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Showcase IDX: What Agents and Developers Need to Know

Sep 11

Showcase IDX is an incredibly powerful real state search plugin. It helps to find multiple listing service properties in a specific area, basically, it powers the property search home buyers use on a website. It acts as an exchange between MLS data and IDX customers and has the ability for agents, Realtors, and brokers to display all of the properties for sale in their individual MLSs on their own websites

Showcase IDX review

With the launch of Showcase IDX in 2003, they began to build complete websites for its agents. Many companies have tried this before but it was a difficult task to create a home search properly.

As of 2010, 1,400 location local real estate boards had formed MLSs, and there are still more than 600 MLSs in the United States today.

Website and app developers need different protocols to access MLS data but it is an expensive process and it costs a lot. Zillow spent $25 million on this work, just in the first year, according to many sources at a 2019 RESO conference. It is not possible for small companies or individual web developers to create home search tools that meet today’s customers' needs.

Having your MLS data on your website can be very useful for you as an agent. You have often seen that when people start searching for their new home, their first attempt is to find such a website, where all the houses are available that meet a certain set of parameters and which are also easy to use. Such searches are often done using a website with an active IDX or on a large portal like Zillow that then provides your client’s information to a competitive agent in your market.

This is why independent IDX vendors like IDX Broker, iHomefinder, and Showcase IDX were founded, to enable agents to better control their individual brands and provide their clients the tools they want when searching for their next property.

By 2019, Showcase IDX had become the IDX Word Press plugin for real estate agent websites. Now it is spreading more than ever. Keep reading to find out why.

Features of Showcase IDX

Whenever a buyer searches for home, IDX ensures that the results are up to date and available to be saved to the buyer’s/seller’s search account. Showcase IDX updates the MLS listing data as often as every fifteen minutes, depending on how frequently the MLS updates the data on their own servers.

Showcase IDX’s Premium license also provides additional market data that keeps buyers busy by providing more information about properties. It contains the following information.

  • Cost of living
  • Population
  • Households with children
  • Employment data
  • Marital status
  • Breakdown by age
  • Commute times

The listings and all the information generated by Showcase IDX and displayed on an agent's website are indexed by search engines. This helps the agent's website to show better results.

Easy to Install

Some websites that are used to buy and sell homes are complicated due to using subdomains and iframes. It takes more time to sort them out. For this work even remotely well, developers are needed who are skilled in their work but they are too costly.

Showcase IDX makes this task much easier and less expensive. The website can be built in no time using Showcase IDX by anyone familiar with WordPress and working with a good theme or builders like Elementor or Divi. The real delay is the time as you get MLS approval to turn on your individual data feed.

Search and Listing Pages

Search and listing pages are some of the pages on your website that are visible to your visitors. It is important to collect emails and other information on these pages.

After a lot of hard work, Showcase IDX has made sure that its design can keep potential buyers on the website longer if you want to get more leads. Their team makes dozens of small A/B tests and adjustments each quarter to continue improving the results for agents. While the average agent or user may not notice the changes unless they are keeping screenshots, these small iterations are one of the reasons so many agents and web developers keep switching to Showcase IDX.

Eye Catching

Showcase IDX helps to get buyers' attention. It also provides an interactive map search to make user search more attractive.

It also allows you to create attractive galleries, list views, or grid views of properties on individual community pages. These different image layouts help users to find the home of their choice.

When it comes to selling or showing a home to customers, there are some things that can help attract people to you. Using Showcase to create hyperlocal community pages not only looks good to potential buyers but also to Google because of the proprietary way Showcase IDX integrates with your website.

Designed For Mobile Devices

Showcase IDX is designed in such a way that users can also use it in mobile, which is great because it’s very difficult to get the average person to download a new app much less continue to use that new app. Instead, your website will always be responsive. It doesn’t matter that what device you are using. It gives your customers access to their needs from anywhere.

Showcase IDX can detect automatically and display in mobile-friendly format when someone accesses it from a mobile device. It provides better results in mobile than other platforms, like IDX Broker or iHomefinder, and visitors will have a great experience to those clients visiting your websites.

Property Search

IDX has a prominent position in the industry due to its ability to search maps. It helps its users to draw lines to outline of any area for their search. Unique to Showcase is the ability to create multiple regions within the same area to search within.

In the standard plan, users can search for locations by naming any neighborhood, city or division. In addition, locations can also be found through pricing and other information.

MLS listing information for any property will then be shown once a property has been identified using Map Search.

Dynamic Lead Capture

One of the advantages of IDX is that all agents can get information about leads that sign up on their sites. As soon as a customer provides their contact information, Showcase IDX creates leads and then will enrich the profile of that contact with social media and additional information to allow you to see what the lead may be posting on Pinterest, what their job is listed as on LinkedIn, etc.

Showcase IDX can work with other social media platforms too, including Facebook. It specializes in automated marketing with many popular CRMs and other marketing applications by allowing you to send leads to 1,000s of other applications.

You can turn your visitors into lead generation with the help of scheduling forms, registration on the website, and other contact forms. This will help you to get more information.

IDX is capable of providing information about the interests of consumers. In addition, IDX can send emails to all visitors when there is a new listing on your website.

Multi-Platform Integration

Showcase IDX also has the ability to work with many other applications. These include PipeDrive, Wise Agent, Salesforce and many more applications. An application called Zapier is used for this purpose.

Admin and Management

This plugin and its immense backend systems are powerful and easy-to-use tools that can help you in your office work. While it has lead routing, the lead routing process needs to be improved to meet all the needs of agents. However, once you have multiple agents, this is also when it makes sense to bring in a dedicated CRM to focus on what it does well and allow your IDX to focus on what it does well. This makes managing one or more websites and teams even easier.

