I think that a “Featured Listings” Page is a necessary component of any Real Estate Website or Blog (unless of course you don’t have any featured listings). But really, “Homes for Sale in [Your City]” is one of the reasons consumers are coming to your site to begin with. Showcasing your listings makes sense since your primary goal is to drive traffic to your site and convert that traffic into a closed sale (off of one of your listings). Right?
Here are some sample Featured Listings Pages from other Real Estate Blogs and Websites:
- http://livesouthcounty.com/listings
- http://homesbyhaycox.com/listings/featured-listings
- http://www.tvrealtors.com/property-list.php
The WordPress Property Plugin:
The WordPress Property Plugin is the perfect solution for you if you’re looking to add your most recent property listings to your blog to create a Featured Listings page. As long as you’re running on WordPress 3.0 or higher, this plugin works right out of the box. It might be a bit labor intensive to add 5 – 10+ property listings but it’s perfect if you’re just starting out in the business and you want to set up and neatly organize that Featured Listings page for your blog.
Here’s what your Featured Listings page will look like:
http://sites.twincitiestech.com/wp-property/properties
Here’s what your Listing Details page will look like:
http://sites.twincitiestech.com/wp-property/property/crossing-town-center/denali-towhhomes
Later, if you want to do something more heavy-duty, take a look at dsIDXPress, a WordPress IDX Plugin for adding MLS content to your real estate blog (Disclosure: I work for Diverse Solutions, Inc. and dsIDXPress is one of our products).
WP-Property Plugin Features: (from the plugin page)
- Customizable templates for different property types
- Fields such as price, bathrooms, bedrooms, features, address, work out of the box
- SEO friendly URL’s generated for every property, following the WordPress format
- Customizable widgets: Featured Properties, Property Search, Property Gallery and Child Properties
…and more. And the best thing about the plugin is it’s FREE! No download fees, no setup fees, just install and get to work on adding your listings. So like I said, it might be a bit labor-intensive to set up if you have a lot of listings, otherwise, it adds all of your listing data and organizes it in a very organized way so that you can rock out a good lookin’ Featured Listings page.
Do you have a Featured Listings page on your blog? Are you using an IDX vendor to display your listings or do you manually upload all of the content and information yourself? How will you use the WP-Property plugin? (would love to see examples of it in action on your site, so drop a link in the comments below…
