HomeQuest Group » Tyler

Welcome to HomeQuest

Tyler — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 21:26:34 +0000

We have prerecorded trainings if you would like to get started right away:

This training covers the contact manager and how to manage your clients in the HomeQuest backend as well as how to setup and use automated listing searches and monitor what your clients are looking at and adding to their favorites.

WordPress 101 Recorded Training

This training covers WordPress websites and everything you would need to know to feel comfortable with the basics of entering and changing content in your site including adding pages and writing blog posts.

Also be sure to check out the IDX Quick Tour for a quick tutorial on what it looks like for a client using the property search on your website.

Setting up a Website

With a new HomeQuest account you still will need to setup a website as the system will not prompt you to do this automatically. There are several options for websites all available from the “Websites” tab of your HomeQuest account.

Option 1: Free HomeQuest “Revo” template or our own modified version of the twenty eleven theme hosted on our servers

The fastest and easiest option for getting started on a WordPress IDX website and comes free with your subscription.

Option 2: WordPress IDX Plugin brings the HomeQuest property search features to a WordPress website that is out of our system and hosted by you. This would allow you to use any WordPress template designed by anyone including the free templates available online.

Contact HomeQuest Support if you need help creating a website

Upgrading your HomeQuest site to WordPress

Tyler — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:28:53 +0000

HomeQuest started out with the Daily Email Signup map. This placed a simple map on any website that allowed clients to signup. This simple lead capture tool would ask for their name, email, optional phone number, and which neighborhoods and price range they were interested in. Clients who signed up would be entered into your HomeQuest account and would receive a Daily Email with the neighborhoods that they chose in the price range that they chose. This was the fastest and easiest way to get listings into clients hands. However, this method has some drawbacks that the new WordPress IDX search tool addresses. Clients who sign up on the old Daily Email map have to wait for the email to arrive to see listings. It was not yet possible to let clients use the map and see listings right on the page, a link in their email was the only way to get listings. Once a client was entered into the system, the agent could always create more specific and advanced searches that keep the client updated on only the homes that match their needs.

Now with WordPress websites and the new IDX home search tool that we have developed lets visitors to your website look at listings with just one click on the map. No waiting for emails, no signing up right away, clients can start their search more quickly. Clients can also setup their own saved searches now and receive emailed updates when new homes enter the market. The agent still has the option to create more advanced searches for the client if they need.

WordPress Training

Before you jump into trying a new WordPress IDX site, check out one of our regularly scheduled web trainings of WordPress 101 (You can also check out a pre-recorded video here). The training will familiarize you with how to work with one of the new sites and eliminate the “What do I do now?” learning curve.

Upgrading your Site to WordPress

Upgrading a website to the WordPress platform is easy if you already have an older HomeQuest site. Just click the “Change to IDX” button available in your HomeQuest account on the “Websites” tab and the system will give you one of our basic template sites available in red, blue, or green. Site Customization is also available if you would like to break away from the template.

WARNING: Once you have upgraded a site to WordPress there is no option to return to the old sites.

Basic Setup

There are 4 things at the very least that you should check out to get going with your site. 1) Take a Training Class, 2) Change your Home page text, 3) Edit your Agent Profile, 4) Edit your blog posts. Of course that is only the beginning, WordPress is a tool that if wielded correctly can have a lot more benefit than a site that stops at these steps. For a more successful website try Going Beyond the Basics.

Going Beyond the Basics

Tyler — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:32:59 +0000

What could you be doing more effectively with your website?

Frequently at the support desk I get the question “What do I do to get the most out of HomeQuest?”

1. Website: The first and biggest answer to that is a website. Over 2 years ago we started offering WordPress based websites which are far more capable than the older websites we used to offer.

Our old websites were basically just a simple web page with some contact information and a way for clients to sign up for HomeQuest listing emails from you. This was essentially just a lead capture to try to get listings into a clients hands.

The new websites are fully fledged WordPress websites. You can blog on them, create pages with information and live listings from the MLS, add media including pictures and video and much more with it. Because of the changes in search engines and web technology over time, upgrading to a WordPress site is imperative for your web presence. Having an old website with the HomeQuest lead capture just doesn’t cut it for a website any longer.

The biggest and most noticeable difference between our old sites and our new is the way the listings are presented to the client. With the old websites, clients had to signup and wait for the listings to come by email.

