going to be fun.

So.  Who wants to be next?