LionDesk has been one of our premium integration partners for years. Agents using our IDX solution and consumer engagement tools have been able to see their leads generated through Showcase IDX appear in their LionDesk accounts.

We’re excited to announce that we have updated Showcase IDX to Liondesk’s new upgraded API and in doing so have added more functionality and useful information for agents. These enhancements include upgrades to digital privacy and security, new lead activity events, and significantly more useful listing information.

“Providing an exceptional experience for customers from website to sale is crucial for an agents’ success,” said David Anderson, Founder and CEO of LionDesk. “Giving LionDesk users the ability to integrate with Showcase IDX is another step towards supporting their success at every level.”

“Today, we’re excited to announce new features and a better experience for agents and brokers that are using both LionDesk and Showcase IDX to grow their businesses and relationships with clients”, said Scott Lockhart, CEO @ Showcase IDX.

New OAuth 2.0 Account Authentication That Makes Set Up Easy And Secure

With its new API, LionDesk has implemented the new open standard for secure authentication and authorizing connections between applications. As opposed to other forms of authentication, OAuth 2.0 uses access tokens over secure HTTPS connections, instead of credentials like API Keys.

You’re probably familiar with the process, as it’s what Facebook and Google use when you want to sign into a website or application with your Facebook or Google login.

What this means for Showcase IDX and LionDesk users is a more robust, secure connection between our two applications. This is a good thing.

When setting up the premium integration, all you’ll do is click the connect button and a LionDesk window will appear where you can login (if you’re not already logged in LionDesk) and then simply click the button to approve the connection to Showcase IDX.

LionDesk Updates Within A Second

This isn’t new, but since we’ve been testing the integration we’ve seen this first hand, we’re just excited about how quick it works. All the activity on your website that’s tied to a contact is updated within a second in LionDesk from the action being performed on your website. Lightning fast!

New Lead Activity Events

We have added more events and features to the integration to give you more insight within LionDesk to the contact’s activity on your Showcase IDX-powered website.

Property Viewed
Your client views a property on your site. We are now adding additional listing information to each property viewed, including the main photo, bedrooms, bathrooms, days online, year built, listing agent name, company, phone number and email; and more.

This will let you see more details on their home search and engagement on your site from within the LionDesk dashboard.

Favorite Property Removed — NEW!
Know when a contact removes a property from their list of favorites on your site.

Saved Search Added
As your client’s home searches progress, their interests and requirements do as well. Now, you can know when they create a new search query by seeing the information added to the contact within LionDesk.

Favorite Property Added
Know when a new property catches your client’s eye. We’ll alert you when a property is added to contact’s favorites

Saved Search Removed — NEW!
Know when a client removes a saved search query.

User Login — NEW!
Your clients should be using the IDX and home search tools on your site. Showcase IDX has always tracked when they visit your site from new listings or to refine a search. Now, you’ll be able to see that a contact logged in to the IDX on your website from within LionDesk.

Showing Request — NEW!
In addition to your alerts from Showcase IDX about a request for a showing on a property, you’ll now see this showing request within LionDesk too.

More Listing Information In LionDesk Activity Stream

Your LionDesk Activity Timeline has never had so much useful information on the home search and listing information for your clients!

We’ve been able to add all the information you’d want about a listing as they view and save listings and made it easy for you to find it within LionDesk.

Connect Showcase IDX to LionDesk in Less Than 2 Minutes

Here is how to connect your Showcase IDX account and LionDesk to take advantage of the new features. Important: This will require Showcase IDX customers with an existing LionDesk Premium Integration to add the new upgraded LionDesk Premium Integration and remove the previous version. It is not an automated upgrade! It should take less than 2 minutes. Installation video below.

Get Started with MLS Home Search on Your Site and LionDesk

If you’re already a Showcase IDX and LionDesk customer, __________________

To add Showcase IDX to your site, it’s easy to get started. There is no setup fee and we offer a free trial to get started. Click here to claim your free trial.

Additional Resources

Originally published at https://showcaseidx.com on April 24, 2019.

Showcase IDX Deepens Integration With LionDesk to Help Real Estate Agents Grow Their Businesses was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While WordPress is by far the best website platform available, mistakes are commonly made when setting it up. This guide will walk you through the most common mistakes made when setting up a real estate website using WordPress and how to fix them.

Whether you’re a real estate agent, the marketer for a broker, or a digital agency working on WordPress projects, be sure to read this list of common WordPress blunders to make sure your next Realtor website launches quickly and serves as the hub for the next top producing agent in your area.

17 Common WordPress Mistakes Real Estate Agents and Their Web Developers Make (and How to Fix Them)

The quick list of common WordPress mistakes on real estate websites:

1. Not writing and optimizing content for SEO
2. Installing too many or low-quality plugins
3. Neglecting to backup a site
4. Not changing the default permalink structure
5. Ignoring WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates
6. Using an iFrame or subdomain for their property listings and home search
7. Changing a post’s URL after it’s published
8. Using bad visuals (or none at all) on content pages
9. Not resizing images for web upload
10. Choosing a poor performing or bulky WordPress theme
11. Using a poor quality or cheap IDX and home search provider
12. Adding customizations to a parent theme
13. Using the default admin username
14. Using a weak password
15. Failing to be selective about who gets admin privileges
16. Accidentally blocking search engines
17. Using a poor/cheap web hosting

Why WordPress should be your choice for your real estate website?

