Real estate SEO experts have been explaining the significance of IDX services to real estate agents for over a decade. However, the advanced technology solution is not widely spread among realtors’ sites as it should be. So, both buyers and agents need to understand more about IDX and its significance to the real estate business. In fact, efficient IDX tools are the best option for website designers that work with real estate agents. In this article, you will learn all about IDX and its role in improving your local SEO results.
What is IDX?
IDX is an abbreviation for Internet Data Exchange. It refers to tools or software that let individuals view MLS (Multiple Listing Service) properties on different real estate agencies’ websites. So basically, IDX organizes the access of relators and brokers to MLS listings. It also allows them to use or publish those listings on their agencies’ websites. When you hire a real estate SEO expert, your agency’s site should automatically get IDX and everything that comes with it. This typically means all available property listings in a specific geographic area.
How to use IDX on your website
You can get IDX tools on your agency’s website in two possible ways. It is either a framed or integrated IDX.
- Framed IDX
A framed IDX solution allows your site to view available MLS listings but not as a part of your website. It is like your site is hosting the listings or displaying them from someone else’s site. For instance, when a client tries to view listings, they get redirected to another site. This doesn’t give you access to control or manage the listings from your own website. In this case, you will have to use an outside platform to access or modify your listings. This is not really a useful option for improving your local real estate SEO. Simply because it gives a false impression that your site contains MLS listings, which is not true.
You can turn to this solution because you lack the professional experience to implement an integrated IDX tool. Also, it is a cheap IDX option.
- Integrated IDX
This solution can help with improving your SEO work, as it increases your website’s crawlability. It adds the listings to your site and they become integral parts of your website’s pages. This means that web spiders can access your listings, which leads to indexing your pages. Eventually, your chances of ranking higher in search engines are significantly improved. It is not a cheap solution, but it provides quality and organic results.
But you should know that not all integrated IDX tools provide the same efficiency. So, implementing a reliable IDX requires efficient SEO work too. For instance, your listing pages need to have relevant geo-keywords.
The Importance of IDX for Local Real Estate SEO
Both IDX and real estate SEO complement each other to improve a site’s rank in search engines like Bing or Google. In order for a real estate site to rank, its listings need to be viewed by the target audience. IDX tools provide your website with listing data, but SEO can make them visible to the audience. SEO can prepare listing pages for crawlers, which later on index these pages.
To make the most of your IDX listings, your SEO tactics, such as keywords, should be targeting names of specific areas instead of cities. This improves your ranking as it can directly reach a high-quality audience. Your IDX tools can improve your SEO by allowing you to share each listing page on your site’s social media pages.
Tips for improving real estate SEO using IDX
Efficient IDX tools allow you to tweak them for the purpose of improving SEO results. And to do that, you focus on SEO strategies that really matter. For instance, adding geo-keywords to listing pages and increasing unique content. Keep in mind that web spiders won’t index sites with unoriginal or duplicated content.
Each one of your pages should have an informative Meta description. This is the one that appears right under your page’s URL in search engines. So, you’d better present something useful and interesting in it that can encourage a prospective client to click on your listing result.