With the new websites, any visitor to your site can instantly see the listings by clicking on your Search Listings map. No waiting for an email required, the search is available 24/7 for your existing clients and anyone who visits your site. See a quick tour vide of our new home search tool.

2. Unique Content on your site: The text and images of your website need to be something unique, not left as it was when you first setup the site.

A site without unique content is pretty much worthless. If you setup a WordPress website and it still looks like the example image below, you are missing the point and missing out on an opportunity. Default text is murder on a search engine ranking. Not only does it look unprofessional to any real user, but when Google indexes a website that says “This is your default home page welcome text”, it knows that this is a crap website that has just been tossed together from a template and has no real value.

You need to change the wording on your pages, blog posts, and Agent Profile at the very least to get rid of that default text.

To take full advantage of your capabilities in WordPress:

Have useful pages up top with real information on them. Your website needs to be a resource for the people who are going to be using it. If your website is not a compelling resource of information, there is no reason for someone to return to it. Likewise with the Google search engine, if your website is not full of information for it to read and index, how are you supposed to show up when someone searches?

Blogging is important too. If you add something to your blog regularly, there is more information for Google and the other search engines to crawl and look, more keywords that it will find and match you to. One of the very best ways to move your site gradually up in the search ranking is to give Google exactly what it wants to find: new, fresh, relevant and unique content. Being unique in your content is a big deal, Google will see copied content if it came from another site, and you will not receive credit for it.

3. Have a plan: A website with a focus and a plan will make your web life easier.

Are you a neighborhood expert? A short sale/REO specialist? Your website needs to clearly reflect what you do. If you are a selling agent you should write a great blog post about the home, and place the link to that blog post out there on the internet for people to find. Click here to see how to write a good blog post about your listing. If you are a neighborhood expert your site should be full of listings, text, information and images from the neighborhoods that you serve. Check out Jewel of the Pearl for an example of a good neighborhood expert site that is informational and unique. Know what information you want to present to your audience before trying to decide what you need from your website.

4. Customization and SEO: Yes, it’s important; Yes, it costs more.

Another aspect of a good website is the customization. Customization is completely optional, you don’t have to do it. A site that is customized is far more visually appealing to the visitors, and even the search engines can tell the difference between a template and a custom site which arguably would give it more weight in the search engine ranking. Custom sites bring out a unique design based on what you and the designer came up with, and are built to match your needs rather than being bound by the limits of a template. Click here to learn more about our custom sites.

The other important aspect to a truly effective site is your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). For those who would like help with their SEO, HomeQuest recommends contacting Though Faucet. Gahlord Dewald at Thought Faucet can help you with planning and executing the right SEO tools and techniques to improve your ranking with the search engines, and improve the website experience overall for both you and your clients.

Both customization and SEO are an additional investment into your website, but they also might just be the most important one you could make.

Write a blog post about your listing

Tyler — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:06:50 +0000

The secret to having an effective blog post about your listing is always the content. Having the information about the home, good pictures, and the MLS information all in a good looking format and order will make your listing look great on the web. The best way to get someone in to see that home is to catch their interest online. You are trying to attract both the search engines, and real visitors. The search engines will index what you write so that it is available for internet users to search for.

Step 1: Enter text for the listing. A well written description is important. Remember to describe the house in detail, mentioning the features

A well written description of the home is important. Not only will the search engines index the text you write, but a real visitor to your site needs to be drawn to the home and its qualities. The goal here is to attract enough interest for them to submit a Showing Request.

Step 2: Insert at least one good photo, the more photos the better

You can also include other types of media such as embedding a video from a video sharing website. Adding text around the images you insert is an excellent idea. Search engine computers cannot see what an image is showing, so by describing it in text next to the image you will get some benefit from the search engines. For example if you take a picture of a sauna in a home you are selling, and then added text around the image describing the sauna; when Google indexes this page, someone could search for "homes with a sauna" and you would have a greater chance of showing up because you used that word.

Step 3: insert the listing information live from the MLS.

If you change your listing on the MLS, this part will update itself. Click here to see how to insert listings into your blog posts and pages.

HomeQuest 101 Video Training

Tyler — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:32:41 +0000

WordPress 101 Video Training

Tyler — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:00:14 +0000

Watch this WordPress 101 Training at your own pace.