WordPress is both an incredible website platform (content management system) and is simple to use once you have a quick understanding of it.

While Wix and Squarespace can be great for a quick “business card” style website that simply shows an agents picture and their brief story, only WordPress allows for a site that truly offers the home search and consumer engagement tools that buyers and sellers expect today.

WordPress can be quickly set up, sometimes in as little as a few days, not counting the approval from your MLS to access the listing data.

After your site is up, anyone that can use Gmail can easily learn to add new content such as blog posts, community events, or neighborhood hotsheets. There are tons of free courses and Youtube videos that will walk through a new user.

WordPress can easily handle millions of monthly visitors if the need arises.

More than 33% of the entire internet runs on WordPress, and if you remove pure e-commerce sites from the list, the number is more than 50%. New York Observer, New York Post, TED, Thought Catalog, Williams, USA Today, CNN, Fortune.com, TIME.com, National Post, Spotify, TechCrunch, CBS Local, NBC, and more all use WordPress.

In fact, WordPress powers 15 of the top 100 websites in the world. Now, as your traffic grows, your hosting needs will change but the important thing is that WordPress is built for both small personal blogs and highly popular sites.

We’ve examined hundreds of thousands of real estate websites, and the vast majority of all top performing websites are all running on WordPress. It’s infrequent, if not rare, to ever find a Wix or Squarespace site ranking well for any region, city, or another local niche.

Your website should be the central hub of your marketing efforts and client relationships. You’ve already taken the crucial first few steps in securing your domain name and setting up your website. L et’s make sure you are truly prepared to be successful and take advantage of what is possible with a few quick fixes to mistakes we’ve seen thousands on thousands of real estate websites.

So, how do we make sure you’re prepared to be successful with your personal site or the site for your team? Let’s walk through the most common mistakes we see and the fix for each one of them.

1. Not writing and optimizing content for SEO

There’s a huge missed opportunity to publishing a piece of content or creating a community focused hotsheet and having put little to no thought into search engine optimization (SEO).

Google is constantly updating their ranking algorithm, and while there are thousands of factors that they consider, there are a few that have a large impact. To increase your traffic over time and get your content found by search engines, it’s imperative that you prepare your written content and images with search engines in mind.

The fix:

Make sure you are using only one H1 (header) tag on the page. Use several H2 or H3 (sub-headings) on each page to separate your content. Name your images with the keywords and/or title of the post. Make sure you use short paragraphs (1–3 sentences) and plenty of white space on the page. Google considers readability and the user experience as a ranking factor now.

For a guiding hand on each page and post, install a WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast. They have a premium version that comes with a small fee, but most real estate sites will only need the free version. Yoast will give you a helpful checklist and set of tips to make your content more likely to rank on Google.

2. Installing too many or low-quality plugins

Plugins are not Pokémon. You do not want to collect them all.

Many so-called marketing or website experts incorrectly claim that adding too many plugins, even 5–12, will slow your site down. At best case, that is a simplistic view of plugins and WordPress that is often given to avoid walking a client through the much larger impact of using a discounted web hosting company (more on that later) or explaining how to choose quality plugins. However, adding too many low-quality plugins or even a single poorly optimized plugin can have a huge impact on your website.

There are more than 40,000 plugins in the WordPress repository. Just because a plugin is available does not mean that it is secure, will do what it claims, or will perform quickly. Others, such as a MLS property search plugin or email automation plugin will frequently use highly optimized servers of their own to provide a lightning fast experience.

The fix:

Make sure you are intentional with your plugin choices. Wisely choose the plugins that you install, and uninstall the ones that you do not use. If you are using a plugin with a premium service that requires a monthly license, look at the reviews for that plugin and the company behind it. You want to make sure that if you have any questions or need anything that their support team will be there to answer your questions.

Above all, ask yourself if the functionality from the plugin is really needed for your website.

3. Neglecting to backup a site

Ever work on an Excel spreadsheet or Word document and only after the application crashes or your laptop battery runs out do you remember that you forgot to save? Imagine writing a book and never pressing “save” on your manuscript.

Failing to regularly backup your website is similar. You want to back up your site to not only give you a place to restore from but to also be able to avoid potentially months of downtime if something happened.

We’ve seen hosts that claimed to have 3 different backups (1 for each of the previous 3 months) unable to restore a site due to their own bug. While we have a few hosting companies that we like and endorse, you’ll sleep better knowing that you have your own backup.

The fix:

Choose a hosting company that has an automatic backup of your WordPress that includes the underlying database, your WordPress theme, all settings, and uploaded files. Also, look for and install a backup plugin. There are a number of paid options, but you can also find some great free options that will save to your own Dropbox account.

4. Not changing the default permalink structure

The default permalink structure for WordPress is NOT optimized for SEO. While you’ll want to optimize each post/page URL for SEO when creating the page, changing the default setting is needed to properly do that. The good news is that this is easy to do.

The fix:

To change the permalink structure in WordPress, go to Settings => Permalinks and choose “Post name”. If your site has existing content under another setting, you want to redirect old permalinks (URLs) to the new ones. There are free plugins that will help you do this, or you can search for how to do this with an .htaccess file and add the redirects in Yoast.

