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.

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

Well, one of the easiest ways to create good, relevant content for your Real Estate website is to document your daily activities. Now I don’t mean document everything, like what you’re having for lunch (although some people do).  I mean documenting the activities that you, as a Real Estate agent, should be out doing anyways.

Here’s Garron to explain a little more:

Like I mentioned above, these activities are things that you should already be out doing, as a Real Estate agent.  Then you can use them to create interesting content, that reiterates what you actually do for a living which is sell Real Estate.

Here are some examples:

Alicia Selliken – Alicia previews roughly 50 homes per week.  From that she creates content based on what she sees while out doing so. She lets people know where she’s been in her “Home Tour” posts along with any “Great Homes” or “Real Estate Details” that catch her eye.

Claire Widmark – Claire loves coffee. She takes every opportunity she has to visit local coffee shops, learn more about the business, meet the owner and even the other patrons of the shop. Just being out meeting people, is a Real Estate activity (and one that is often overlooked in today’s digital world) that Claire enjoys.  Her site features “The Weekly Grind” which showcases Portland’s best coffee spots.

Dale Chumbley - I touched on some of the thought behind Dale’s site last week (see: Real Estate Website Showcase: Clark County Real Estate Guide) but not on his actual activity set. Dale is out in his community every single day visiting shops, restaurants, and other places that residents of Vancouver, WA may find interesting. He’s documenting it all, and building a fantastic local following around his activity set and online presence.

So, this whole idea of creating content from your daily activity isn’t really that hard, if you put just a little bit of thought into it. Plus, it pretty much squashes the thinking of “I’m just too busy to do this “blogging” thing”.  The 3 agents above are blogging about what they’re doing, and getting more business from that activity alone than any other form of marketing they’ve tried.

One last thing to consider: none of your content matters if your website doesn’t have good design elements, and some sort of lead capture built into that design. These are things we can help you with, as part of our custom WordPress website design process. Contact us if you’re interested in learning more.

Using the strategies we laid out last week as the basis for review, let’s take a look at what’s going on with Kevin’s site that makes it such a great example of a custom WordPress Real Estate site that actually generates business.

Design: The custom design of the main landing page presents the content in a very clean, easy to read structure.   Having a clean layout that gives your visitors exactly what they’re after is very important in creating a “sticky” landing page that will result in the visitor clicking through to the other areas of your site.

Capture: Notice the large “Portland Homes for Sale” link at the very top of the site?  Yeah, so do visitors that are searching for new homes when they land here…  Clicking that link drops visitors directly into the HomeQuest interactive home search IDX map where they can build custom searches, save searches and register for any updates as new homes come onto the market.  Kevin has configured his HomeQuest IDX settings to force registration after the visitor views 5 listings.  Listings are also displayed using the HomeQuest shortcode on individual neighborhood landing pages. Clicking listings on the map, or on the neighborhood pages produces the same forced registration result, which usually results in a new contact created into your HomeQuest contact database.

The follow up you provide once the lead has been “captured” is equally important.  We discuss this in a video I created with another agent (Using HomeQuest – An Agent’s Daily Routine).  If you have an extra 30 minutes, I’d highly recommend watching it for a better idea of how to get the most out of the HomeQuest CRM platform.

Content: This is where Kevin’s site really excels.  Kevin has done an exceptional job in content creation with a neighborhood focus.  As you would expect for a relocation site, his content is focused on providing as much information about Portland as possible.  Everything from relocation tips, neighborhood info, schools, and even his favorite “cool places” in Portland.

Kevin has also started using stop animation videos in his “1 Block Tour” series.  Creatively using video like this is a great way to show personality and allow your site visitors to get a better idea of the agent “behind the website”.

Promotion: As I mentioned above, the overall strategy of this site was to focus on content to take advantage of search engines around the specific terms related to relocation.  Other parts of Search Engine Optimization include internal links, external links, etc.  So, if you look at the structure of Kevin’s site, you’ll notice he’s done a great job of linking internally back to his own content which is important for SEO purposes.  His neighborhood pages link back and forth to each other, and he does a great job of using internal links as reference in his blog posts.

While this is one piece of the puzzle, getting external links is the more important piece.  Again, Kevin has done a great job of actively promoting his site by leaving relevant comments on blogs (which creates a link back) and creating content worthy of people linking to it.  Plus, his site has been featured in several national presentations as an example of a great Real Estate agent site, which has been helpful as well.

The second part to Kevin’s promotion strategy has been to create the “101 Cool Portland Places” which leverages the viral marketing power of a Facebook Page.  At this point, he’s got roughly 1500 members on this page that are able to interact with Kevin in multiple ways, each time he posts a link (which leads back to his website/blog) to the page.

So, for those of our clients that wonder what they should be doing to take advantage of the power of integrating WordPress and the HomeQuest platform, Kevin’s site is a great example to follow.  Pair that with a custom designed site from our design team at HomeQuest, and you’ll have the winning combination you need for a successful online Real Estate presence.

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.

