Managing Listings

Adding a Listing
Click ‘Manage Listings’>’Add New Listing’

Adding listings to your site is quick and easy. On this page, you will see a long form for you to enter the different details of the listing you are posting to your website. Do not be intimidated by the length of the form, any fields that are not filled in or used will not display on your public website. The only 2 required fields are the Price and Listing Title. We encourage you to enter as much information as you have for each listing. The content you add for each listing is search engine recognizable and will help you in the search engines. Detailed information will also help retain your website visitors longer and increase the likelihood that they will contact you for their questions. After entering the listing details, Click ‘Add This Listing’. The page will refresh and you can easily upload an unlimited amount of pictures for the listing that you just created. Again, all pictures must be in .jpg format.

Editing Listings
Click ‘Manage Listings’>Click ‘Edit’ beside the listing you wish to change

After a listing has been added it can easily be edited. You may find the need to change the status from ‘for sale’ to ‘pending’, or you may obtain additional information that you want to add to a listing you have already entered. This can be simply done by clicking ‘Edit’ next to the listing you wish to edit. Be sure to click the ‘Edit Current Listing’ button at the bottom of the page after you have made the desired changes.

Listings- Public Site
On the home page of your public site there is a section called ‘Preview Listing’. The listing that is displayed on the home page will be a random listing from one of the listings that you marked as Featured. If you deleted your sample listings and have no listings marked as “featured” then no listing will be displayed on the homepage.

Adding IDX/MLS Feed
What is an IDX/MLS Feed?

An IDX or MLS “feed” is an automated system that allows you to upload or display current listings that are in your Local MLS’s database. Our IDX/MLS does not automatically load any informatin into any of your listings pages. The benefit of a feed such as this is that you provide access to all the available homes in your area through your website (which is what most prospective buyers are looking for). Every IDX/MLS feed has different rules and methods on how their listings are to be displayed. Our IDX Module requires you to use a feed known as a “Framed Solution” or "Frameable Link". This is something you need to take an extra step to get ahold of in able to use it on the site. That step involves calling your local MLS board and seeing if they have a feed available. If so, get it, and return to your Rapidlistings account. If not, please read our information over on rapidlistings.com about going through our third party vendor.

To place an IDX feed on your public website click ‘Edit Website Content’> Click ‘Edit’ beside the IDX Module.

-Take the link that was provided to you from your local Board or IDX company and place it in the “IDX URL” box.
-You can then select whether you would like the feed to open up with in your website or on a separate page. As mentioned above every area is different in the feed that is offered. Some feeds are made wide and some are narrower. Wider feeds may be better to open up in a separate window, or one of our 100% template (stretchable) designs.
-Select whether or not you would like to require your visitors to insert their e-mail before viewing your IDX/MLS listings.

Note: There are differing views on whether or not to require information before allowing your visitors to view your IDX/MLS feed. One point of view is that because the feed often costs extra money that before someone can view it, it should require contact information. The other point of view is this- Visitors will often leave and look for another source for their listings that do not require them to insert their e-mails. Providing your visitors with what they are looking for will retain them longer and increase the likely hood that they will contact you. If you area provides an IDX feed that has built in contact generation tools, it probably will not hurt to leave the “e-mail collector” off. If your IDX feed does not display your information and has poor lead generation tools it is advisable to leave the e-mail collector on.

- Frame Dimensions setting will allow you to lengthen the IDX window that you feed is displayed in on your public site. Lengthening the window can help prevent you clients from having to scroll to see all of the content of your IDX feed.

We suggest leaving the width settings at 100%, setting a fixed width using some of 800x600 template designs we offer can actually distort (or pull apart)  the Header graphics on the IDX page of your public site.

- Be sure to ‘Save IDX Settings’ and preview your feed, on your public site.