5. Ignoring WordPress core, theme, and plugin updates

Themes, plugins, and WordPress are all updated periodically for bug fixes, to add new functionality, and to correct security vulnerabilities.

All software has some vulnerabilities but they are generally minimal and many times the internal team will find them before anyone on the outside does. Many of the updates from Apple, Microsoft, Android devices, and individual applications we use on our laptops and phones are to fix a combination of bug fixes and security weaknesses. Your WordPress site is no different.

The fix:

Make sure to keep your plugins, themes, and WordPress core up to date. Login to your WordPress admin. On your dashboard, next to “Updates” and “Plugins” there will be a number that appears if any of your plugins or WordPress core needs to be updated.

Tips:

• Delete any unused and unneeded themes. There’s no reason to get notifications and feel you need to update files if your site does not need them, so remove them to reduce stress.
• If you do not to your WordPress site very often (e.g. Our IDX and home search tools capture your leads and export automatically to a dedicated real estate CRM), add a recurring event on your calendar to login and look for updates every 2–4 weeks.

6. Using an iFrame or subdomain for their property listings and home search

One of the plagues that infected the real estate industry years ago was the use of iFrames and subdomains on real estate websites. Not only does Google dislike these but they frequently confuse consumers and can provide a poor experience on mobile.

What is an iFrame?

An iFrame is where content from another source or website embedds on your website. Think about adding a YouTube video to your websites. Whether you use the embed code from YouTube itself or use an “add video” widget from a visual builder in your theme, this content displays on your website kind of like a window. Imagine if you could put a magic window on an interior wall of a house that would show what was happening in another country.

Why to never use iFrames?

Google and other search engines know that this content is not on your site and therefore does not reward your site for that content. Too many iFrames on your site may even hurt your rankings.

What is a Subdomain?

A subdomain is a string of characters that precedes the root domain and uses a period to separate them. In the case of www.YourSite.com, the “www” is the subdomain. If you have a home search on your site with a subdomain such as search.YourSite.com, then “search” is the subdomain.

Why use subdomains?

Many 3rd party technologies are limited in their capabilities and this is the easiest (or only way) they can add their content to your website. While there are reasons for larger websites to organize content with subdomains, this is almost never the case for real estate.

Why to never use subdomains?

Google considers a subdomain as a different website according to every major SEO expert. Google’s own Search Console requires you to set up separate profiles for subdomains. That’s another good indicator that they value subdomains differently.

Therefore, if you have MLS property listings displayed through a search on search.YourSite.com, Google WILL consider this a completely different website than your main site at YourSite.com or www.YourSite.com. Unless you have the marketing budget of a major media organization like Disney or NBC, it will be very difficult if not impossible to rank your site well.

The Fix:

If you’re building a new site, never use a marketing technology or anything else that uses a subdomain or iFrame. Adding a youtube video to a post or page, or even a landing page tool such as Infusionsoft or Hubspot, can be okay as you are not trying to rank those pages. However, if it’s content and a part of your website experience that is core to your clients’ experience, such as an IDX or MLS Property Search, only choose an offering that will work with your site as part of its core content.

If you have an existing website that relies on iFrames or subdomains, begin creating a plan to migrate to a modern solution. Some new marketing solutions will even help you make the switch effortless. As an example, if you need help easily migrating another IDX solutions, the Showcase IDX can help you retain your community pages and even redirect your old pages that have ranked in Google to your newly updated website.

If you need a new web developer, check out our list of Approved Real Estate Web Developers.

7. Changing a post’s URL after it’s published

You may be tempted to open an old post and change the URL when you’re updating it, but this is a place to show caution. When you change the post slug, you break all the existing links that may be pointing to that page. Any links to the old URL will lose traffic and provide a poor user experience that leads to a 404 error. Google will also consider the post URL a new page/post unless you do this correctly.

The fix:

Before you initially publish a post/page, make certain the post slug is the way you want it. If you know that you’ll update the post in the future, consider that in the post slug. As an example, if you page about 2019 Summer Events in Downtown Atlanta, instead of making the slug 2019-summer-events-in-downtown-atlanta, make the slug summer-events-in-downtown-atlanta.

In addition, if you have installed Yoast SEO, it can automatically remove “stop” words and shorten the post slug, as well as provide additional tips for creating a good post/page slug.

8. Using bad visuals (or none at all) on content pages

Images are critical to holding your reader’s attention, especially if it is a text-heavy article. Even normal articles perform significantly better with good visuals. Research shows that content with visual receives 94% more views than content without visuals.

Plus, the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text, which can be extremely helpful if you’re explaining local real estate trends to a potential client.

The fix:

Canva.com is a great, simple, and free tool that will let you easily create visuals and find free photos for your website.

If you are using a graphics editing software (tip: Keynote and Powerpoint can be used for this too), Unsplash.com provides thousands of high-quality, professional images for free that can be used for commercial purposes.

9. Not resizing images for web upload

Images are frequently the reason for a slow site.

If you’re using a modern IDX and real estate consumer engagement tool, it will handle optimizing the property images and host them on a platform like Google Cloud (the same platform that hosts all of Google itself).

However, for images you or your web developer are adding to your site, you should consider preparing your images before uploading them. This can be done with an editor like Photoshop, Preview on the Mac, or by using a plugin to resize images and reduce their file size.

