If you’re a real estate professional looking to add a Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS) feed to your WordPress website, you may be wondering where to start. With the fast-paced and ever-changing world of real estate, having access to the latest property records and listing data from your Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is essential for keeping up with current market technology and trends.
By integrating a RETS feed into your website, you can display the lastest property listings and provide visitors with the most accurate and timely information. Thankfully, technology has made it easy for agents to leverage their websites as a source for getting data from a RETS feed into their systems quickly and effortlessly. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps needed to connect a RETS feed to your WordPress website and start harnessing its benefits.
What Is A RETS Feed and Why You Should One on Your Website?
As a real estate agent or broker, you’re always looking for ways to make your website stand out and provide the best experience for potential clients. That’s where SimplyRETS comes in handy.
A RETS feed is, essentially, a way of connecting to your local MLS’s real estate listings, which can allow you to integrate that listing data into your website and provide users with up-to-date information on available properties. Not only does this save you time on manually updating the listings on your website, but it also enhances the user experience by providing accurate and comprehensive search results. Additionally, integrating MLS data from a RETS feed can improve your SEO and help your website rank higher in search engine results.
There are two types of RETS feeds: IDX and VOW. Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds are available to all real estate professionals and generally contain active and pending property listings, while Virtual Office Website (VOW) feeds may contain more extended information and information on sold listings. In general, most IDX and VOW feeds are only available to members of a particular MLS. By integrating a RETS feed into your website, you’re making it easier for clients to find the perfect property and improving your chances of closing a lucrative sale.
Steps To Set Up a RETS Feed
If you’re a real estate agent, broker, or developer, you might be wondering how to set up a Real Estate Transaction Standard feed. Setting up a RETS feed might seem intimidating at first, but don’t worry; with some basic knowledge and a little bit of patience, you’ll be up and running in no time.
The first step is to determine your local MLS’s requirements for data access, as each MLS is different. The easiest and fastest way to do this is simply to contact the MLS in the area you want to access property information. Once you have a feed set up, you can use a RETS client software like SimplyRETS to connect to and manage the data within the feed. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to retrieve data and keep it up-to-date automatically and start integrating listing information into your website or application.
Too much terminology? Check out our explainer post here.
How to Connect the RETS Feed to Your WordPress Website
Are you not sure how to start adding a Real Estate Transaction Standard Feed to your WordPress website? Well, you’re in luck because it’s a lot easier than it seems.
Once you have a RETS feed set up, as mentioned in the previous section, you can use client software like SimplyRETS to integrate the data into your website. The SimplyRETS WordPress IDX plugin will connect to your RETS feed and allow you to search and display MLS data directly from your website. Just connect your RETS feed to SimplyRETS, install the SimplyRETS WordPress plugin, and start showing listings right away.
But to truly optimize your content, you need to use keywords strategically, make sure your URLs are clean and concise, and take advantage of meta descriptions and other tools. It may take some extra effort, but optimizing your website’s MLS data can make a huge difference in driving traffic to your site. Using our professional software ensures that your optimization is complete.
Integrating MLS data via a RETS feed is an essential component of a successful web presence in the real estate industry. If you’re thinking about starting up your website and integrating a RETS feed for a better and more thorough user experience, SimplyRETS is the perfect solution for you.
With SimplyRETS, you can directly integrate your MLS data into your website. The SimplyRETS tools are built for fast page load speeds and allow for highly customized websites, while maintaining a simple and easy setup. You don’t have to worry about getting overwhelmed - we have included some tips on how to optimize your real estate content on WordPress as well as potential issues that may arise and easy solutions for them. Now it’s time to transform your business by giving your website visitors direct access to MLS content!
Bring your real estate website to life with SimplyRETS.