I do my own web design, and I have for years. I would much rather use my own format than buy a "cookie cutter" agent site. The trouble is, I have no idea how to integrate IDX/MLS searching into the site. I tried Listings Xpress from alamode, but if you click a link, it takes you out of the iframe, and e-mailed links to specific listings just show the content, not the site itself. Plus, while it shows my listings, the search feature doesn't work at all. I've been to other sites that use it, and it always returns no results. It's not very effective at all for what I want to do, but it looks nice at least. I just hope I can get my $200 back.

So what's the best way to make my site more useful and still keep the design?

(Sorry, but i don't have the site active right now, i'm having a dispute with the host at the moment)

no one has any advice?

In most areas a frameable IDX link is available to the Realtor through the local board/association/MLS service for a nominal fee. Unless the Realtor makes arrangements through a third party IDX provider, I use the frameable link and either frame it or have it opening in a new resized window with a custom header section - depending on the site.

i use homefinder on mine and you can save searcher and every thing. It works real well in Frames

Hi my name is Brian I build real estate IDX powered websites for real estate agents and have for 10 years now. I have first hand experience and do this every single day.

The most powerful websites are IDX websites that are updated daily. Sites that display current photos and information daily. Give your customers a reason to return to your site.

The best way to integrate the IDX into your site is to have a complete site built from the ground up with full search capabilities integrated into the site design.

What do I mean when I talk about total integration?
The whole site runs behind your dot com and displays the information behind your address to the world and search engines. This gives your site the ability to be indexed into the search engines properly and multiplies your exposure by 100 times. A totally integrated site would look like this. http://www.sonyafoundmyhome.com Notice that every single page is located behind the dot com and the entire site flows and integrates into the website template and over all image.

This puts thousands of pages into the search engines...

If you have a site like this... http://www.ISellTwinFallsRealEstate.com that forwards to http://www.mikeerickson.com then you only have one page that is indexed into the search engines and you have to market, market, market to get it into the search engines.

So One page or thousands of pages???

Price difference is about double for my company or more depending on graphics work on each site.

So... that explains why to use an integrated site rather than link to another site.

Framed searches are okay if the site is designed correctly which is usually your cheapest option.

Framed searches are when you link out to another source from your website and utilize a second site for your real estate searches. Here is an example of a decent site built by someone besides me. http://www.norakent.com good job on all of it but it has framing that doesn't display your content well to the search engines.

Your best bet is to just get started somewhere and find something you like and can afford and keep adding to it. Don't change your domain names just add to them. Buy additional dot coms and point them to your main site. Example is the http://www.iselltwinfallsrealestate.com points to http://www.mikeerickson.com. And Mike has gone one step further and purchased another site from another company that is http://www.mikeericksonrealestate.com which adds another great store front to his business.

Not a bad website set up for Mike with only about $50 a month in cost.

Step one. Buy a dot com with good keywords in it. http://www.yourcityrealestate.com and another like http://www.yournamerealestate.com or something like that. I retail those for about $7 a year and you get a free email account with it so you don't really have to pay much for email and it is yours not your companies or a yahoo account. There are also free blogs, webspace, and a more. Don't pay too much because you haven't shopped arround.

Step Two. Find an IDX supplier in your area that can set up a nice little IDX interface or site for you. Simple is good. People don't like to be bombarded with all kinds of ads and stuff. Keep it simple and you will have success.

Step Three. Get a free blog from http://www.google.com and link it up to your site. Post real estate articles on your blog to attract attention to your real estate site through the search engines. (they love text).

Step Four. Market your site on everything you own. Car, shirts, cards, brochures, billboards, newspaper, everywhere. Yes it is okay to spend money on print advertising if you promote your website. Get them there and you are in.

If all else fails, hire a 10 year old. haha

I am not soliciting your business just trying to help. If you have any questions and want me to elaborate more on IDX I can go on for hours. And yes I can build you an awesome IDX interface.

Hey Brian, that is great and those tips are great. My question is though, how well do those pages rank? I have used site feeds for many sites before but quite often the pages will not rank well because the original (the MLS site) will rank so much better as it is looked at by the search engines as the source of data.

This though is a new idea to me for creating a ton of pages so it would be nice to hear a little bit of feedback.

I have the top 10 covered in many areas because of it.

twin falls real estate

Google page one i have positions 1 and 5 irwinrealty and magicvalleyrealty.com

Both of those sites are in top rankings all the time. number one positions with only a few dollars spent on additional ads. local paper type stuff.

Both sites have increased in the last month from 700 page views a day to 2,000 on one and 4,500 some days on the other.

I have other sites making drastic improvements in rankings from this same technique. http://www.twinfallssubdivisions.com and http://www.idahohomesandlandgroup.com. http://www.my-mlsonline.com is only a few months old now and already has almost 5,000 pages indexed in goole.com alone.

huge drastic change.

NOTE. if your listing engine that displays and searches is a different address and not your own then you don't benefit as much. A custom site that runs all on your URL is more beneficial and that is why it costs more to produce.

Triple the results or better i imagine.

Brian

I would just like to point out that the number of pages in a site in itself does nothing to help a site rank better. Having all of the IDX listings within your own domain really means nothing unless those particular pages show up for keyword searches in Google's regular index.

From what I saw, in the examples given above all of the pages have the same header info - titles, meta tags, etc. - which even if the pages are listed they just go in the supplemental index, have no Page Rank, and are doing nothing to help the site rank or generate more search engine traffic.

There may be more page views showing in the stats for the site but these pages would be viewed no matter where the listings resided and have nothing to do with the listings being in the same domain as the site.

so you are saying that 4 pages indexed into a search engine is just as good as 4,500 pages?

I know what you are saying there too. I have pushed web sites to number one with one single page indexed into the search engines. so you are correct.

Makes it really hard to pin point how things work. But. more is better if it is quality content and popularity is a huge factor with google and yahoo. How many people search for your site in the search engine and that power comes from good marketing.

"popularity" - how often a site is searched for or how many page views a site gets is meaningless to Google. Content is only a factor if it is unique (listing information is not unique) and if that content shows up for keyword searches as I stated above.