The fix:

If you’re working in Photoshop, go to Image -> Image Size. Make sure the resolution is set to 72. You’ll want to reduce the width of the image if applicable to 1,800 pixels for wide full-size images or 600 to 1,000 pixels for regular site display.

10. Choosing a poor performing or bulky WordPress theme

Having worked with tens of thousands of real estate agent, brokers, and web developers, a poor performing or bulky WordPress theme is often one of the hiccups that I’ve seen delay the launch of a new real estate website. This can often cause ongoing issues for the agent as well.

Many people look for a “real estate” specific theme when buying a new theme or they read how easy the “visual builder” makes creating a new site. While there are some incredible WordPress themes, most real estate specific themes are bulky, may slow down your site unless you pay for a premium host, and can cause issues with the Property Search you’ll pick.

The fix:

Do not choose a real estate specific WordPress theme from one of the marketplaces where you can buy a theme. Also, be careful of many of the “lists” articles unless written by a web developer that has set up dozens (or hundreds) of real estate websites. While these list articles may be great for links to their article, they are generally written from a quick Google search rather than experience and research.

Instead, look for a highly rated theme where people have specifically mentioned SEO and page speed. If you’re working with a solid web developer, the themes included in WordPress can be great as well, as much of the experience for your clients and lead generation are delivered by the IDX solution you add to your site.

We also maintain a list of the best theme for agent, real estate team, and broker websites. We have reviewed thousands of WordPress themes and are able to see the themes that work well for tens of thousands of agents and Realtors, as well as those that may cause you a headache. Just ask our concierge team for the updated list.

11. Using a poor/cheap IDX and home search provider

Many agents and Realtors think of Internet Data Exchange (IDX) as adding home property search to their site. That’s close. In fact, IDX (also called Broker Reciprocity) is a set of guidelines from NAR that “gives MLS Participants the ability to authorize limited electronic display of their listings by other Participants”.

Your IDX solution is much more than that. It is not only access to the property listing data but more importantly, it is all of the consumer engagement tools on your site including:

• Property search (advanced or simple, what search criteria, etc.).
• Map search and polygon search (on both mobile and laptop)
• Call-to-action and lead generation tools
• CRM tools
• Automated emails and content to consumers with new and specific listing
• Social sign-in for consumers
• Native SEO friendly content
• And much more

As mentioned above, many older or less-powerful IDX solutions use iFrames or subdomains to add these tools to your site. We’ve also seen agents left without a working site by choosing a company that enters real estate to chase an opportunity and then shuts down after a few months or years, leaving agents with a broken website.

The fix:

Make sure you choose an IDX WordPress Plugin that

1. meets your needs as the backbone for your real estate website
2. is built by a company that is stable and growing and
3. has a support team that is available to answer your questions.

If you’re looking for a community of agents across the country to learn marketing tips and share what is working best for lead generation, Showcase IDX has an active group of incredible agents and brokers that you won’t find with any other provider.

12. Adding customizations to a parent theme

Many themes come with a child theme and a parent theme. The child theme takes the functionality of the parent theme and tweaks from the child theme. If you update the parent theme, you could be causing headaches for your site. Updates from the theme developer will generally overwrite any of your additions.

The fix:

The safest way to update a theme is with a child theme. This allows you to make changes without ruining the original theme’s code and will ensure your changes are not lost.

13. Using the default admin username

WordPress creates the username “admin” by default, which can be troublesome for security. Hackers know this and this makes it easier for them to take control of your website.

The fix:

During your initial installation, you’ll be given the opportunity to change the admin name to anything else.

If you’ve already setup your site with the admin name, you can still change this. 1) Log in as admin 2) Change email address 3) Create new administrator account 4) Log out and log in as new administrator 5) Delete original admin account 6) Associate all admin account posts with the new administrator.

14. Using a weak password

Many of us will use a weak password or one they’ve used on other sites because they do not want to forget it. However, the easier your password is for you to remember or if another site using that password becomes compromised, the easier it will be for hackers to guess your password and gain control of your website.

The fix:

Change to a strong password that includes a minimum of 10 characters, an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number, and a special character. There are several great password management applications that can help you generate an ideal password and store them for you.

15. Failing to be selective about who gets admin privileges

You wouldn’t give just anyone keys to your car, and you shouldn’t give just anyone the keys to your website. While you may need to provide temporary admin rights to a support team, be mindful of who you give admin rights too.

The fix:

Login to your WordPress dashboard, go to users, and review the roles and permissions for each user. You can also use a plugin like User Role Editor to add additional functionality for restricting access if needed.

16. Accidentally blocking search engines

WordPress’s setting can impair search engine’s ability to discover content on your site. While this can be great when you are initially building your website, you will want to ensure a particular box is NOT checked when you ready for a larger audience to find your site.

The fix:

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings => Reading. Make sure that the “discourage search engines from indexing this site” is NOT checked.

17. Using a poor/cheap web hosting

We know it’s important to keep expenses low and make sure you’re getting a great ROI (return on investment) for the money you invest in your website. We’ve seen many agents and brokers mistakenly opt for an uber-cheap (or budget) hosting for their website.

You may choose a great IDX solution, client engagement suite, and domain name, but if you’re using a budget host, it’s like putting cheap fuel in a Lamborghini.

Some budget web host will provide poor performance for your clients and can even cause downtime for your site and business, which will cost you money in the long run. The fix:

You do not have to spend hundreds of dollars per month on a host to get great performance, but you may have to spend more than $5 — $10.

