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Syndicating your real estate listings
By Vic Hurlstorm | June 6, 2009
Real estate agents and brokers looking for an edge in finding buyers for their listings should consider syndicating their listings. Real estate syndication of your listings across numerous niche sites has a powerful collective affect on the exposure listings receive from buyers searching online for properties.
Syndication has three important advantages for agents:
- More exposure for properties means finding a buyer faster.
- Since syndicated listings link back to the listing agent’s website, the agent gets the SEO advantage of these links. More meaningful links means more “authority” for the site, leading eventually to more traffic and more sales.
- Listing syndication is good for obtaining listings as well, because sellers will see that you are marketing their properties on numerous websites.
How to get an RSS feed of your listings
There are a couple of ways to get an RSS feed of your real estate listings:
- Through a commercial IDX provider
- Through a third party provider
The easiest is to get it from your commercial IDX provider. Many MLS boards provide a free IDX system, and it will probably not include an RSS feed of your listings. But some commercial IDX integration companies publish feeds of your properties in various formats, such as Trulia, PropSmart, Zillow, and even Google Base. Simply find the URLs to your XML formatted feeds, and you are ready to syndicate your listings.
The benefit of using a feed tied into your MLS board’s IDX data is that it will require no maintenance. When you update the MLS with your listing information, that data will automatically appear in your XML feed. When the feed is updated, your updated listings will show up on any sites your feed has been submitted to.
If you don’t have feeds available through your IDX system (check with your MLS board), it’s possible to create one through a third party website like vFlyer. The downside is that you will have to input the information manually for each of your listings. When your property’s data changes, like added photos or price changes, you will have to update the data in the third party service’s website in order for your feed to be updated.
Getting started with property syndication
To get started with property syndication using an IDX system, ExpertIDX.com is a recommended source for a search engine friendly IDX websites. Once you have an RSS formatted feed of your listings, you can easily submit it to feed submission websites like FeedProp.com to increase the exposure of your listings and boost backlinks to your real estate website.
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