Just a quick little blog post to let you know I happened to stumble across this WordPress plug-in that creates an interactive Editorial Calendar for your blog posts! Schedule, create and publish from 1-5 weeks out and see it all on your calendar. There is a great screen-cast below to see how it works. This can be used as an efficient way to keep track of those great real estate blog post ideas, add in and schedule other users blog posts (for multi-author blogs), and be able to see the status of each blog post for up to 5 weeks out on the calendar...very cool! You can also download the plug-in from the WordPress plug-in Directory. As you know I'm all about streamlining and automating as many tasks as you can; this is one little great tool to help you do that. Check it out!
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Whether you are new to blogging, are ready to upgrade from Wordpress.com, to .org, or are moving an old website to the Wordpress platform, it can be intimidating and overwhelming to find and choose a theme, even for the best "do-it-your-selfers!"With so many choices and considerations, a little preparation can mean the difference between a successful launch of your online hub, or a conundrum of issues and problems that take time to manage.
As a real estate virtual assistant, I've learned a lot by trial and error on my own site, before I started delving into supporting agents with their transition to Wordpress. I thought it might be helpful to put together my Beginner's Wordpress for Real Estate Preparation List, specifically for real estate in mind, that can serve to help you in your quest for being a Wordpress pro. By organizing a simple list to consider you can weed out the NO's and be on your way to having a killer real estate Wordpress website/blog!So here goes:
#1 Will your Wordpress theme serve as your website, your blog or both? Choose a theme that has the main structure in place of what you need. Look at the menu navigation options..Home Page, About, Services, as well as a Blog page. Will they be integrated? If so, choose a theme that already has a blog, and website already built-in.
#2 Is this site for your personal business, or for your team or multiple authors? If you plan on using your site as a business site consider the look and feel that would best represent a structure that suits your branding, or your need for multi-users. Perhaps you'd like a theme that offers a specific design structure to highlight multiple authors and their own about pages? If that is the plan stay away from themes that are too limited in what they provide.
#3 What is the budget for your site? Will you need a designer to customize it? Let's face it. Your site will need some level of customization. Your theme should reflect your branding, your colors, have a style that represents you. How much will it take to turn your theme into the site it needs to be? Will you need special designer graphics, buttons, call to action items? Headers and images? What is already built-in, and what isn't? This can help you decide what theme to choose. If the features of the theme allows you many options and "skins" you may only be a few steps away from having everything packaged just right, at little or no outside cost. (P.S. for choosing a website color palette, I love using www.colourlovers.com )
#4 Pick a theme based on your structure of content, and one that showcases your best attributes. Do you use Video, Photos, as well as content? Do you want to showcase your listings? Blog Posts? When thinking about how you are going to add content on your pages and in your posts, its helpful to use a theme that has easy ways to highlight those things. For example: the AgentPress Theme showcases listings beautifully, while this theme highlights your blog content mainly. Just know that are are some themes that may have more than what you need..and less. Finding a theme that has that balance is good.
#5 Is your theme widget ready? How much can you fit on the theme before it gets too cluttered?Create your widget Wish-list.Create your wish list of widgets & Plug-ins. Check to see how many widgets the theme can support comfortably. Some themes already have built-in sidebar placement for email subscriptions, RSS sign-up, and Google Analytics. But if you are adding in IDX searches, Market Stats, Mortgage Calculators, Testimonials, Trulia and Zillow Widgets, over-crowding can become a problem!Choosing a theme with 3 columns or 2 columns can easily be overlooked if you don't know what to look for.
#6 How social is your theme?Is there a place for all your social networking icons? This MAY sound like a sidebar, widget issue, BUT now there are some really nice themes with Social Networking icons already built in, saving you the design trouble of adding them in yourself. Consider your Wordpress savvy-ness, and you may opt for a theme that has your Social Sites and Twitter stream built right in.
#7 Is the Theme search engine friendly? Unless you are familiar with with HTML and CSS it may be difficult for you to evaluate the SEO capabilities of a theme. Typically, FREE themes come in such a variety, that its best to choose a premium themes that offers built-in search engine optimization, clean coding, and fields in your posting area that allow for optimizing of titles, tags and descriptions. Having these in your theme helps your site organically and allows for easier time management when posting those hyper-local, keyword-rich posts.
#8 Your theme should help you stay organized and user-friendly! Consider your Categories and Sub-Categories of content. Should this be built-in to your Menu Navigation or just in the sidebar? If you are a heavy blogger with lots of subjects, community info etc., think about how this is to be organized in your theme. I am partial to themes that have drop down menus in the navigation so that I can categorize pages and posts in a way that are user-friendly to site visitors. Nothing can steer away a site visitor more quickly that be overwhelmed at information that is not organized in a way that is easy to find and browse through.