You want your hosting provider to be tailored for WordPress and to offer services like uptime guarantees, security, stunning customer support, and more.

Next Steps

These are the most common WordPress mistakes we see that hold back agents and broker from creating a great foundation for their marketing hub.

Have a question on one of these or another? Shocked by any of these? Did you find these useful? Please let me know in the comments below. I read every single question and comment. I’m happy to help where I can and your feedback will help shape my future articles and videos.

Additional Resource

Originally published at https://showcaseidx.com on April 15, 2019.

1. Buyers decide in the first eight seconds of seeing a home if they’re interested in buying it. Get out of your car, walk in their shoes and see what they see within the first eight seconds. — Barbara Corcoran
2. Typically, the research tells us, that a high quality real estate agent that really knows what they are doing will add more to the equation than they cost. Because people make mistakes when selling their own home — the mistakes are costly… -Dave Ramsey
3. Don’t beat yourself up. Some transactions will naturally go smoothly, and others are a month of challenges. Learn what you can from each transaction, move on, and start the next one. — Kurt Uhlir
4. A real estate agent has two property listings. Now add 11 more. What does the agent have now? Happiness. That agent has happiness. — Tim Dulany
5. In any market, in any country, there are developers who make money. So I say all of this doom and gloom, but there will always be people who make money, because people always want homes. — Sarah Beeny
6. To be successful in real estate, you must always and consistently put your clients’ best interests first. When you do, your personal needs will be realized beyond your greatest expectations — Anthony Hitt
7. Now, one thing I tell everyone is learn about real estate. Repeat after me. Real Estate provides the highest returns, the greatest values, and the least risk. — Armstrong Williams
8. Real estate is the purest form of entrepreneurship — Brian Buffini

Real estate is never easy. There are late nights, early morning, no weekends, and infrequent vacations…but the payoff is that you get to help people through one of the biggest decisions in their lives and make their dreams come true.

There are multiple lists of the same 10 real estate quotes that people toss up. We wanted something more. Our team combed through more than 15,000 web sites, 115,000 tweets, countess Pinterest pins, 300 hours of keynote speakers and a ton of other sources to find you the most real estate quotes that will inspire you for the long-haul, motivate you to take the next step in your business, and hopefully laugh a little too.

In today’s real estate market, we all get little sleep. You deserve at least five minutes to feel inspired and laugh. Don’t you? I hope that this list of deservedly famous real estate quotes will give you the break you need to recharge today. Happy reading!

Real Estate Quotes for Buyers and Sellers

Need a quote to show your clients the value of real estate pro and save them from the mistake of FSBO or iBuyer? Looking to buy or sell your house and wondering what to look for in an agent? These will help.

Inspirational Real Estate Quotes

Running a successful real estate business requires a lot of work, and some days you might feel you like won’t see the fruits of your labor. That’s why we’ve gathered these motivational quotes to push you through rough patches and gray days to the brighter movement ahead.

Famous Real Estate Quotes

Real Estate Quotes: Business, Marketing, and Lead Gen

The experience of a seasoned entreprenuer is priceless — an no matter how many podcasts you listen to and books you read, you simply can’t replace the experience they’ve gained through actually doing the work, failing, and succeeding as they’ve built companies.

Here are some of the best pieces of real estate business advice from seasoned entreprenuers, marketers, and real estate pros to help propel your business in the right direction.

What real estate quote should be on this list but isn’t yet? Let us know and we may add it.

Need a new real estate website? Check out our list of approved designers for real estate websites. They’ll get you up to speed quickly.

Need another break? Check out our hilariously terrible listing photos?

Originally published at https://showcaseidx.com on April 4, 2019.

49 Uplifting Real Estate Quotes That Will Inspire You to Be Great was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

{reading time: 2:47 minutes}

Facebook is removing age, gender and ZIP Code targeting for housing, employment, and credit-related ads. It will also impose a 15-mile minimum radius for geographic ad targeting for housing ads.

The Facebook ad platform offers an unrivaled rich, diverse, and deep level of ad targeting options no other advertising platform can provide. These changes will not impact those agents and brokers that have been effectively using them to date and may reduce blatant discrimination.

Why are ads on Facebook are so valuable?

According to a recent study by Mediakix, the average person spends 35 minutes per day on Facebook giving agents and brokers the opportunity to put their ads in front of the right people. For years, Facebook has allowed advertisers to target potential customers based on their demographics and interests, including a treasure chest of data collected across Facebook properties (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.).

Facebook and Instagram are visual by nature, just like real estate, and the ad targeting options allow advertisers to reach the exact market they want to such as first-time home buyers, just married buyers, wealthy coastal retirees, etc. To quote Uncle Ben from Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Why did Facebook make the change to ads targeting for real estate?

There were accusations that landlords, lenders, and employers used Facebook to discriminate, a significant shift for a company that built a business empire on selling personal data. Facebook’s ad practices came under scrutiny after ProPublica published a series of articles showing how targeting options are used discriminate.

Facebook began to look at the potential misuse and then several groups filed lawsuits. This week Facebook announced their decision as part of a settlement of five lawsuits filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance and others plaintiffs, which will also include just under $5 million in payments, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What’s changing for real estate ads on Facebook?

