Our friends at Inman News have extended a special offer for registration to their upcoming Agent Reboot events in Seattle (Aug. 18th) and Portland (Sept. 22nd).

Agent Reboot is a power-packed, low cost, local event for real estate professionals. This one-day,
fast-paced program, will equip agents with the latest in business development, technology and
marketing skills to help them be more successful.

Highlights of each event include a networking power-hour and expo featuring cutting-edge real estate
technology vendors.

Topics throughout the day include:

Download: Must-Have Tools for the Agent with Mobile Mojo
From Clicks to Closings: Turning Your Online Marketing Strategy into a Lead Machine
Mastering Social Media to Expand Your Reach Online
Life Style Branding: Why it Matters
Case Study: Managing Reputation and Content on the Web
Maximum Exposure: Publicizing Your Listings
Going Local: What Does It Take to Win in Local Real Estate?

Each agent who attends Agent Reboot will receive: a bag of goodies from our partners, an Agent
Reboot t-shirt, complimentary morning coffee and continental breakfast, a networking power hour,
and a copy of the Inman News 30-day Social Media Marketing Plan.

Register today for $79 (regular price $149) Use Promo Code: HOMEQUEST

For more information and to register online, visit www.agentreboot.com

Wordpress makes it easy to create a website within minutes that you can call your “online hub”.  But is it really that easy?  Of course not…  If it was, every agent under the sun would be creating a Wordpress site, dumping some content into it, and carrying the sacks of cash it generates straight to the bank. Well, that’s not how it works.  There’s some work involved. Some strategy behind the work. Some thought behind the strategy.  But, if you’re willing to put in the work, we can help with the rest.

So, lets take a look at some of the strategies, and the thought processes behind them, in creating an online hub for your Real Estate business:

Strategy 1 – Design – Probably one of the more important strategies in creating a “successful” online presence is incorporating custom design work into the mix.   The design of your website should reflect you as an individual, your strengths as a Real Estate professional, the communities you’re involved in and the activities you do on a daily basis, all wrapped into a website you’re actually proud of.  The design should closely mirror the content you create, and even carry over into your other marketing and branding activities. (See: What Makes this Custom Wordpress Real Estate Site an Instant Classic?)

Strategy 2 – Capture – Another important strategy that you have to work into the overall design of your online hub is some sort of lead capture, like the HomeQuest Wordpress IDX platform provides.  Now I know there’s been this uprising of thought over the last few years in the Real Estate blogging community that we should stop using words like “leads” and “capture” and “conversion”.  I’ve often wondered if those behind this way of thinking even had leads to convert in the first place.  Regardless, capturing and converting leads is how we in the online Real Estate space get clients.

Strategy 3 – Content - Possibly the most important strategy, and where the real work comes into play in the building of a successful online hub is the creation of good content.  Good content helps in two ways; first with keeping your readers engaged and secondly by providing something for the search engines to find you.  Content can be in the form of writing, video, pictures and any combination of the three.  Once you nail the design and capture elements, this should be your main focus.  Your content should also reflect you, your strengths, activities and communities you’re involved in. It should basically mirror your design in that if you’ve got a site that’s designed around “modern homes” you shouldn’t create (much) content around anything else.  Here’s an idea for creating good neighborhood level content.

Strategies 4 and 4.5 – Promotion - Promotion can actually fall into two categories, which is why this post is labeled 4.5 strategies…  Basically you have promotion of others, and self promotion of your own content.  Promotion of others is a great way to catch the attention of local residents, businesses, etc. and also a great way to generate relevant links back as people return the favor.  Self promotion is the “art” of showing others what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, possibly leveraging some of the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter along the way.

Like I mentioned above, putting together a successful online hub requires a bit of work.  Most of the heavy lifting revolves around the creation of content and then promoting that content to your communities.

HomeQuest can help by designing you a Wordpress website custom tailored to you and your business, along with providing the top of the line IDX/CRM platform needed to get your online hub working at its full potential.  Contact us today if you’d like more information on how we can help.

Here’s one such example:

Jesse Knight’s PDXClassicHomes.com – This site, which is geared towards the classic homes of Portland and the neighborhoods they’re in, is a relatively new site but quickly gaining traction in the search engines around the specific search terms Jesse is targeting. Part of the strategy Jesse has been focusing on is building a high quality landing page for the various styles of classic homes.  Each of these pages contain related images, and information on each style of classic house that is found in Portland.  A great resource for someone looking to purchase a classic home!

Now Jesse is beginning to build out the various neighborhood landing pages that include links back to the classic home styles.  Plus, he’s using HomeQuest to display the listings from each specific neighborhood directly into these pages.  So he’s building dynamic content around the indexable listings.  Search engines love this!