For the last couple years, blogging has been the answer of choice for most people. You can create blog content that is relevant to specific neighborhoods, specific businesses, events, etc. You’re accomplishing a couple things by blogging. You’re going to be doing the research needed to write a good solid blog post, which means you might actually learn a thing or two AND you’re creating content online for people to search in the future, find your website, browse your IDX listings, and potentially become a client. Blogging is a great way to TELL people that you’re familiar with the fun and interesting things that go on in the neighborhoods, but back to the question of how to SHOW them…

With HomeQuest, you CAN show that you’re the true neighborhood expert!

One of the functions of the HomeQuest WordPress IDX platform allows you to geocode (which is fancy talk for “place on the map”) your blog posts which then display on the map as special icons. As an example, in the image above, you can see the various blog posts that have been geocoded to show up in the neighborhood right alongside the current listings. By displaying your content this way, you’re visually showing potential clients that you’re actually out in the community alongside them, doing fun things, trying new restaurants, keeping track of the market stats, or whatever it is that you choose to blog about. Oh and don’t worry, the content is still showing up as a normal WordPress blog post as well.

So now, when someone is searching for homes in this neighborhood on your website, there should be no question that you are the TRUE neighborhood expert.

Click for a quick video of how to geocode your blog posts using the Homequest WordPress platform.

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.

There’s no better way to support this activity than to build a killer landing page for the neighborhood you’ve chosen. This landing page can become a great resource for clients searching for neighborhood information online, and a perfect place to direct visitors to land with your supporting marketing materials if you choose to do so. Plus, there are several other benefits that come along with doing this that may not be apparent right from the beginning. By actually doing the research to build the landing page, you’ll get to know the neighborhood better. Depending on the type of information you choose to include on the page, you may also want to get out and meet members of the community (ie: restaurant and store owners) which can possibly lead to creating a working business relationship and in some cases, great friendships.

For the purposes of this post, we’ll be looking at an example page that we created which focuses on Portland’s “Alberta Arts District”. So, let’s dive into the 5 tips that you can use to create a killer landing page for the neighborhood you’re focusing on.

Tip #1 – Keep your eyes on the prize.
When creating a static page like this, there should always be a goal in mind for when the visitor hits this page. It’s probably safe to assume that in most cases, you want the visitor to eventually register in your IDX lead capture system. So, it’s good to always keep that in mind and basically sculpt your content around accomplishing that goal.

Tip #2 – Include relevant pictures and video.
Don’t just tell your visitors about all the cool things to do in your neighborhood, show them. Photo and video galleries are a great way to display the true look and feel of the neighborhood. Focus on things that visitors to the neighborhood may find interesting, odd, or unique. In our example page, we’ve used a couple WordPress plugins that allow us to include a photo gallery and a gallery of related videos. This avoids having to embed all the photos and videos separately, which can turn you page into lengthy display, that would most likely be very ineffective. This leads directly into the next tip…

Tip #3 – Keep it short and sweet.
A good neighborhood page should also contain info on schools, shopping, restaurants, and other fun things about the neighborhood. That means you’re going to have A TON of info to try to squeeze into this page. Not to mention fitting any photos and videos you want to include. You definitely don’t want visitors to have to scroll through all this info. So, how do you solve this problem? Well, we use another WordPress plugin called TabsSlides (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-tabs-slides/). This plugin allows you to create a set of tabs, each of which behaves almost like a whole new page with it’s own content. You can see this in action on the example page.

Tip #4 – Include some sort of lead capture device (preferably HomeQuest’s WordPress IDX plugin).
You’ll notice on our example page, that there are several ways we’ve done this. We’ve linked to the interactive map (which can include your neighborhood specific blog posts) using both a text link for SEO purposes and a graphic image. Once users are on the map and clicking around through the listings, they will be asked to register after viewing a certain number of listings (based on a number you choose). We’ve also included the neighborhood’s active listings at the bottom of the page, in list format. These listings are automatically updated so your page will always show the most recent listings available in that neighborhood.

Tip #5 – Link back to this page in future blog posts.
This is similar to tip #1 above but more for the overall strategy of your website. Using blog content to drive traffic back to your neighborhood pages can be a great strategy for converting visitors into leads, and eventually into clients. There are also some benefits in doing this when it comes to search engine optimization, but that could be a whole post in itself. We’ll save that for a later date. For now, just know that linking back to your content in this way is a good thing.

So, there you have the 5 tips that we think should help you create a great looking neighborhood landing page that actually performs well when it comes to converting traffic. If you have any other tips that have been working for you that you’d like to share, we’d love to hear them. Feel free to leave tips and ideas in the comments below.

September 19th and 20th 2009 WordCamp PDX is going to be hosting many different speakers including discussions on WordPress Plugins, Blogging, Mapping WordPress content, and much more.  Two full days of pure WordPress goodness.

Garron Selliken is going to be speaking at WordCamp PDX. Garron will be presenting the IDX technology that integrate advanced mapping into WordPress to power your agent website and home search. See more about WordCamp PDX