dsIDXPress: Search Engine Friendly IDX

January 26 2010, 7:35am

If you’re not already aware of Diverse Solutions….you should be. These guys have some serious cool factor and have been driving innovation with their dsSearchAgent Pro IDX for years now.  Recently they unleashed a beta of a long awaited “indexable” IDX plug-in for WordPress.  And today they’ve ripped off that BETA label! What does this mean for you? It means your real estate blog can now have the functionality of a highly custom site with search engine friendly IDX data. dsIDXPress is released with special introductory pricing of $99.95 setup and $29.95 a month. That is an introductory offer and will go up over time. And for the most part the plug-in is compliant in all markets they cover with the exception of a couple of the more strict MLSs. If you have any questions or comments about compliance reach out to them here.  Let’s take a look at a few ways to implement dsIDXPress. Short code If you’re not already familiar with shortcode, it’s worth taking some time to familiarize yourself with the concept. It was introduced in WordPress 2.5 and allows the blog author to include a small piece of content [shortcode] in a post or page to replicate what would usually be numerous lines of code.  In the case of dsIDXPress the shortcode placed in your posts and pages is replaced with specific listings or groups of listings from your MLS.  That’s right, no frames….actually pages from your site that get indexed by Google and the others. C’mon deep crawl.  This also means that your real estate blog can now be sculpted to represent your market area in custom fashion. For example, take a look at a few options:

Geographic: Create a page for each of the different areas in your market. Break them down into geographic levels that make sense: city, zip, community or tract.  Here are a few different examples of how the shortcode could be displayed in a page:

[idx-listings city="Pleasanton" orderby="Price" orderdir="Price" count="15"] [idx-listings zip="94566" orderby="Price" orderdir="DateAdded" count="15"] [idx-listings community="Golden Oak" orderby="Price" orderdir="LastUpdated" count="15"] [idx-listings tract="Willow Glen" orderby="Price" orderdir="DESC" count="15"]

Listing Specific: This piece of shortcode uses the MLS number to display a configurable view of a property. Show just the basic property details or all data available.  Included in the property display is a Google map that will also display in your RSS feed for subscribers. Example: [idx-listing mlsnumber="AB454834" showall="true"]

Widgets dsIDXPress comes with 3 widgets: Search, Area List and Property List. Each provides different levels of customization. The property list widget can display a crawl-able list of properties, map, and a detailed array of properties.

MyTechOpinion It’s no secret that we at MyTechOpinion love WordPress. So much so that we partnered with Brian Gardner of AgentPress because he captured the essence of what a real estate agent require in a WordPress theme.  Now we see the same in Diverse Solutions new dsIDXPress.   We think they really nailed it with their plug-in.  To start, it’s very easy to install and early adopters will likely see amazing results. Overtime it will become more important for real estate bloggers to sculpt their site to increase pagerank and facilitate a deeper index by Google.  If you need help in that department, make sure you reach out to Chad of MyTechOpinion for a quote. If you’re even slightly interested in learning more about dsIDXPress from this article let me give you the push. Go check it out….tell them Reggie from MyTechOpinion sent you.

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