SEO Friendly

Many other IDX listing plugins put iframes or subdomains on websites which is an old, outdated method. It is rarely possible to rank on Google in this way today.

Showcase IDX works completely differently and uses proprietary technology to deliver MLS data and their search experience in a way that Google and other search engines love. Using Showcase IDX, you can get more traffic on your website. Now, you do need to add original content, with the magic coming when you combine Showcase IDX with your hyperlocal expertise on individual community pages.

Functional Design

Many buyers use online tools as well as other means to buy a home. Showcase IDX plays an important role in making your website more responsive so that it can provide complete guidance to your users.

The advantage of this is that your visitors can get all the information with your listing from one place. They can also transfer their favorite content to other devices at will and even invite trusted family and friends into their private search on your website.

Your users should have no problem using IDX on any device such as mobile, tablet, laptop or computer.

Key Findings

  • The choice of IDX plays a critical role in retaining clients and controlling the impact of IDX on search engine rankings.
  • IDX has also increased the value of real estate agents' businesses who have their own websites by improving their personal brand and giving them a “hub” that clients will actually use.
  • Along with the ability to set up a search of homes for their clients, all agents need a website for their clients to use themselves. Many agents who need an IDX website are often hurt by developers because they always use out-of-date IDX. Using Showcase IDX to build your website today will save you thousands of dollars from having to pay a developer to rebuild your website tomorrow.
  • Showcase IDX increases your search engine optimization which leads to more traffic to your website.

How Much Does Showcase IDX Cost?

Many agents overlook a new website’s potential features when choosing an IDX because of a limited budget or they simply accept the IDX their web developer wants to use. Showcase IDX provides all the features that are essential to your website, with two budget-friendly options. Either will give you an incredible ROI if you sell even one additional home this year.

Showcase has introduced two easy pricing plans for IDX. One, called the Essential Plan, costs $59.95 per month, while the other, which starts at $99.95, is called the Premium Plan.

The price difference is due to the fact that these two plans have different capabilities to integrate your CRM platform and the Premium plan contains the Premium Listing data that we discussed above for each listing in your market.

The company also initially offers a ten-day trial version without the need for a credit card. Both plans are provided for a lifetime and are automatically updated. You don't have to worry about that.

What Sets the Showcase IDX Apart from Others?

If you are building websites for Realtors then this is a must-go for you because the company is focused on one task – making an IDX and home search tools, not trying to build a CRM or selling websites themselves like IDX Broker and iHomefinder. Showcase IDX developed a home search that users actually use. This helps real estate agents to focus on their strengths and helps you to take your real estate marketing to next level.

Showcase IDX Pros and Cons

Showcase IDX Pros:

  • Whether agents like it or not, consumer expectations have been changed by Zillow and their search experience. Many MLS are providing a free IDX but they all underdeliver and do not meet buyers’ needs or wants. While the user interface of some all-in-one tools like Real Geeks and BoomTown have been updated, Showcase IDX consistently performs better in multiple 3rd party tests.
  • In one study, after testing more than 25,000 real state websites and other portals, that are using 135,000+ buyers and sellers, people chose the websites powered by Showcase IDX over Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin. The results compared to other IDX vendors were several orders of magnitude better too. One of the reasons consumers gave is for using Showcase IDX on agents’ websites are the ability to do a private search with their friend and family members. Another reason to use Showcase IDX is that their agents keep the customer’s information confidential, unlike the portals that provide it to agents.
  • Using Showcase IDX your clients are able to invite family and other trusted friends to their search. There is no need for emails and text messages.
  • Their IDX provides excellent results on mobile. This allows you to create multiple polygon searches at once too.
  • Other IDX and tools use subdomains and iframes which makes them very difficult to have a great cohesive user experience with the rest of the agent’s site. Showcase IDX works differently from other IDX. Showcase IDX technology displays searchable content embedded as part of your website.
  • The company's main goal is to improve the experience for your potential clients which keeps them using your website.

Showcase IDX Cons:

  • The company is adding additional MLS coverage quickly but does not have the coverage of IDX Broker or iHomefinder. so if the company is not covering your MLS, then you have to wait.
  • There is a lack of sold data. Some IDXs only have the ability for agents to manually add sold data where they were the listing data. Others do have sold data for all listings for the past 1-3 years. While it is arguable how much sold data is relevant with buyers given the growth of US housing over the previous five years, it is still a feature some agents are looking for that they do not have today.

Tips for Selection of an IDX Plugin

IDX Reliability

Not all real estate IDX features are the same. Each IDX has its own unique features that make it important. But to choose a good IDX, you have to look at how reliable it is.

Agents look for IDX that can provide information without interruption.

Stick To Organic and Native IDX Solutions

There are three types of IDX Organic, subdomains, and framing. Your choice of all of these should be organic, as using iframes or subdomains will never match the user experience or results of organic of platforms like Showcase IDX. For developers who are running their businesses using other vendors, upgrading your clients to Showcase IDX can be a great way to keep clients and bring them more value.

Conclusions

There are many real estate plugins and platforms. Some are standalone plugins, and others are a large backend platform that is delivered via a plugin to the website. Very few will have an impact on an agent’s business as the choice of the IDX powering their website. Showcase IDX is the clear standout.

Showcase IDX’s interface is designed with the buyer experience in mind so that the agent’s business can grow without any programming knowledge.

The technical SEO features combine both the backend platform and the local plugin, so you don't have to worry too much about technical things to rank community pages on Google, outside of adding your local content.

If you want to grow your real estate business in the next 12 – 24 months, build a local real estate powered by Showcase IDX.