Get More Targeted Leads with this IDX Website Feature

Do you want more targeted leads from your IDX website? How about on-site content that's more attractive and relevant to consumers?

Of course you do! That's why today we're showing you how to use an underappreciated IDX feature that can put both of these things within your reach.

We're talking about custom search URLs. Depending on the IDX solution you use, this feature is also known as "saved search pages," "IDX custom hotsheets," "custom IDX URLs," and more. Agents can use this feature to create links to specific sets of listings, such as condos under $200k, homes with pools in X neighborhood, etc. This is useful for driving website visitors to relevant properties quickly and easily.

Here's an example of an agent who's using custom search URLs to flesh out her website's neighborhood pages. Minneapolis area Realtor Jan Worthen has created informative pages for each area that she serves. In order to quickly get consumers in front of the specific type of property they're looking for, Worthen built multiple custom search URLs for different price points and property types (highlighted in red):

Each of those links leads to an IDX search results page with specific search criteria already entered and actively showing the resulting listings. Clicking on the link for $300,000-$400,000 under "Foreclosures," for example, will display a list of only distressed properties within that price range.

Leveraging Custom Search URLs

This feature can not only be used on neighborhood pages, but anywhere you want to highlight a specific set of properties. This may be in a blog post that talks about, say, available listings near golf courses. You could even use custom search URLs as landing pages for highly targeted Google AdWords campaign. Regardless of how you use it, customer search URLs are an easy way to highlight properties in a certain city, price range, or in areas not defined by your MLS.

These URLs are typically easy to create, depending on your IDX solution. The agent site referenced above uses WolfNet, so we'll use them as an example of how to set-up a custom search URL from the backend.

WolfNet calls their tool the "URL Search Builder," which gives agents access to the solution's full range of property search criteria. From here, agents can choose the area that they want to limit their search to, the property types, property features, and more. Once they've selected their criteria, the solution will generate a unique link that they can use on their website, social media, blog posts, ad campaigns, and beyond.

Once generated, custom URLs are saved within the system for easy future access:

As we previously mentioned, many IDX solutions can generate custom URLs in a similar way. If you're not sure whether your solution offers this feature, contact your vendor's customer support department. To see a full list of IDX search solutions, see our Product Directory.