Future revisions will be based on feedback so please leave comments.

Fighting Spam on your WordPress website

Tyler — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:23:07 +0000

Visitors to your website can comment on the blog posts that you write on your website. This can add a community feel to your site as well as giving you feedback from your websites audience.

However, spammers have taken advantage of this ability on your website too. They will try to submit comments onto your site in order to have a link to their website available from your website giving them the possibility of more website visitors.

Click here to see how to Manage Comments on your WordPress Website

Some examples of spam comments are:

Here are some of the top tips from a good article “10 Tips For Identifying Blog Comment Spam”

1. Keywords in the name field.

Some commenters don’t use their real name. Others prefer to use keywords instead of any kind of name. Think of things like “Low Energy Light Bulbs”, “Texas Home Renovation”, or my personal favourite – “Wallpapering Weekly Newsletter”. Actually, I made those up. Anyway, keywords can be a good sign that the commenter is just hoping to get a link from your site to theirs.

2. Generic appreciation.

The “nice post” discussion is a bit of a running joke around here. You can see where it all began in my first post on this blog – 10 signs your blog sucks. Still, that aside, some spammers seem to like saying nice things about your blog. All they’re doing is trying to convince you that their comment should go on your blog. Again, it often means they’ll get a link from your site. If a comment says little more than “wow, nice post… I’ll be back to read more” … dig a little deeper. You might find that the person concerned is not as sincere as you might think.

3. Comment length.

Is the comment really, really long? Or abnormally short? As with all of these points, it’s not a guarantee, but sometimes the length is a giveaway. I’ve seen some amazingly long comments that didn’t contain anything except links to dodgy sites. Some really short ones, too – with just one solitary spam link.

and most importantly…..Check The Link.

If the comment has a link, check it out. If the link goes to a canadian pharmacy or some other unsolicited site, just go with your gut feeling and spam the comment.

You can read the full contents of the article here including the other tips, though these three are going to be your most effective way to fight spam.

Viewing all active listings for a Saved Search

Tyler — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:43:29 +0000

When a client opens up Looking Glass from a HomeQuest Saved Search email, they are presented with the newest listings that match the Saved Search. Though only the newest listings to match that search are shown, you or your clients can click the “View” button for a search under “My Saved Searches” in the toolbox menu. Clicking the “View” button will reload the map to show all of the home listings that match.

Step 1: Inside of Looking Glass, click the “My Saved Searches” menu on the left hand menu bar.

Step 2: Click the green “View” button next to any of your Saved Searches. Once the button has been clicked, the map will refresh to show you all of the matching home listings for this search.

Showing Requests in HomeQuest

Tyler — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:12:28 +0000

Both HomeQuest Looking Glass and IDX maps give your clients the capability to click “Request a Showing” for any listing that they are particularly interested in. When a client requests a showing of a home, HomeQuest alerts you via email as well as adding that contact to the “Opportunities” section of your Main page in HomeQuest. In order to see which home(s) the client has requested a showing of, click the “Requested Showing” link next to their name. This will take you to a list of the homes that they have requested to see. Click “View” to get more details or print the details of the home.

Step 1: From the “Main” tab of HomeQuest, click on the “Requested Showing” link

Step 2: The homes that showings have been requested for will be listed here under “Arrange Showing”. Click the “View” button to get more details on the listin

Step 3: From the details, you can click the “Remove Flag” button in the upper left hand corner. This will remove this Showing Request off of the main screen and let the system know that you have seen this

Tech Tips for the IDX Plugin

Tyler — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:37:06 +0000

The WordPress IDX Plugin from HomeQuest has several requirements for it to operate fully on your WordPress website.

The sites that are hosted with HomeQuest already meet all of the requirements for the plugin, but sites hosted outside of our system might need a few changes here and there to support the plugin.

It is also important to note that mileage may vary and some themes and/or plugins will interfere with the HomeQuest IDX Plugin.

Permissions:

The “cache” directory under the HQ_IDX plugin folder needs to be writeable. This is important for the speed of the system.
The scripts stored in the “utilities” folder in the HQ_IDX plugin must have their permissions set to 644

PHP.INI:

The PHP version on the server must be v5. PHP v4 is not supported.
allow_url_include must be ON
allow_url_fopen must be ON
register_globals must be OFF