We’re hearing the same thing from many of our Agents: we’re just not sure what this whole “widget” phenomenon is. So we’ve put together a short guide on what widgets are, what they do, and why they’re valuable to use in your real estate business.
What is a Widget?
A Widget is a small piece of ‘bling’ that gets displayed on your OWN website! You’ve probably seen a lot of these before without realizing what they are – a small block to show the WEATHER is a good example. By putting a small piece of code into you web page, information about the WEATHER gets displayed and updated automatically – there’s nothing else you need to know.
There are now many Widgets available that present all sorts of information. Real Estate Marketing Widgets, or “Listing Widgets” typically offer simple and convenient ways to present information about your existing listings on other websites in a predetermined way. For example, a Widget could display a rotating list of your properties or, show a map of all your latest listings, or even show a chat window where buyers can talk directly to you
Are Widgets difficult to use?
Not at all – Widgets have developed as a way to make it very easy for the non-technical person to have a Web site with beautiful, useful tools. Installing a widget is very easy – the Widget provider (like SPS), gives you a small snippet of code that you simply insert into your own Web site. That’s all there is to it – the rest is handled by the Widget.
In our experience, some Agents get a little nervous about dealing with computer code. But widgets make it very easy – you need no technical knowledge. The process is as easy as copying and pasting the code into your Web site or BLOG, just like you would a paragraph of text. It’s that simple.
Widgets are maintenance free. The program is dynamic, meaning it can change its own content without you needing to do anything. For example, say you get a new listing and you enter it into your SPS account. Our widgets detect the new listing and automatically update all your widgets for you.
What types of widgets are available?
There are an endless variety of widgets on the Web, but at SPS, we’ve developed widgets specifically for REALTORs to use. For example, we have a Property Map Widget that automatically displays all your properties on a map so your buyers can easily and quickly see the locations of all your listings at a time. We also have a variety of widgets that display thumbnail images of your properties along with their listing information. For a complete list, click here.
Why should I use Widgets?
Widgets are a way to keep all your marketing efforts connected. REALTORs today are everywhere online; they have their own Web site, they have Single Property Sites, blogs at ActiveRain and RealTown, personal blogs – you name it, they’ve got it. It’s important to keep all these marketing efforts connected. Links are one way to do it, but widgets are a more elegant, easy and automatic way.
With a widget like the ones we’re providing at Single Property Sites, you can make sure that buyers will be able to see your listings. And, since it updates itself, it requires no extra time or effort. Install the widget on all your different sites, and rest easy – your buyers will always be seeing your latest listings, no matter where they reach you.
It can be quite confusing keeping up with all the new twists and turns of how data feeds can be used. I see the benefits of RSS feeds and this helps understand how widgets can be added to the mix. Finding the right source and implementation is another challenge.