Facebook will be rolling out a complete overhaul to their ad targeting options for housing, loans, and job to remove many of the targeting options to prevent people and companies from discriminating against protected classes.

They have already announced that they will remove the ability to target based on age, gender, ZIP Code and for radius less than 15 miles. The removal of targeting based on Zip Codes may create some extra work, but most successful real estate pros that used zipcodes were targeting much larger areas and simply uploading lists of many zip codes.

If you were targeting based on a list of zip codes, you’ll need to rebuild your Facebook audiences and targeting for larger areas (e.g. counties, DMAs, map radiuses of more than 15 miles, etc).

Facebook says it will also build a tool that can be used to view targeted housing ads, a move similar to a database the company built after controversy over targeted political ads.

When will the changes take effect?

The changes on Facebook will roll out by the end of the year. Expect other ad platforms, like Google and Amazon, to make similar changes this year as well.

What’s the impact for agents and brokers?

Most Realtors and brokers will not see any impact from these changes. While it may create a little more work for those that used zipcodes, your goals and ROI will be similar.

Overall, this is a win for fairness in housing. It is also a reminder to agents that advertising and social networks can (and will) change at any time. One of the most valuable assets you have is your personal brand. Make sure you have a strong website as the hub of your online presence and these changes will have a smaller impact on you in the future.

Have you started using Facebook ads to drive traffic to your website or individual listings? What’s your experience been?

Originally published at https://showcaseidx.com on March 22, 2019.

Facebook Ad Changes Agents and Brokers Need to Know was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Where would your dream home be? Would it be a rustic farm hidden in the woods or maybe a luxury condo in Manhattan? Would the interior be more traditional, have shiplap walls, or the latest modern trend?

Yes, we love great real estate photos that really capture the perfect house. This post though is a tribute to the other kind that we’ve all seen.

From horror movie-esque semi-abondened homes for rent to home decor that overshot “unique”, the owners and agents behind these funny ads thought things were perfect just they were for their photos and open houses.

If you’d like to see some incredibly terrible property photos and others that will make you question “why?”, the list of funny fails below will provide you with an answer and a few laughs. Scroll down and let us know which is your favorite in the comments.

That way you can still work on the garden even if it’s raining

If the weather clears up later I might mow the pool.

You’ve really done a lot to make it feel happier in here

“I think I’m beginning to see a pattern” said Holmes. https://t.co/xlUG9cqfib pic.twitter.com/BkI0Yi22b3

- Bad Realty Photos (@BadRealtyPhotos) January 9, 2017

The doll will be staying with the house

You’ll never guess what I just passed on the stairs.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.”

A rare opportunity to acquire a sacrificial dungeon simply bursting with original features.

The agent here isn’t just selling a flat, they’re selling a lifestyle.

This Christmas, turn your house into an actual advent calendar.

Finished basement, great for entertaining!

Buyers come and go, home prices go up and down, decor changes and then comes back, but one constant remains throughout real estate. Those terrible pictures from listings and lack of attention to detail.

Blog idea: reasons my fan is sad.

All it needs is a coat of paint, some air freshener, and perhaps a direct hit from a short range ballistic missile

Script idea: Marie Antoinette travels to the 1990s and moves in with a monkey pirate.

Perfect for recreating the time you spent as a hostage in the 1970s.

Just as it had the great Mayan cities of Tikal and Calakmul, nature slowly reclaimed the Wilsons’ dining room.

A rare chance to own the actual pool from Apocalypse Now.

In the mid 1980s, improved economic conditions for the middle classes led to a dramatic rise in tastelessness.

There’s a great kids playroom, lots o natural light too

After the Great Plague of 1665, came the less famous Bubonic Bedroom Blight of 2019.

Would benefit from redecoration, as soon as Forensics have everything they need.

When you’re halfway through a wash cycle and you decide it would be easier just to sell your house.

At least the neighbors will be quiet…I hope…

Hit it with something, see if it moves. I’ll be downstairs barricading myself into the kitchen.

The Adam’s family finally found their new home

Recent discoveries suggest mankind didn’t always know how sofas worked.

There’s really no question, I am NOT following that trail

Kimble’s Paradox is the name given by real estate agents to the old philosophical problem of a door that opens as you close it.

Police are still investigating how Mr Stevens came to be replaced by a pile of rope.

2018 will be remembered as the year someone built a pretend wishing well in their kitchen.

A rare chance to own the opening scene from 12 different horror movies.

Winning a year’s supply of beer didn’t bring the unending happiness the Samble’s had hoped for.

“sure we can see upstairs next- after you….I’ll be right up”

If there’s an opposite of a Stairway to Heaven, I think we’ve found it.

This house really speaks to me

I think it’s too late for just air freshener. That looks quite established.

“This is the room where it first occurred to me that my life was pointless and my career had been a waste of time”

May have overshot the desert theme a little

A key selling point of any modern home: The mirror-mounted Sharkzooka.

Where’s that piano music coming from?

“Yes it’s an emergency! And bring toilet paper!”

I don’t remember leaving the light own downstairs

“Think we could ask them to rearrange us so I’m closer to the window?”

Before you tell him to tidy his room, maybe draw up some sort of project plan.

Hence the phrase “as sad as a picnic table without a picnic. In a garage

The previous owners aren’t moving out, they just went into the backyard and never came back out.

It’s a tale of unrequited love between a Garden Chair of Solitude and a Park Ranger who promised to return, but never did.

