When I decided to create an additional site apart from my original static site, I wanted to develop a Wordpress blog site, because I believe that the blog is the best way to interact with others on the internet, and that Wordpress was the best platform to use. I was not disappointed.
Being a curious soul, I started to examine SEO, but my true interest was how could we in the real estate industry take the blog format into a further development that would best serve our consumers. I found that with a little determination, a little knowledge of code, and a little patience that I could make my site a one stop shop.
I have added a forum to allow visitors to have their own voice. I am creating a visual library to help people see some aspects of home inspections. I added the store to help you find items for the home. I am a professional real estate inspector (home inspector), who has written (what I think of as) useful articles when it comes to buying and selling a home. In short, I am placing the elements together to make this a site which can benefit home buyers and sellers or anyone interested in real estate.
When I first discovered OpenRealty, I thought that it would be nice for Realtors, but what use was it to me. I decide to download this open source program (free but donations appreciated) to see what it could do. I went through the process of uploading it to my site, and taking time here and there to see if I can easily modify it. This was a wonderful experience.
Was everything simple and the way that I like it? Well, no. The directions for the install were straight forward, but I had one head scratcher. I needed to set permissions for certain files after upload. This stumped me, but when I right clicked on the file on the site when I was using my FTP Client, I obtained a dialog box, which had an option similar in name to file properties. That allowed me to set the permissions. The next hiccup was when I was going from the administration section to the home page. I received an error. Reading the error message, I realized that the “Lazuli” template was set as my default, and that the first line could not be read by my browser. I opened the main page for the lazuli template in my editor, and deleted the first line. The page loaded fine.
Iwas then able to play with different pages in my editor to add my navigation buttons and blog header. To edit the pages like the home, contact us and about pages was easy enough, but I would have liked to copy information into it. I typed everything out in the editor, which allowed me to play with the style somewhat. Not bad, but I would have like a little more control. All other aspects of the program made perfect sense. I liked how to enter homes or agents. The listings looked good.
I know many of you have professional looking posts on your blogs for individual homes for sale, but this app may be worth a little effort for you. I decided to open this to the public to see how well it can work. If you like to check it out a little before using it on your own site, e-mail me, and I can set you up as an agent on my site. You can check it out by listing homes. I think you will find that this makes for a stunning way to present your clients homes. Here is the link: http://www.yourhoustonhomeinspector.com/openrealty. Let me know what you think.
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