Is WordPress Right for Your Real Estate Website?
In today’s competitive environment, having a professional realtor website can really help you stand out from the crowd. However, trying to regularly post blogs and updated property listings can quickly bog you down in both time and effort.
That’s why using a Content Management System (CMS) for your real estate website is so crucial to your success. In addition, the CMS should allow for easy integration of an IDX system to display local MLS listings.
In terms of technical capabilities and flexible aesthetic design, WordPress is miles ahead of its CMS competitors. WordPress is the largest website platform in the world and is consistently ranked the #1 CMS for real estate websites.
Best of all, you don’t have to be a developer to customize a real estate WordPress theme for your brand. Having said that, it’s definitely worth taking a look at what makes WordPress the best choice for your business.
Ideal features of a real estate WordPress theme
From its humble beginnings as a blogging platform in 2003, WordPress has grown to power about 40% of websites worldwide. WordPress is a free and open-source CMS, which means that it is constantly being updated and improved with powerful features right out of the box.
Great user experience:
WordPress developers focus a lot of their energy and resources on making sure that the platform provides the ultimate user experience. From its famous “5-minute installations” to ready-to-use real estate WordPress themes, no other CMS platform can match their design and performance.
As a result, users love a well-designed WordPress website that they find useful and informative. For a realtor, these features are priceless and they can rest easy knowing their website will grow with the business.
Comprehensive documentation:
Although you don’t have to be a developer to learn how to use WordPress, they do offer plenty of documentation in case you want to go hands-on. From making theme customization to troubleshooting theme issues, WordPress offers a complete A to Z library of documentation that can assist users.
While most free themes and plugins come with limited customization options, premium products tend to offer robust guides.
IDX Compatibility:
With over 80% of home buyers beginning their search for homes online, having an IDX-enabled WordPress website is a must. IDX stands for “Internet Data Exchange” and is a system that pulls a data feed from your local MLS board.
Installing IDX software allows agents to display properties listed on their local MLS right onto their websites. The listings are updated every few hours so your users can conduct their property searches at their own convenience.
SEO-Friendly:
From an SEO standpoint, WordPress scores high marks for being such an efficient and easy-to-use CMS. In addition, real estate WordPress themes also come with SEO-ready features that can help rank your posts higher on the SERPs.
Finally, using WordPress plugins can also provide powerful SEO solutions for your site’s backend and frontend. Using an IDX plugin, for example, can actually make your site more search-friendly because the plugin makes the listing pages indexable.
There’s no question that WordPress provides best-in-class real estate websites for Realtors. From great looks to affordable prices, WordPress is the only choice you should consider for your real estate website.