Isn’t this where the Walking Dead was filmed…or maybe inspired?

“Honey, I found the ladder! It was in the fitness studio that we also use as a utility room and study where we keep the musical instruments”

Wasn’t this a scene out of Ghostbusters 2

I have a sudden urge to play Tetris

That reminds me: I need to get out of here right now and never come back

“Well detective, that explains the lack of presents this year. And going by the smell, he’s been here some time”

If I only make the bed…

Warning: Potentially catastrophic combination of flammable gasses.

Of the possible explanations, very few have a happy ending.

Susie likes it when new people move in, but she gets sad when they run away screaming.

A rare achievement — This image manages to convey the idea of “furnished” and “unfurnished” at the same time.

C is for Cat, and also for Certifiable.

The previous viewing was conducted at such speed it caused a localised sonic boom.

So it turns out the apocalypse already happened, but it was confined to this bathroom.

When I said to decorate your yard…perhaps I should have given more details

“Seriously guys, open up. We can talk about this”

I keep trying to get to the open house

The Randolphs were so proud of Emily’s 4th-grade scores, they had her stuffed.

We’d like you to have a seat…there are a few questions

If you stare for long enough…

+1 800–478–0181
help@showcaseidx.com

Originally published at https://showcaseidx.com on March 13, 2019.

57 Hilariously Terrible Real Estate Photos was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZiGmroqTlc

Always great to share stories of the incredible people I’ve been blessed to work with and mentors and friends that have helped guide me on my journey. Plus it was fun to sit down and chat with Josh Sweeney about company culture from my time as a marketer for high-growth B2B companies.

Love what they’re doing. Stay tuned. He’s really taking the Gary Vaynerchuk approach for just giving value, value, value, value to people.

Originally published at kurtuhlir.com on February 5, 2019.

The ability to stand out in an increasingly competitive market is a challenge. What can you do to compete online? Our new content series will be focusing on the unique value that a real estate website gives you and how to get the most out of it.

Just having a website isn’t going to get you too far. It’s like having a car but not putting gas in it. If you don’t invest even a little bit of time and money, you’ll probably not get the most of it. It’s very easy to mis-spend, and just because you spend a lot of money on a fancy website, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are guaranteed success.

Goals

It may sound overly simplistic, but most agents don’t have a goal for their website, apart from “make me money”. Thinking about WHY you want a website is the first step to getting a website that actually fits your business model and will make you money. Why is it so often skipped? Often, it’s because no one asks the question. What your goals are has a massive impact on how you’ll structure your website.

So, leads are maybe the worst place to start in thinking about your website, yet it’s where most agents begin and end. Everyone wants leads. But it’s putting the cart before the horse when thinking about your online presence. This is a major misconception and why a lot agents don’t get as much out of their website as they think they should. The irony is that if you build a solid website and then ensure that it is fed with traffic, you’ll get leads… but those two initial factors are everything as they drive the decision for qualified consumers to contact you or register on your website.

Show Success

One of the biggest challenges online is differentiating yourself from potentially thousands of other agents to win some business. One of the biggest opportunities on most real estate agent websites that we see is agents effectively demonstrating why 1) people use them as a real estate agent and 2) see value in their website. Successful agents are using social proof, testimonials and other content to make sure that visitors know that they are the smart choice in buying or selling a home. There are so many agents in every market, you need to skew the perception of visitors to your benefit. you need to be asking yourself some questions… How are you different? What makes you a better choice than your competition? What evidence do you have of your ability to sell homes in a good and bad market? What are some of the tough transactions you’ve had and how did you get it closed?

So, how are the answers to these questions expressed on your website? Are they? Take a step back and think about it… this is what people want to know about you and your business. Don’t be afraid to tell your story. Instead of building out generic “For Buyers” and “For Sellers” pages, think about taking different approaches to distinguish you from the other sites they will visit. Think about building content pages that feature some of the best homes that you’ve sold, high-level descriptions of the process, and testimonials. Break it down by location or property type. Be different. But be different with a goal. Make sure that everything you add to your website is demonstrating that you’ve had success, that you’re a professional, and that you can help the visitor succeed too!

IDX Search Tools

Having a great IDX search experience like Showcase IDX on your website is essential. SEO, leads, and the minutiae around optimizing for both of them is very important, but providing your visitors with an experience that isn’t a dramatic difference from what they are used to on large portals is crucial. Your IDX has to reinforce your value proposition, trust, and authority. It’s also not just about converting random visitors into leads, it’s about your ability to give tools to your current and past clients that keep them close to you by providing more value than other agents.

Local Market Authority and Community Pages

A key part of most real estate websites are community or neighborhood pages that help visitors get more of a picture of what living in community would be like. Think about community pages like a Yelp page. You want to give the user useful content, structured in such a way that it makes it easy to learn about the area with a focus on what it’s like to live there. Many agents just slap a few search results on a page and call it a day. Successful agents put in the time to create unique narratives about each area. Yes, it’s work and it takes time to do it right. Yes, it’s why successful agents are successful.

Less is More

More pages, more menus, more words, more images… usually just gets in the way and dilutes your message and makes getting your value proposition across harder. Simplicity will make your website convert more leads… but the simplicity has to be intentionally pointing the visitor towards selecting you to work with, as well as disqualifying people who you don’t want as leads.