#8 Does your IDX provider have Wordpress friendly integration and/or Plug-ins? When you are choosing a theme, consider items that might need to be integrated in a way that takes some technical expertise. Assuming you will be adding IDX feeds to your website/blog its important to know if your IDX provider allows integration to Wordpress in a way that you can understand, or if you are going to have to hire a web designer to do it. IDX providers like IDX Broker and Diverse Solutions offer plug-ins that make this integration easier.
#9 Is Technical Support available?Be careful when choosing themes. There are many designers and developers that have themes that are advertised, but have since gone out of business, or do not have technical support available for help. When working on your site yourself, it only takes the smallest character of wrong code, and a whole site can be out of whack or unable to view in all browsers, or any number of things. Having technical support, allows you to have a professional to walk you through it, and keep your site in tip top shape should anything go wrong. (no guarantees of course) Developers like Brian Gardner with Studiopress actually has a forum of tutorials, and a place to ask questions and get help with Studiopress theme related issues. He and his developers and designers are quick to help out and answer questions.
#10 Will you manage your website/blog, or will someone else be doing that? If you are comfortable with the back-end of website platforms and blog formatting, then you are a do-it-your-selfer!If you are a blogger/writer etc, you could still be overwhelmed with managing your content.Before choosing a difficult theme, that needs a lot of customizing, specially formatted posts, etc. consider your theme for its user-friendliness to YOU. Can you manage it, or will this be a site that only someone else can manage for you? Consider what, when, & how you will continue building your work in progress.
Pick a theme that can grow with you, not weigh you down.Adopting Wordpress as your main content management system is a fun and exciting venture! Being prepared with your wants and needs is a little like house-hunting. Having the information to make your search easier can save you frustration and bring you all the excitement, bells and whistles to make your blog or website the best on the block!
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
A few weeks ago, ActiveRain released a new feature that allowed members to export an archive of their individual blog posts. In the announcement, Brad said, "It's open nature will allow for the development of third-party import tools."
So, I sent the link to my partner, Steve Zehngut, and we put "create a Wordpress Plugin to import ActiveRain posts" on our to do list. Today we tested it and are ready to release it into the wild. You should be aware that the ActiveRain export does not include categories, tags or comments. So, our plugin imports the posts and gives them a category of "Active Rain" in your Wordpress blog. This will make them easy to find. If you're importing your posts into an existing blog, I would import them as draft. The video below will illustrate.
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Today I had the pleasure of presenting a webinar for the Active Rain University titled, "Tips and Tools for Managing Your Real Estate Business Virtually". With over 200 attendees registered its quite apparent that this is one hot real estate topic! As a real estate virtual assistant I was able to share some of the best tools for setting up a Virtual Real Estate Office, and wanted to make sure I added the presentation here to share with you as requested.
I also wanted to thank Brad Andersohn of Active Rain for asking me to participate and to the discussion. We covered some pretty relevant topics in today's technology driven real estate market, and added in some thoughts on organizing and defining your online business systems so that working away from your desk is streamlined and efficient. In the presentation below you will find information on: * Defining the Needs for your Real Estate Business Systems * Streamlining and Automating your Systems for Higher Productivity * What Does it Mean to Work in the Cloud? * Tools and Technology that are full of Mobile Features and Cloud Integration * Leveraging online and offline support with a Virtual Assistant Enjoy!
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Delegating to a Real Estate Virtual Assistant doesn't have to be difficult or expensive! Welcome to Day Five of Outsourcing Ideas you can let your real estate VA handle for you! This is a quick and easy to read resource you can always come back to:)
Delegation Day Five
Problem:Business is growing, your head is full of great new ideas, but being acccountable for the implementation of said new ideas is hard to grasp when your are working IN your business and not ON it.
Solution: A qualified real estate virtual assistant can be just the person you are looking for as a partner. From setting goals, creating action plans, marketing calendars, and a ton of other things, achieving milestones with an accountability partner can help you get to that NEXT level. Having a partner who knows and uses your technology, can create marketing strategies that work, and handle the technical details is priceless!
There's one good reason to delegate something to a Real Estate VA!
A real estate virtual assistant is like the missing piece of your business' puzzle.Having someone available to you to help you with the the 'small stuff' while you focus on the big picture - the things that will earn you the most income is key.Once you get that into place, you'll be growing your business faster than ever before.
