Speedy IDX Widgets: Get more speed for free
IDX Addons - tools to get more out of IDX Broker
We have had folks ask us over the years if IDX Broker has a feature to do this or that. Sometimes these functions are built right into IDX Broker. Sometimes they aren't.
We have made IDXAddons.com as a way to create what we consider the "missing" toolset or The Ultimate IDX Broker Toolset.
These are tools like our Saved Link Generator, Premium IDX Templates like Sunny Social, and our soon to be released Premium IDX Widgets.
All of these tools are available for free for all of RealtyCandy's IDX Broker clients. If you are using RealtyCandy just go to https://idxaddons.com and start using the tools today.
If you aren't using RealtyCandy as your IDXBroker developer partner, just hop on our chat in the bottom right hand of your screen and we will show you how you can get all of the RealtyCandy Goodies. Your payments will continue directly to IDX Broker as they are now, and we will be your first contact for support issues and our free tools.
Why is speed for IDX Widgets so important?
We all know that Google puts a high value on websites that load fast.
We also know that visitors to real estate websites want to be able to search for properties and see listings.
These two can seem to be opposing forces, but with our Speedy IDX Widgets plugin for WordPress, you can get the best of both worlds.
Our tool updates your widgets every 24 hours, to show the newest listings, while giving you images that lazy-load and are optimized and resized to fit like they should on your website.
You see, when the MLS provides the images to IDX for the widgets, they can be 1024x1200 or even bigger images. If you are showing an image on your home page that is just 300 pixels wide, you have a lot of wasted information on your page. All of this waste takes time to load on your client's computer.
With this tool, we think that most IDX users can cut their load time in half on a page with a couple of IDX widgets.
Take a look at the example below where the speed is literally over 5 times faster!
SolMarRealEstate: Before Speedy IDX Widgets
Let's take solmarrealestate.com as an example. This is a client site that we host and with all of the IDX Broker widgets on their site, it was taking over 10 seconds to load the site.
We added our free Speedy IDX Widgets WordPress plugin to this site, and look at the incredible difference it made.
SolMarRealEstate: After Speedy IDX Widgets
Once we installed the free plugin, we just followed the instructions. These widgets will update once every 24 hours, and give a lightning fast page load on WordPress.
The page score went up to 92% from 12% and the page load time is under 3 seconds now.
We also were able to shrink the page size to less than 1/6th of what it was before we started.
All of these together will give visitors a great user experience when they look at this real estate WordPress site and it will also help when Google factors speed into their search algorithms for this site.
How to setup the Speedy IDX Widgets on your site
To get Speedy IDX Widgets on your WordPress website, just go to https://idxaddons.com/?page=apps&sub=speedy-widgets and download the plugin.
Once you have the plugin, you can follow the instructions and set them up pretty quickly.
Here is a great YouTube video showing how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSDGa6QrZIU
Normally it will take about 5-10 minutes to get setup.
Check out the video
Here is a video showing the dramatic difference it made to SolMarRealEstate to have Speedy IDX Widgets on their site:
We include the speed optimization with our hosted websites
Disclaimer: Blatent Sales Pitch below.
This SolMarRealEstate site is an example of our SimplyIDX theme installed and hosted by RealtyCandy.
If you already have a site that you have made and want us to host it on our fast servers with daily backups, security scans, updates, and a speed optimization, then go to realtycandy.com and get signed up today.
If you want to use RealtyCandy as your IDX developer, just shoot us a chat message in the bottom right hand corner and you can get all our IDXaddons at no charge. It is part of our "freemium" business model.