By using static content “pages” as conversion points, and dynamic content “posts” as the supporting content, Jesse is able to create a site that is beautiful, fun to read, and very search engine friendly. That’s the winning combination we’re after with every custom Wordpress Real Estate website we design.

For more examples of other custom Wordpress websites designed by HomeQuest, visit our examples page.

We’re doing the same here at HomeQuest, as we make some last minute changes to the Real Estate Connect custom Wordpress website that Inman had us build for them, and Garron gathers his thoughts for his panel presentation on the “Ten Things Every Broker Must Know – And Act On – To Build Their Brand Online“. Here’s a quick video from Garron sharing some of his thoughts so far:

As you can see, Garron is pretty excited to be presenting at his 3rd Real Estate Connect conference.  The speakers and topics on the program are always top notch, and the opportunities that arise from attending the Inman events can’t be beat!

We’re also really excited because Inman News has nominated M Realty (the Real Estate brokerage that Garron founded alongside HomeQuest) for the Inman Innovator Award in the “Most Innovative Brokerage” category.  They’re allowing a “people’s choice” vote for the first time this year, which allows anyone to vote for their favorite nominee.  If you have an extra 20 seconds or so, we would love your vote!

Voting is easy, just click here – find the blue button in the middle of the post (click it) – find M Realty in the “innovative brokerage” category – then submit your vote.  Your vote is greatly appreciated!

We know the importance of having an IDX and client management system that performs (SEO, lead capture, etc), but also recognize a big part of that is having a site that looks good.  We think these changes will help.  This new update should be out soon.  Enjoy!

The presentation starts at 1pm and generally lasts just over an hour. But, if you want to stick around, we’ll be hanging out for a bit discussing whatever comes up.

Here’s the Trade Fair info:

RMLS™ Trade Fair
April 1, 2010
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, OR

**Seating is limited for this presentation.  To RSVP and get time/location details, email Tradefair@RMLS.com and let them know you want to attend the HomeQuest Presentation.**

We hope to see you there!

The HomeQuest Team

View live examples: (Twitter – Wordpress – YouTube)

We’re now offering custom design packages, perfect for keeping your branding consistent whether people are searching for properties on your Wordpress site, reading your tweets on your Twitter page, or viewing your videos on your YouTube channel.  This package, starting at $1750, includes a custom designed Wordpress site (examples here) which can house the HomeQuest IDX Property Search Plugin along with a matching skin for your Twitter page, and YouTube channel.

If you have questions, would like more information or you’re ready to schedule your design meeting, contact us:

HomeQuest Sales – 800-845-6056 – Sales@HomeQuestGroup.com

We’re bringing some Nationally recognized speakers in to visit us here in Portland, and figured we’d share them with the local Real Estate community. They’ve spoken all over the country for events like NAR, Inman’s Real Estate Connect, Real Estate BarCamps, Women’s Council of Realtors functions, etc.

Here’s our speaker lineup and topics:

David Gibbons – Communications Director, Zillow – Twitter Strategies for your Business
Dustin Luther – Founder of 4Realz consulting and Seattle’s Rain City Guide – Blog content and promotion
Gahlord Dewald – Founder of ThoughtFaucet – Search Engine Optimization
Garron Selliken – Founder of HomeQuest – Building your online persona

We’ll be kicking things off at 9am with speaker introductions and then we’ll dive right into the content.

Who should attend: Realtors, lenders, title, escrow, appraisers, inspectors, virtual assistants, home stagers and anyone else in the real estate world who wants to improve their social media game.

When it is: Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 from 9am to 1pm

Where it is: Harvey’s Comedy Club – 436 NW 6th Ave (special thanks to First American Title Co.)

Why you should come: To learn, to network, to get encouragement, to encourage others, to challenge yourself, to get better at what you do.
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Seating is limited so we’re asking you to RSVP.

Questions about the event? Contact Jeff@pdxhomequest.com

We hope to see you there,

The HomeQuest Team

It’s actually a pretty cool setup. Each company has it’s own R&D department.  HomeQuest makes awesome Real Estate software for agents, agents of M Realty get to test it out, make sure it works, provide feedback, and then use it in their daily businesses. I don’t think there are any other Real Estate brokerages or software development companies that have this type of setup.

Here’s a quick video of our office space:

So, we’ve pretty much got the BETA testing thing down.  However, to say the new release of our Wordpress IDX plugin is entirely out of BETA wouldn’t exactly be true.  We’ll still be working on it, tweaking things here and there, and of course working with clients to make sure everything is implemented smoothly.  Feel free to contact us if you’d like to join the fun.