We’re excited to announce that you now have yet another way to access reliable local school data. In addition to our SchoolFinder Application, our web service API, and customizable local school widgets, you can now access local school profiles through the recently published Local Market Explorer Wordpress plug-in!

The Local Market Explorer plug-in is another way that Education.com is seeking to break down information barriers that have made it difficult or expensive to access to comprehensive information about school performance. We launched our school syndication platform last fall and since that time, we’ve received a welcome response from our partners in the real estate and on-line media sectors. With detailed information on local schools from Education.com side by side with compelling category information from Zillow, Walkscore, Yelp, and Flickr at their fingertips, the Local Market Explorer makes it even easier for local websites to quickly incorporate information that not too long ago was all but inaccessible. It’s great to see.

So how does it work?

• Install
  • You can download the Local Market Explorer plugin here in the WordPress Plugin Directory.
• Activate and Customize
  • You’ll need separate API keys for all the APIs, except for Education.com. The links to the API signup pages are accessible via the settings menu of the plugin.
  • The Yelp, Walk Score, Market Activity, and About/Flickr modules can be turned on or off.
• Display
  • Once installed, point the URL in your browser location bar to one that matches the format of <http://www.yourblog.com/local/city/state>. For example, to load the module for Palo Alto, you’ll want to point your browser to or link to <http://www.yourblog.com/local/paloalto/ca>.

We’d like to extend special thanks to the developers who built the plug-in, Andrew Mattie and Jonathan Mabe, Drew at Zillow for leading the vision behind the plug-in, and our friends at Walkscore for their work in helping to create one of the easiest platforms for real estate professionals and local experts to provide detailed community information to their clients and visitors.

We’re looking forward to continuing to build innovation in the category.  Let us know how you like the most recent addition to our syndication platform and follow us on Twitter @schoolfinder for the latest and greatest updates.

The Local Schools widget has become a popular free tool for real estate sites and blogs to showcase local school information. We’ve received positive feedback on how easy the widget is to customize and install. The recent enhancements were made in order to further meet our user’s needs around free school data.

So what’s new and improved on the widget?

Now, you can showcase schools near an exact address. Simply input the street address and city or zip and the closest schools to the address will be shown in the widget, both in the map and list view. Now real estate sites can implement the widget to showcase nearby schools for specific properties.

Another great new feature is the ability to browse the widget map past the default location. For example, if a widget is created for the zip code 94603, the user can browse past the schools that lie within the zip code to see schools in surrounding zip codes or cities.

Lastly, our widget has an updated look and feel- we’ve updated the look but kept all of the customization options available, such as color choice, size options, and custom title so it can be visually integrated onto other sites.

Don’t worry, we’ve kept our other key features, such as the ability to create a widget for a zip, city, entire county, or a specific school district. That way you can create a widget for the exact area you serve.

Our local school data tools are free and popular with sites and blogs in a variety of industries, including real estate, local media, and school districts.  We hope to continue to see the popularity of the widget grow and are really excited to showcase the new and improved widget at the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco this week! Feel free to contact us with any questions on widget use at api-support@education.com.