HomeQuest Group » Development News

New Features for August and Walk Score Heat Map is Back!

Jeff — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:54:44 +0000

Back by popular demand: The Walk Score heat map! (Example on Portland Real Estate Site)

That’s right, we’re bringing the Walk Score heat map back to the HomeQuest property search map. Plus we’ve also added the Walk Score for every individual listing available in the search. The property’s score is now listed on the listing detail page, with a link to the Walk Score page detailing all the interesting places within walking distance of the chosen property. Your clients will love being able to see everything their potential new neighborhood has to offer.

Other New Features Added to the HomeQuest IDX:

Google Map Overlays – “Hybrid View” and “Physical View” Google map overlays are now available

Default Search Layer – You can now specify which map layer to set as your default

Forced Registration – Now added to all “non-map” listing pages

Expanded Widget Functionality – You can now use the HQ widgets in multiple locations on your site

Some Behind the Scenes Updates:

The HomeQuest WordPress Plugin is now optimized for better performance with the Thesis theme.

Updates were made for better handling of Ajax and jQuery

Updates for better compatibility with WordPress 3.0

We hope you find these new features useful and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

*Note – Walk Score heat map overlay only displays in areas where Walk Score provides the data.

Sneak Peak at New Styling for the HomeQuest IDX

Jeff — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:29 +0000

Over the last couple weeks, the guys have been hard at work testing, fixing bugs, and making the overall HomeQuest user experience better. Part of that user experience includes styling the various parts that your clients interact with on your WordPress site. If you look at the image below, you’ll see the before and after of the listing detail page.

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!

New Features

Tyler — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:22:06 +0000

Visitors to your website can search for listings on your IDX map by zip code, neighborhoods, and school boundaries (where available). Or they can just search by the map area shown on their screen.

Clients can save Searches, so that they can come back to your site and quickly find the homes that match their needs. Clients can also choose to have these searches automatically email them when new listings come out that match their search preferences.

Clients can have multiple favorites lists to organize their favorite homes and listings they are interested in.

HomeQuest tracks what homes your logged in clients are looking at. Impress them with your knowledge of their wants and needs by keeping an eye on what homes they are looking at.

Clients can request showings right from your website. HomeQuest keeps track of the showing requests, and immediately sends you a notification of the request.

Listings now can be entered into any number of places on your website, not just the map. You can insert an agents favorites list or a live search based on criteria into a WordPress page content, blog post content, or right into a text sidebar widget.

New widgets have been designed to integrate listings and searches. Clients can start a search right from your sidebar, or you can prominently display your Featured Listings as a sidebar widget.

Special Map Icons

Tyler — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:55:46 +0000

New special map icons are available for HomeQuest hosted IDX sites. You can now have different icons for coffee shops, shopping, schools, parks, events, blog posts, happy hour, and restaurants all shown right alongside the listings on your map. Clients visiting your website will be able to browse neighborhood listings while seeing and reading the custom content you have included with that neighborhood. Demonstrate your knowledge of an area to your potential clients by including pictures and information about local schools, parks and other attractions. The difference between a normal blog post and a special icon post on the map is only which category is used.

Why have custom icons? As an agent, you find yourself selling a neighborhood to a family just as much as you have to sell the house. To sell a neighborhood, just blog about it and your map posts will do the talking for you to any website visitor.

How do I get started?:

To use the special mapping icons, you must have specially named Categories added to your system. Any post included in one of these categories will display with a special icon.

Adding the Categories (Do this step once)

Note: You must add these Categories, they do not exist by default. Make sure to keep the exact name or the special icon will not display.

Special Category Names:

Listing
Miscellaneous blog post (anything that the system does not recognize)
Coffee shop
Shopping
Happy hour
Restaurants
Schools
Events
Parks

Categorizing a post (Do this everytime you want a post to show on your map):

Add a post (from Write > Post) like a normal blog post. (Note: Make sure to geocode the post, only geocoded posts appear on your map.)

When you categorize the post, make sure to use one of the pre-defined special categories listed above.

Example:

Adding a Daily Email signup page to your HomeQuest hosted IDX site

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:17:51 +0000

The Daily Email signup map is now available for your HomeQuest hosted IDX site. Thats right, website visitors can sign up for daily listings right to their email inbox. When a client signs up, their name, email address, and phone number (if entered) they will be entered as a new contact into your HomeQuest database. You will receive an email alerting you to a new contact, and they will receive a welcome email followed by their first Daily Email containing a link to their listings. Follow the instructions listed below to create a page in your IDX website that displays a Daily Email signup form.

It is important to note that listings that are delivered through email are displayed on the Client Looking Glass map, not on your IDX website map.

Adding a Daily Email map page to your IDX site:

Step 1: From the “Write” menu, click “Page”.

Step 2: Name your page, then without entering anything into the content, scroll to the very bottom of the page.

Note: Any content you enter into this field will not show on the page. The special page we are creating will show the daily email signup map and nothing more.

Step 3: From the “Page Template” drop down, select “Page Map”

Step 4: Publish the page by clicking the “Publish” button.

Your website now has a page containing only the Daily Email signup map similar to the one displayed below.

HomeQuest on a Mac

Tyler — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:11:55 +0000

Here at HomeQuest, we love our Macs. In fact, about half of us have them here. Thats why HomeQuest supports the Mac platform just as well as we support PCs. The Firefox browser on a Mac is recommended, but you can use Safari too.

Your HomeQuest site tools were designed with all of your clients in mind, whether they are on a PC running Windows XP or Vista or Windows 7 with Internet Explorer, or a Mac. This way, you can reach a broad audience while providing your clients with an easy to use home search no matter what kind of computer they have.

Google Sitemaps Now Installed!

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:06:33 +0000

Hey Folks, wanted to give you an update with some of the new features we’re rolling out over the next few weeks, and the reasoning behind them.

The first new feature that’s gone live today is an automatic process that builds your XML sitemap and submits it to google.

A XML Sitemap is a file that lists all of the pages and posts within your website in a certain format which the search engines can quickly access, scan and move on. Its incredibly important to have a well formatted sitemap submitted to google on a regular basis and we’re taking care of the whole process for you!

Any questions just drop me a note.

Now Importing from a Blog Near You

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:09:17 +0000

Great news folks!

We now have the ability to import your current blog into the IDX system. If you are maintaining a WordPress blog elsewhere and would like to transfer it to your HomeQuest IDX domain simply follow these 3 steps:

Within the WordPress you wish to export from, navigate to Manage then Export
Export your Posts and Pages following the steps on screen
Email us the XML file to import, along with the URL and any instructions / requests.

Thats it! your old blog will now show up within your IDX Blog, mmmm wordpress goodness! Just don’t forget to delete or disable the old blog to avoid any nasty duplicate content penalties.

Until next time…

Custom Headers and Beyond

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:56:39 +0000

At the beginning of February We’ll be adding a new product to our IDX Blogger lineup – Custom header design. Take a look at our current theme library and imagine the possibilities. Our in house designers will transform the look and feel of your IDX Blogger site for a one time fee.

This new service will be on a first come first serve basis, Keep an eye on this blog for the official announcement and get working on any ideas you would like for your new custom header!!

On a side note, We’re working hard on the feedback and wish list’s we’ve been given so far, some exciting things to look out for include:

The ability to rename your widget titles
The ability to set your map extent and zoom level
An updated dashboard / RSS
New widgets!!!

If you have anything you wish to see on the IDX Blogger, let me know and i’ll put it out for discussion!