Originally published at showcaseidx.com on November 21, 2018.

5 Essential Strategies For Your Real Estate IDX Website was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’ve been a beta integration with Zapier for years, but we’re happy to announce that we are now full integration partners. This will allow you to do more with Zapier and Showcase IDX to instantly connect Showcase IDX lead data with over 1,000 apps to automate lead and message distribution and be more productive with your lead data. You’ll be able to have a simple IDX integration with LionDesk, Follow Up Boss, Realvolve, Bomb Bomb, Contactually, Wise Agent, Salesforce, Hubspot, Mailchimp and Gmail. These integrations are available to all Showcase IDX customers on all plans.

You can find get all the details on our Zapier Integration page. Zapier integrations are also now accessible for active admin-level users from the Integrations Page in the agent admin.

Our Zapier integrations differ from our Premium Plan integrations. The Zapier integrations are not sent in real time and are limited to the initial lead contact information and all lead messages. Premium Integrations are sent in real-time, include more metadata and include all the lead’s ongoing website activity.

Support Hours Monday — Friday: 10am — 5pm EST

Saturday & Sunday: Closed

Copyright 2019 SHOWCASE IDX © All Rights Reserved

Originally published at showcaseidx.com on November 9, 2018.

Showcase IDX Is Now An Official Zapier Integration Partner was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For over 12 years, Showcase IDX has been self-funded and its growth bootstrapped through increases in its revenue. This investment represents a significant amount of capital that the company will use to continue to innovate and address the current and future needs of real estate agents, teams, and brokers.

The private equity investor, who will remain nameless, is a long-time real estate industry-insider who has been closely following Showcase IDX’s rise for the past 5+ years.

“We are thrilled to have this additional capital to fuel our growth and accelerate our ability to provide products that help agents, teams, and brokers meaningfully compete online,” said Founder and CEO, Scott Lockhart, “Bringing on an investor with such industry knowledge, connections and passion makes this investment far more valuable and impactful than money alone could. This investment validates our passionate belief that agents, more than ever, need a hub for their online presence. This hub should elevate and reinforce agent, team, and brokerage brands, drive business opportunities and provide a clear return on investment. Put simply, we believe that if agents win, we win.”

In addition to this investment, in the past week, the company also added Matt Booth to the team as Director of Sales and Marketing. Matt’s exemplary Fortune 500 experience and energy has Showcase IDX positioned to take full advantage of the company’s new resources and established market-leading IDX product.

The company intends to further expand its ranks in the coming months in engineering, product, sales, and customer success.

Originally published at showcaseidx.com on September 28, 2018.

Showcase IDX Closes Private Equity Investment Round was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This update is already live and there is nothing that you need to do to enable this new version.

In the previous version of our XML Sitemaps, we were building each sitemap index page on the fly, which was accurate, but also was slower than we wanted it to be. Especially, because to render any sitemap page, it required any and all of the previous sitemap index pages before it to be built before that page could be rendered and provided to the browser or search engine. So page 35 previously required pages 1–34 to be built during the request for page 35 which often caused it to be very slow for large MLSs. Yeah, we know… not great.

Our team performed extensive benchmark testing on the load-time of the sitemap pages (ours and our competitors) on a variety of sites. For smaller MLS’s the change in load time between the first and last page was nominal, but for larger MLSs with over 100, 000 listings, the difference in load times was not good and the improvements have been remarkable. The new sitemaps now use a novel combination of backend technology approaches to ensure that the last page in every sitemap loads as fast as the first page. This should have a positive impact on the indexability of all listing pages on your website. We also stack up exceedingly well against any IDX or website provider in terms of sitemap page load time, and we have to assume accuracy because we are as accurate as we can be at this point.

How we do it?

We are now caching all the listings for each MLS in pages of 2500 listings per page. So, now when a sitemap is created, we first grab a page from the cache, get the 2500 listings and then build the sitemap page. The tricky part is, due to search restrictions that our agents apply to the search results in the website settings, not every listing in the MLS is shown for each website. So, once we get the cached page of 2500 listings, we perform a search for those 2500 using the website’s settings which may filter the results to be slightly smaller than 2500. We then render the sitemap page that Google sees.

There are some key benefits to our new approach:

Sitemap pageload speed

Our approach lets us provide a uniformly fast page load speed across all XML Sitemap pages on your website.

Fresh and accurate listing page URL data

We are updating our cache with new listings at the same frequency we are updating our MLSs. In order to make sure we always have accuracy, we’ve added an additional level of checks by completely breaking down our MLS listing cache and rebuilding it from scratch every 24 hours just to be sure that we have everything. This is done in the background and there is never a point where your Sitemaps are inaccessible.

Performing the search on these cached results has other benefits as well. It ensures that even though we are using a cache that has a listing that has been removed, we will never show it
in the sitemap, this is because in the process of rendering the sitemap we apply a search to all the active cached listings and your website’s search restrictions will automatically ensure that listings that don’t meet your settings or if it’s somehow no longer available and it will not be added to the sitemap.

This is one of those under-the-hood enhancements that usually doesn’t get a lot of attention, but we are confident that this should improve the indexability potential of your listing pages in Google Search Console across the board.

Originally published at showcaseidx.com on September 20, 2018.

Showcase IDX’s Google XML Sitemaps Updated was originally published in Showcase IDX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.