Qualities to Look for in a Real Estate Website Theme

Finding the Perfect Real Estate Website Theme

When marketing real estate listings online, an elegant, easy-to-use website is essential. Without such a site it will be almost impossible to generate leads. So where can you get the right website?

Well, if you have lots of time and money you could create a unique website from scratch. Unfortunately, most real estate professionals don’t have the time or money to invest in such substantial proposal.

The solution is to use a CMS with a ready made real estate theme. With a real estate theme you can set up your site quickly and cheaply and if the theme isn’t quite right, simply customise it to your needs. So, with many thousands of themes on the market, how will you find the design for you?

Well, there are only a few major elements you really need when choosing a real estate website theme, any other enhancements are simply a bonus. Those elements are:

IDX Integration

Every real estate website needs IDX integration. If the theme does not feature IDX integration you are wasting your time. Flash layouts and designs mean nothing for a real estate website, it what’s under the hood that counts.

• In a nutshell, IDX (Internet Data Exchange), is how MLS (Multiple Listing Service) listings end up on a website.
  Also known as Broker Reciprocity, IDX encompasses the policies, rules, and software that allow listings from the MLS database to be displayed publicly. Anytime you see properties on a website that came from an MLS, it was made possible through IDX.

So, IDX is the protocol that allows you to import the most current property details from your MLS and display it on your website. With IDX, there’s no need to manually edit each listing. Instead, your listings are updated automatically, ensuring that your website visitors can search and access the most accurate and up-to-the-minute data.

You can see why IDX is a facility is a must have.

An Easy to Implement, Use and Maintain CMS

The right real estate theme combined with a great content management system (CMS) will provide a great user experience both for you and your customers. When you’re constantly updating your marketing website with fresh content and features, you need a user friendly CMS to make that process as easy as possible. There are plenty of solid CMSs out there, but WordPress is the undisputed leader. With WordPress, you can easily create and publish beautiful, search engine-optimized (SEO) blog posts and pages without any coding or web design experience. Plus, WordPress supports thousands of fantastic themes, both free and premium.

Responsive Design

Do you use a smartphone, ipad or similar device to do you online browsing? So do millions of others. Just look around you on your daily commute. Today, it’s crucial to have a real estate website theme that’s mobile friendly. To future-proof your website, make sure your theme features responsive design, which scales web content fluidly across devices with different screen and window sizes.

• A responsive website theme recognizes the device the viewer is using (smartphone, tablet, desktop, etc.), and delivers the perfect reading and search experience for every individual.

4. Map Functionality

When we search for properties, one of the first things we all want to know is, what is the properties location?

Real estate customers want map functionality. They want to search for listings and see results on a map. Your chosen theme must include a map window that integrates with Google Maps and provides basic features like the ability to “pin” listings and search by distance to points of interest.

If the theme offers more advanced mapping features such as the creation of custom drawn areas that allows visitors to search by neighbourhood, all the better.

5. Slideshows and Galleries

Assuming the property location is good, what’s the next thing we all want? Beautiful images of the property and surroundings.

A real estate website is nothing without great slideshows and galleries. These are crucial for showing off the photos of your listings. Whether it’s a featured collection of handpicked property photos on your homepage, or a standard gallery of images at a listings landing page, your slideshow should be promenant, with high-quality images and an elegant navigation design that makes it easy for visitors to cycle through each carefully crafted photograph.