Showcase IDX updates showcaseidx.com

We are serving YOU by providing your consumers with the best home search experience in today’s market. At Showcase IDX we know that a better search experience means consumers are more likely to continue to use your site - growing your business! This is why we work hard to continue to improve and streamline the search experience for buyers visiting your site.

Our Streamlined Search is consistently the most used search version, supporting multiple MLSs on your website in a single search. We’ve given this already great search experience a facelift!

Users no longer have to toggle between property, amenity, and listing filters to find what they’re looking for. Now when they select the ‘More’ button in the Streamlined Search form, all filters are immediately displayed and presented in an easier-to-navigate and more intuitive way.

Agents will also see this change in the IDX Control Panel when setting up saved searches to send to your clients or power a community page. Be sure to check out this and the many other recent updates on the Showcase IDX WordPress plugin today!

Also, be sure to check out our next webinar on Thursday where we talk more about all our latest enhancements!

Here's a quick overview of the latest update to the Streamlined Search form!

In today’s day and age, consumers are searching for homes using several different devices. Until today, you were not able to see a lead’s activity (e.g. viewed listings) when they were viewing listings from a listing alert email unless they were logged into their account, which was not guaranteed when consumers switched between devices. Showcase IDX has a more intuitive solution! We have enhanced the URLs from the home search update emails to include the lead’s unique identifier (UUID) to track that viewed listing event.

Now when a lead receives an email based on their subscribed search and clicks on the listing URL to view it, that listing will now show up on their lead profile page (under “Recent Activity” and “Listing Views”) - regardless if they are logged into their account or not! While our recent, multi-phased effort focused on CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), this enhancement helps by further easing access, no matter the device your client uses.

For example, a lead might register for an account on their desktop device and subscribe to a search. Later, when on the go or even casually browsing on their phone in bed at night, they might review any new listings from their saved search.

Thanks to this enhancement, you don’t have to worry about missing those key details that help you engage and serve your consumers in more insightful and meaningful ways… details that could mean the difference in helping you close that next deal and gain loyal clients.

Check out this quick video of how it works!

We just completed Phase 3! (Here are the highlights)

We have heard from MANY of you over time that there needs to be an easier way for newly registered leads to log in and access their account. In response, we have better streamlined and improved the registration and login experience by removing the separate password requirement and leveraging your lead’s phone number as their initial password.

• To help facilitate this streamlined access, the phone number field in the sign-up form is now required.
• Previously, new leads were required to create a password during initial sign-up. By replacing the previous password requirement with their phone number, this improved process not only provides you with more information on how to connect with your lead but also eliminates the risk of forgetting their password and increases the chance they will log in to their accounts for more engagement (this means more business for you!).
• After initial login, your clients can always update and personalize their password in their account.
• We also combined the first and last name fields into one on the sign-up form. This, along with removing the password field, presents fewer fields to fill out and increases the chance they will sign up!
• This only applies to newly registered leads moving forward! Any leads already in the system will remain unchanged.

We made these changes by working with multiple conversion rate optimization (CRO) experts across multiple industries, including real estate. These experts have seen the results of tens of millions of visitors and millions of dollars of paid media (ads). By analyzing the 13,500,000+ million homebuyers that have used the Showcase IDX WordPress Plugin on agent sites in recent months, we know these improvements will continue to help you grow your business in the years to come.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there! We also improved your clients’ experience when importing them as leads!

• When you create leads from the IDX control panel, those leads now receive an email to complete their account setup.
• This is not a required opt-in, but rather a way for them to personalize and set a secure password for their account.
• If for some reason a lead does not respond to the call-to-action, they can still access their account with their phone number if provided. Otherwise, they can simply do a password reset.
• Additionally, if you would like to personalize the email message, simply customize it in your IDX email settings.

Be sure to check out the attached video for more information and details. The Showcase IDX team continues to work diligently on further enhancements to improve CRO and the consumer experience - Happy consumers mean more business for you!

**We have updated Showcase IDX to 3.2.0 to add compatibility for WordPress 6.0. **

You can now enjoy all the functionality of Showcase IDX on WordPress’ newest platform, by installing both updates (WordPress 6.0 and Showcase IDX 3.2.0 in your website's backend).

To access the updated plugin version, simply go to Plugins in your WordPress dashboard and look for Showcase IDX. You may see a yellow notice saying there is a new version available with a hyperlink to “update now”. If you don’t see it, double check your current version as you may have enrolled in auto-updates and your plugin may already be version 3.2.0

We work hard to continue to provide you with the tools and knowledge needed to grow your business and make your life easier. This is why we are constantly looking for ways to enhance and further innovate the Showcase IDX WordPress plugin. One of the latest examples is the recent improvements to the notes feature on the lead profile pages.

We help you keep track of important notes on your leads! Add and manage important notes and comments on each of your leads, so you can keep track. These notes are viewable internally to your team in the IDX control panel only and are especially useful in support of continuity between agents and the sharing of important notes on leads when reassigned from one teammate to another.

These latest enhancements include:

• Improved performance and responsiveness: Now notes display instantly when added, without needing to refresh the page.
• Delete old or unwanted notes: Want to remove an old note? Made a mistake? No problem! Now you can delete it.
• Transparency and continuity: Now the name of the agent who posted the note appears next to it. This is especially useful for agents receiving reassigned leads, as it lets them know who to reach back to for more information on a specific comment.

