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Tag Archive: RSS Feeds

Local RSS Feeds For Your Real Estate Website

by on Aug 3, 2010 | Careers and Training, Real Estate News, Technology

RSS IconsYou know RSS feeds are catching on in popularity when you even see government websites pushing them.  More and more REALTORS® are taking advantage of the increase in their availability by displaying niche targeted feeds on their real estate websites.  It’s the simplest way that I know of to provide updated content to your website visitors – set it and forget it.  Here is a little more info about what they are and some of my favorite feeds for REALTORS®.

What are RSS feeds?

No need for super technical definitions, RSS feeds are automatic notifications of new content.  RSS feeds need 2 things to work, a pusher and a puller.  Be on the lookout for the orange RSS logo to help identify the pusher websites.

Display them on your real estate website by using a tool that pulls them. Some website providers include RSS feed pullers/readers as a part of their web tools.  If your site is built on WordPress there are a variety of plugins and themes you can use.  If your site does not have anything to pull the feeds, you can make an RSS widget here.

Superlative Websites come with a Wall Street Journal RSS feed displayed on the homepage by default. My recommendation is to remove the national real estate news feed and replace it with a local real estate news feed.  Here’s the Superlative tutorial on how to install/edit RSS feeds on your website.

Local RSS Feeds

RSS feeds can be used to help provide site visitors with good local information.  Let’s say you have a website or web page designed to provide info about a particular city.  Adding an RSS feed from that city’s visitor’s bureau, government site, or police department will ensure the page never gets stale.  Here are a few to get you started…

If I didn’t list the city you specialize in, visit their government page or visitor’s bureau and look for the orange RSS icon.  (Hint: If you’re having trouble finding feeds, AZCentral.com has a lot of them and the Phoenix Business Journal has a good one.)

Local Real Estate Feeds

Like the national weather forecast, national real estate feeds aren’t always relevant for the greater Phoenix home buyer or seller.  John Hall & Associates and Arizona Republic reporter Catherine Reagor both provide greater Phoenix real estate RSS feeds that have much more relevant real estate information than any national news feed.

Now it’s your turn.  Find city feeds for your city pages.  Find a Buyer feed for your buyer’s page.  Find a Seller feed for your seller’s page.  Access the back-end of your website, set ‘em and forget ‘em.  Don’t be shy – speak up if you need help: 602.953.4043 (ask for Phil).

The Cromford Report takes Friday’s Feature

by on Oct 23, 2009 | Careers and Training, Real Estate Statistics, Technology

I’m a fan of RSS feeds.  If you like time saving technology tools, you probably are too.  It’s ways nice to be able to visit one website to see if there is any new content on multiple websites – that you choose.  If you’re not sure how to take advantage of this powerful piece of technology, you should watch the video – RSS in Plain English.  If you’d like a little more instruction on how to set up RSS feeds with an igoogle page – check out this Cool Google Tools presentation.  The reason for all this talk about RSS feeds?

Cromford Report RSS feed

Michael Orr with the Cromford Report now has an RSS feed for the articles he and Tom Ruff publish on his website.  The feed shares the latest article’s title as a hyperlink so you can click-through (log in) and read the most recent content. Way better than having to login everyday to see if he’s created a new masterpiece.  As you probably know, all ARMLS subscribers have free access to the password protected information on his site.  (Go here if you still haven’t signed-up for your password.)

Thanks Mike – here’s to helping your fans save time!