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Delegating to a Real Estate Virtual Assistant doesn't have to be difficult or expensive! Welcome to Day Four of Outsourcing Ideas you can let your real estate VA handle for you! This is a quick and easy to read resource you can always come back to:)
Delegation Day Four
Problem:Social Media Overwhelm: Does Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn,YouTube, Four Square etc, leave your head spinning? Not sure if you are utilizing them effeciently? Do RSS Feeds, Widgets, and Posterous, and Tumblr cause you to go into major overwhelm?
Solution: Have your VA Organize and Automate a Social Media Action Plan that will allow you time to do the engaging, and leave the technical and automated items to your VA to take care of. Have a blog that needs to feed your Facebook page? Your VA can do that. Have some awesome articles you'd like to tweet? Have your VA schedule them ahead of time to go out. Need some help setting up new profiles on new tools. Your VA can help you with that too! The only thing your VA shouldn't do is engage for you. You are the only YOU, but let the technical stuff go to someone else.
There's one good reason to delegate something to a Real Estate VA!
A real estate virtual assistant is like the missing piece of your business' puzzle.Having someone available to you to help you with the the 'small stuff' while you focus on the big picture - the things that will earn you the most income is key.Once you get that into place, you'll be growing your business faster than ever before.
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Monica McNamara is a woman I've gotten the extreme pleasure to know this year. She has generously doubled the fight to help find a new home for 34 Kenyan orphans that Mothers Fighting for Others is tirelessly hoping to build. In a community as close as ours, it's awesome to see othersjoin in. I hope you can too.
In August 2008, I attended the Inman Conference in San Franciso. Now how I even happened to end up at the conference is an interesting story unto itself. Earlier that year I had attended an e-Pro presentation given by Frances Flynn Thorsen and Joeann Fossland at our local board office. They inspired me to start blogging. I had been thinking about doing it, but did not know where I was going to find the time. Well, I decided to dive in. I wrote my first post on July 1, 2008 on the RealTown platform. Long story short, there was a blogging contest going on at RealTown to send someone to Inman for the winning blog post. My post won. I was thrilled and enthusiastically jumped on a plane to California with very little notice.
Now I am at best, a very un-techie person, and even though I had a website (static to begin with), since the mid 90’s, I really knew nothing at all. Was I to get an incredible eye opening experience at Inman. I really had no idea what I was going to be exposed to.
The first day I attended the all day blogger’s session, and found myself fascinated listening to a man speak by the name of Jeff Turner. I didn’t know them at the time, but during the session, I was sitting next to Heather Elias and Kim Wood. They were talking about how @respres was such a wonderful guy and a terrific follow. ( I didn’t even know what they meant by “a follow”). I didn’t even know what twitter was. The terms flying around my head were as if everyone was speaking Greek. But I was most definitely engaged and wanted to learn.
So the learning process began. (It’s ongoing!) I figured out how to sign up and use twitter, and I began to follow Jeff. He was extremely informative and was very helpful. Then I began to notice that someone named @headmutha showed up a lot associated with Jeff. Ok, I started to put it all together, it was his wife Rocky. Then I began to read Jeff's tweets about Rocky, and I saw the work she was doing, and I was extremely impressed. Rocky was giving her time doing volunteer work in Africa. Boy was she doing some volunteer work in Africa. Rocky is so wonderful, she started the organizationMother’s Fighting for Others. Their mission is simple. They are dedicated to providing orphaned girls with opportunities their parents would have provided, if they could; a loving and nurturing environment and a quality education, so they can learn, thrive, and achieve their highest potential.
I watched Rocky’s work over the last couple years, and become a true fan, and committed believer in their mission. That is why I am supporting her now and asking that you consider helping. Mothers Fighting for Others is currently raising funds to create a new home for 34 orphaned girls. I have agreed to match funds contributed (via the widget you see here) $ for $ up to $2500 to help them do this. Please step up and help out such a worthy cause.
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
I actually have been using Scribd quite a lot the past week adding PDF files to a clients Wordspress real estate website, as well as a clients Facebook Fan page.
It's great for displaying marketing materials or reports on your website, or blog or Fan Page. And any time its downloadable..its a nice way to give out something of value to help consumers remember you. Check it out!
How To Add a .PDF File To Your Blog Post or Website
Once you've learned to add photos, embed video and audio files, create hyper-links and anchor text etc, inevitably you'll want to know how you can add a .pdf file to your Blog post. An Adobe Acrobat .PDF (Portable Document Format) file is a document that typically cannot be edited and is usually created from an original document using the Adobe Acrobat software or similar application. .PDF files can be viewed by downloading the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Adding a .PDF file to your Blog post can be done one of two ways. You can upload the .PDF file to a host server on the Internet and simply create a link to it using the location URL or web address. IE: http://www.DomainName/DocumentName.pdf The second way is to use a program or tool that creates an HTML embed code which you can add to your Blog post or website.