Check it out on the Showcase IDX WordPress plugin today!

New

As recently mentioned, we have been working closely on a multiphase effort to enhance the featured sign-up and sign in forms on agent websites in a continued effort to increase lead conversion. We are confident that this effort will improve the already good conversion rates on websites powered by Showcase IDX, and is also an effort that we will continue to look at in both the short and long term.

We have completed Phase 2 of the sign up form CRO enhancements! In this second phase, we added a setting that allows agents to toggle the Social sign-up and login functionality off and on as desired. This also includes the ability to edit and customize the header and value text added in Phase 1.

• Please note that Social sign-up and sign in option remains “on'' by default. Note: For longtime Showcase IDX customers and those with many leads, please consider your leads who are currently using Social Media to sign in before choosing to disable that option, to prevent unintentionally hindering them from signing in.
• Want to change the ‘Create A Free Account’ heading to something that better reflects your brand, style, flair, and… YOU? No problem! Now you can customize it!
• You can also edit the value text! The value text now included provides a quick statement letting the consumer know the value they will gain from signing up.
  • Note: Agents could have added this type of “value text” before with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) if they possessed that skill set or went to a developer, but now are able to simply change that text in the settings.

Watch this quick video that demos these new settings!

We have been working closely with a CRO expert that spends millions of dollars a year on driving leads, specifically within real estate.

In partnership, their efforts and observations, combined with our own team’s thorough research, across other industries as well, have led us to apply these changes to the featured sign-up forms on agent websites in a continued effort to increase lead conversion. We are confident that this effort will improve the already good conversion rates on websites powered by Showcase IDX, and is also an effort that we will continue to look at in both the short and long term. This is a multiphase effort and we’ve just released Phase 1!

• Phase 1 (Just Released): This initial phase includes enhancements to the sign-up form’s layout (includes both hard and soft prompts). This will keep with the form’s current functionality, but make it more visually appealing and streamlined, as well as introduce a powerful headline and value text.

Here is an example:

• Headline: “Create Your Free Account”
• Action Statement: “Get instant access to new inventory. Save searches and receive email alerts on new homes, price reductions, and status changes.”

This new version of the form is replacing the previous version. If you have applied custom CSS to your IDX to modify the previous form, that CSS is likely no longer needed and should be reviewed and/or deleted.

Stay tuned for Phase 2!

• We care greatly about the user experience (we always have!). As such, our team has been heavily focused on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), which includes this week’s improvements to the listing summary pop-up on the map display. The previous user experience included only an image of the listing and limited information.

  • Now, your consumers are presented additional value-add information, such as price, property type, status, and more!

  • Not only does this enhancement look more attractive, it also follows best practices from what we have seen in multiple successful websites, such as eCommerce, which implement these attractive ‘quick views’, to engage viewers and increase consumer conversion. This is all part of our renewed and ongoing efforts for optimization. Expect more CRO updates coming in the next few weeks too.

• We are sure you also noticed an update to the WordPress plugin (version 3.1.8). There are a ton of optimization pieces we have made, so be sure to update!

• The team continues to be both hyper-vigilant and hyper-sensitive toward preventing spam - we hate spam and so do you!
  • In continuation with our proactive stance towards eliminating pesky and annoying spam, we have recently implemented “honeypot” protection.
  • This mitigative method and security mechanism immediately blocks forms from submitting when spam bot activity is detected.
  • It doesn’t stop there! We are continuing to evaluate and implement new and proven methods based on industry best standards and add additional layers of security in our fight against spam bots.
• We are continuing to make sure you get the attention and keep your hard won leads! New listing alert emails (aka, search subscriptions) no longer attribute the listing agent or brokerage, so they stay associated with your website.

At Showcase IDX we know that having on-demand access to reliable and accurate data is critical for both your business and your customers. This is no easy task, as there are hundreds of MLSs, each with their own setup of compliances, and updates. Our dedicated data team remains hyper-focused on keeping up with the latest changes and compliances, so you can stay focused on what you do best. Here is a sample of some of the data updates and fixes we have addressed just over the last month:

• Stellar MLS
• Fixed HOA/Condo Fees on Condo property types
• Added directional suffix to street address
• RETS feed was deprecated and moved to MLS Grid
• NWMLS
  • Fixed mapping for Agent and Office IDs
  • Fixed issue where bathrooms were not properly displaying
• CATRS (Tallahassee)
  • Fixed calculation for HOA fees so they display monthly total
  • Fixed issue with open houses
• Smart MLS ‘Coming Soon’ listings now show open houses in the future
• Updated San Diego MLS timezone to provide accurate open house times
• Garden State MLS stopped supporting Coming Soon listings
• Fixed issue with KAAR where some Single Family Homes displayed as Farm listings
• Added search filters for new construction and foreclosure to NJMLS
• Added school district to Northstar MLS
• MIBOR: Fixed an issue where multi-family properties were displaying as “for rent” only
• REIN: Fixed an issue where some Townhouses were displaying as Single Family Homes
• Miscellaneous feed compliance updates

The team also addressed a periodic issue where some streamlined amenity filters would not save when creating a search. Now all amenity filters saved in your search will remain.