About 12 months ago, I cam across an article about a man named Jesse James Garrett (no he is not a Western Movie Star). Jesse James Garrett – in part developed a tool called Ajax. Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML – this new way of programming instantly became a hit, the reasons are easy to understand. Developing a site using AJAX does away with users having to click and wait for a page to reload, it can be used to anticipate a users next move and best of all it is understood by all of today’s current browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari as it is built upon programming standards.
All of my future agents sites and portals will be built utilising Ajax and I would suggest you talk to your own web developers about doing the same, next time you upgrade.
Ajax in action. Here are some sites that currently use Ajax. You will notice that pages continually load without actually reloading a page, it is all automated.
http://www.maps.google.com, http://www.housingmaps.com, http://www.zimbra.com
How can AJAX be used in Real Estate Agents Websites?
There are many ways with which Ajax could be used in your site. Perhaps you would like to have a “My Folder” feature of your site where users could drag and drop their favourite properties into a folder and email that folder to themselves by simply typing in a email address. Or maybe you would like to integrate mapping into your site, similar to the excellent housingmaps.com. You may also want a user to be able to search from any location of your site without having to go back to the search page.
In fact the applications uses are endless. Word of warning. Do it to enhance your users experience. DO NOT use it like Macromedia Flash is used all too often and that is to satisfy your ego by having something cool on your site.