Product Review – Onjax Real Estate Platform
Like most agents or brokers who run their own websites, I’m always looking around to see what’s the latest and greatest in terms of website design, IDX, and related real estate tech tools. A couple of months ago I stumbled onto a broker’s website that had a very impressive IDX solution that I hadn’t seen before.
The first thing that grabbed me was the wide-screen map search. I’m a big believer in utilizing all available screen real estate (no pun intended), and this IDX search does that. I hate feeling “cramped” in a small map search, or on a small listing detail page. And if maps are not your thing, you can also display listings in list or grid format, which also utilize the full width of your screen. If it’s still not big enough for you, click “Full Screen” and you utilize the entire height of your screen, too. This provides what I think is a very immersive search experience for the visitor, devoid of superfluous menus or other distractions.
The search parameters can be refined by a panel on the left side of the map, with sliders for major filters, such as price, beds/baths and square footage.
When you do select a listing, you’ll notice that the listing detail pages are fully indexable, with search-engine-friendly URLs, title tags, H1 tags and meta descriptions. I found the listing detail pages to be clean and uncluttered with clear, highly-visible calls-to-action. There are IDX providers who offer map search products, and companies that offer indexable IDX products, but I haven’t seen many (if any) who integrate the two as seamlessly as these guys do.
Oh, I guess I should mention who “these guys” are. They’re a company called Onjax. I contacted them and received a demo from Brian LoPresto, managing partner, to learn more.
Another thing I think their system does well is lead capture. I’ve always hated the, well, “forceful” nature of forced registration. The way most IDX providers do it is throw up a dialogue box which renders the whole search useless unless the visitor registers. If the visitor isn’t ready to register yet, they just leave (or provide bogus info), since there’s nothing left they can do. Onjax uses a more elegant approach.
After a certain number of full listing detail views (chosen by you), the visitor is instead shown a limited detail view of any listing they attempt to view. The visitor is teased with partial details and thumbnails of available photos. If they want to see full details (including large photos), they’ll have to register. If they’re not ready to register, they can continue to use the search functions and view limited details. I think this will prevent visitors from bouncing from your site, instead keeping them engaged with the search where they will most likely eventually register.
The whole site, content pages and IDX search, is mobile-friendly. So, if you have a community or neighborhood page that includes informational text copy as well as embedded listings, visitors on mobile devices have access to the same content that desktop visitors see. This is far superior to IDX providers who redirect visitors to a search option that’s devoid of content and hosted on a different domain than your site. This is crucial for mobile SEO, which is too big of a market segment to ignore.
But Onjax is more than a website and IDX platform. It also includes a back-end CRM system. The CRM is still somewhat under development, so at this point it probably doesn’t do as much as some stand-alone CRM systems, but I’d say it does more than CRM systems that are bundled with most website/IDX solutions. It includes tools for lead distributions for teams and brokerages, and lead incubation once an agent has taken ownership of that lead. More features are coming down the pike, such as customizable action plans, which will make it more of a complete CRM product.
Another great selling point for brokerages is the fact that you can offer each of your agents their own site on the same platform. At the broker’s choice, they can opt to let each of their agents use their own domains, or use a subdomain of the broker’s.
You may be asking what it takes to add Onjax to your site. Well, you can’t really. It’s not a plugin or an iframed add-on. Instead, Onjax is a proprietary platform that includes the website CMS itself, IDX search and CRM. So, if you want to be your own webmaster, this might not be for you. Instead, it would compete more with complete packages like REW, RealGeeks, Myrsol, etc. Basically it’s for those want to spend their time doing real estate, rather than tweaking their own sites.
I have no connection with Onjax, and I’m not currently a customer, but I do find their system intriguing. My difficulty is my WordPress addiction. I’m constantly tweaking my site, and I like the freedom to do it on my own. Want a new look? Just get a new theme. Want a new feature? Just install a new plugin. I’d have a hard time giving that up. However, there is something to be said for letting tech folks handle your site, so real estate professionals can concertate on real estate (and on maintaining some semblance of a personal life). What do you think?
Stephanie Crawford @AgentSteph
Posted at 20:59h, 09 JulyLooks very cool. I’m still having a love/hate relationship with Market Leader.
Mike McGee
Posted at 12:24h, 12 JulyHey Steph. I know what you mean … I’ve had the same mixed emotions about almost every vender I’ve tried!
TomCat
Posted at 08:14h, 16 JulyMarket Leader… Steph wash your mouth out.. They gave me a trial copy and when i noticed its damn near impossible to index any pages so you get minimal organic…I asked why they told google via the robots.txt file to stay away… they had no answer… can you imagine anyone commanding a google block on every single detail page.. IF that were to happen to Mike’s site sporting over 100,000 pages indexed.. his index would drop by around 75%…. but keeping google on the run.. certainly makes you open to be forced to buy more leads… Now 120k indexed pages ain’t bad… hell I was able to get a whopping 23 indexed in the 90 days I was a ML member… thank god it was a free sample membership. Move over here to the GEEKS and they will get you indexed and more leads for free and probably not that much more than you are paying now… might be a little more costly to get set up but in the long run will pay off.. I am not a Geek affiliate… but they are in the top of my list..
Faron Williams
Posted at 01:49h, 28 Junehttp://www.greathomesinsanantonio.com/ Brand new site, what do you think?
theplantationpvb.com
Posted at 04:54h, 12 JulyThis wide-screen map search is really very amazing…a very immersive search experience for the visitor. I am really admired for this information in this blog and the nice approach is visible in this blog.
metabrewing
Posted at 12:59h, 27 MayAmy, that site/IDX solution does look quite nice. I went to Boomtown to see what the pricing/features were, but they do not have that information and state that their solution is not for individual agents working independently and is instead for large teams or brokerages. I can only assume that means they want to charge a ton of money for their IDX solution, because how big my team is really has no bearing on the situation.
Darrel Buys Houses
Posted at 19:56h, 07 NovemberVery Neat! I may just leave marketer lead for this. Are there any new softwares to date? (Now seeing that I am 3 years late on this post)…
metabrewing
Posted at 20:52h, 07 NovemberDarrel, there are a lot of players in the space. Unfortunately, not a ton of progress has been made in the space over the 3 years since this was posted, but there have been various acquisitions and some new players in the space. It really depends on what you’re looking for and what your requirements are.
I think you replied to Amy’s post about a BoomTown site. They have a a broker/team solution that I believe is about $1500/month, and an agent solution that I think it’s in the $500/month range (I could be off by $100/month in either direction). BoomTown keeps their heavily branded footer on all versions of their offering because they get a lot of referral traffic to their site from agent/broker BoomTown sites. If your considering them, them definitely check out Curaytor.com, because they do not brand their footer, are about the same price ($1500/month), and offer a great product. If I didn’t care about owning my own content and web property that I was investing $24,000-$30,000+/year ($1,500/month + $500-$1,000/month advertising), I’d definitely consider them.
Jake Tillerson
Posted at 16:46h, 09 DecemberThis looks great. The best idx I’ve found though is ihomefinder, so I’ll have to see how they compare.