HomeQuest Group » How To

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

Results Template

Tyler — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:07:57 +0000

Some sites have special listing templates that are being used for some special functionality on your homepage. Occassionally, this can make the HomeQuest listings look strange when they are viewed in list view (the map does not have this same issue). To fix this, you can set a "Page Template" in the HQ IDX control panel to fix the issue.

Please note that you do not have to follow these instructions unless you are experiencing a problem with the format of homes when viewed in a list.

If homes appear incorrectly when viewing them in a list, follow the instrcutions below

Step 1: In your Site Admin tool, go to "Settings" on the left and click "HQ IDX"

Step 2: From the "Results Template" option, select a template other than the current one ("Single" is generally a good one to use) and click the "Update" button below

If something is still amiss, please contact HQ Support. We are more than happy to help our plugin clients with integration.

Creating a custom Full Map page

Tyler — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:26:14 +0000

You can create custom full map pages in your WordPress website that focus on a specific neighborhood, school, or other boundary. You could create a page for every neighborhood. When a client visited that page they would see your listings map pre-loaded with that neighborhood and any other options you entered.

Step 1: Create a new page from within your Site Admin tool

Step 2: Click the fourth HQ button to insert a shortcode for a custom map page. This map lets you set some options that the standard map does not

Step 3: Choose the areas you want selected on the map, as well as price range and property type. Click insert when you are satisfied with the options

Step 4: From the drop down menu on the right select "HQ Map Template"

Step 5: Click "Publish" to save the page to your website.

Step 6: When you view the page, it displays as a full screen map preset with the options you chose

Creating a WordPress IDX Plugin key

Tyler — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:44:11 +0000

Step 1: In HomeQuest, go to the "Web Sites" tab. Click "Add New"

Step 2: Enter the domain of the WordPress site that you need a key for

Step 3: Your plugin key will appear, you need to copy that into the Settings panel of the HQ-IDX plugin. You can download the plugin from this page.

Keep notes on your Favorite homes with two way note sharing

Tyler — Tue, 11 May 2010 22:03:53 +0000

Clients can leave notes on Favorite listings for you to review later. You can also make comments that your client can see right back. Keep everyone on the same page during the home buying process.

CLIENT VIEW – Step 1: Click the "Favorites" button in your menu, click the green "View" button and your favorites list will appear on the right hand side.

CLIENT VIEW – Step 2: Click "Notes View" at the top of your Favorites list.

CLIENT VIEW – Step 3: Enter any notes you wish the agent to see. Remember to click the "Save" link each time you want to save a note.

CLIENT VIEW – Step 4: Any notes left by the agent will appear right above your client notes area.

AGENT VIEW – Step 1: From a contact page, click the "+" next to "Favorites" and click the "View Client Favorites" button.

AGENT VIEW – Step 2: Your client notes are displayed with the Favorite listings, you can type a note back to the client in the box to the right of their note. Click "Save" to make the note available to the client in their Looking Glass Notes View.

Managing Comments

Tyler — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:53:15 +0000

Your WordPress website allows visitors to comment on your posts and pages (if it is setup to do so). Comments do not automatically get published to your site. First, a comment gets checked by a SPAM filter that tries to weed out most of the comments that you are not going to see. Then, the comments that make it passed that process will email to you. Go to your WordPress admin to manage the comments, where you can Approve it and post it to the site, or Spam/Disapprove the Comment and it will be removed

Please Note: You will receive an email for every comment that goes to your site. Please dont click the links in that email. Go through your HomeQuest account to get to your SIte Admin tool. HomeQuest logs you into your WordPress site automatically, these links do not work for that.

Step 1. From the Site Admin Dashboard, look at the "Comments" section. Comments awaiting your attention show in yellow.

Step 2. Hover your mouse over the comment, and click "Approve" to add it to your site, or hit "Spam" if it is strange, unsolicited, or unwanted

There are automatic spam comment filters built into our system. However, this will not catch all of them and sometimes you will have to click "Spam" to mark comments and prevent them from going onto your site.

Viewing the Email History for a client

Tyler — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:08:17 +0000

HomeQuest tracks all Saved Searches as they leave the system in the History section of the contact. Showing Requests and manually written emails from HomeQuest are also listed here.