Scribd.com is a site that offers users a tool that lets you upload your .PDF document onto their server, then use their widget/player to embed the file into your Blog post or site. The site is FREE and once you've signed up and registered, the process is fast and simple. The benefits of embedding the .PDF file vs linking to it are that visitors and readers don't have to leave your post or site to access the shared PDF document.
How To Add a PDF File to Your ActiveRain Blog Post
One last option would be to take a "screen shot" or capture the PDF file as an image (if it all fits on your computer screen) and save it as a .jpg file, then you can add it as a photo or graphic to your Blog post. Unfortunately, even a single page PDF file is hard to display the entire page on a computer monitor or single screen. To capture any computer screen image, use the "Shift+Print Scr" keys on a PC, or the "Shift+Command+4" on a MAC to capture the image. You can always crop out what you don't want in the image using a photo or image editor like picnik.com or Adobe Photoshop. If you'd like a free photo or image editing software similar to Adobe Photoshop, check out Gimp.org.
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Exciting News today from Vflyer.com..they now have a listings Facebook Page Application!
For syndication of your listings, creating awesome branded Craigslist ads, and Single Property Websites, nothing quite comes close to the quality you get from VFlyer. You get tons of awesome widgets and gadgets, and now the Facebook application.
To take a look at the How To visit the VFlyer Facebook application Wiki for instructions on setting it up. This will not only make your Facebook stand out, but continue your branding throughout your facebook page....a key in marketing yourself and your listings!
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Have you thought about using Wordpress as your main real estate website or blog? Are you concerned about not having the lead capture forms and automated contact management system built in? Well, I might have a solution for you!
I recently moved my real estate virtual assistant website from a standard site, and jumped in and got my own Wordpress blog/website combo. I don't have the need for as many lead capture points on my site, but I decided that I DID need to do a better job at collecting visitor information, needs, wants, and I wanted a way to streamline the process, build my relationships, as well as build in some email marketing capabilities which I hope to add into my action plans as well. I'm no web designer/guru and I didn't want to spend a ton more money on another CRM solution.
In looking over my options I quickly made the realization that there aren't an outstanding number of real estate CRM systems that are quite equipped to handle many of the things traditional real estate websites do, it takes some extra additions. For example the challenges might be:
Adding lead capture forms to your blog that include What's Your Home's Value, Dream Home Finder, Market Stat Reports, or your Company newsletter/new listing alerts
Converting seller/buyer leads from your website to add to Top Producer or Outlook (requires manual input)
Based on contact type you have to input the contact info to your drip campaign, e-newsletter etc.
Before you know it, you are managing multiple accounts for your website and blog etc. That is not streamlining! So, here is the most affordable solution I have found so far, and will be adding it to my online business management systems. By using the user-friendly system Batchbook I can create a customizable CRM powerhouse for my business. For $9.95 per month I have the ability to:
Create customizable lead capture forms that AUTOMATICALLY are added to my contact management list for that form. (no need to add it to another system).
Automatically create and send email marketing campaigns through my Mail Chimp account (Mail Chimp is free up to 5000 emails a month, with upgradable accounts).
Track communications of my contacts and create TO DO lists.
Import and Export my Outlook and Gmail contacts.
Enter information such as Twitter usernames, Twitter feeds, blog feeds and LinkedIn profile URLs (plus many others!) on a contact record.
Log emails, phone call notes, or any other communications with your contacts.
Use a list to easily generate mailing labels, export, or back up your data or create customized, printable reports from your contact data. Use these reports to generate call lists, add to presentations or to take notes when you’re traveling, in the field, or working off-line.
Super-Tag your contact types so you can easily sort them by birthday month, anniversary, buyer, seller, past client etc.
Have your emails delivered to your mobile iphone, Blackberry or smartphone with the email forwarding so you never miss an email from a lead.
If you are thinking about your current CRM system, or need something to enhance your Wordpress blog or website, (or another web platform) and need a great way to streamline, I definitely recommend taking a look at Batchbook. (and check out my sleek capture form below as an example..its easier than adding a widget!)
I am the CEO of Creative Agent Solutions.com. My team and I assist real estate professionals in implementing online marketing strategies, Wordpress, social media, and business systems to catapult exposure and dominance in their marketplace, while focusing on productivity and the bottom line.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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