Agentpoint The Wordpress Real Estate Web Developers » Knowledge

Create a WordPress Post for All Property Listings

Ryan OGrady — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:19:34 +0000

A new plugin we have created converts all properties in your real estate office database into posts through the WordPress blog and automatically creates real estate tags specific to the property and its location.

What does all of this mean? It will increase the size of your sitemap by around 500% because around 6 website pages are created for every current property and all future properties added to your website. The headline of the post is the headline of the property ad while the post description is the property ad description. At the top of each post we have the property type, listing type, type of sale and address of the property which are all keywords which property seekers are likely to search Google for.

Because everything is automated we are also generating automated tags which search engines love. The tags are specific to the property location and property type, lets take a look at this listing http://www.brealt.com.au/2009/08/acreage-lifestyle-close-to-cooroy/. We have:

363 Lake Macdonald , Cooroy, Qld
House For Sale – $780,000

The tags which are automatically generated are: Buy House Cooroy , House For Sale Cooroy , Real Estate Agent Cooroy , Real Estate Cooroy , Sell House Cooroy.

If the property was for lease, a different type (eg house) or in a different suburb the tags would be different. Each one of these tags creates a page in WordPress which is then included in the sitemap and sent to Google. This plugin is so powerful as the sitemap for this website http://www.brealt.com.au/sitemap.xml has gone from around 30 pages to over 600 pages in the matter of seconds. So 570 pages packed with property descriptions, headline, address and keywords property seekers can type into Google.

This is only possible due to features of the WordPress CMS system and how search engine friendly it is.

Create Post to Multiple WordPress Blogs

Ryan OGrady — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:01:20 +0000

We have recently built a wordpress real estate network for the group of offices under the Great Ocean Road Real Estate brand. They have a group website www.greatoceanroadrealestate.com.auand then 6 office websites. They wanted a solution which allowed them to post an article on the corporate website blog which also appeared on the other network websites.

We built a small Multiple Post plugin which allows blogs to be post on an unlimited number of worpdress blogs as long as they are situated on the same server. The post writes to the other blogs and inserts the exact same wordpress post with the same title and description as what is on the original post. It also creates identical tags and categories which were used on the original post.

What’s even better about the plugin is that if you update the post on the original blog it will filter through to the other blogs the post appears on.

Another awesome example of the robust nature of using WordPress CMS.

Mohbe – Mobile Phone Real Estate

Ryan OGrady — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:02:23 +0000

We have just completed a dynamic web application called Mohbe which allows any real estate agent in the World to have a dedicated mobile phone website for each of their property listings. The mobile phone website is viewable through any mobile phone which has an internet browser and access to the internet. We spent considerable time making sure we optimised the mobile phone website to the thousands of different handsets on the market.

What makes this product completely unique are the options available to a property seeker to get the property url into their mobile phone. Mohbe users the latest in barcode technology by allocating a QR Code to each property. A property seeker will scan this QR Code using their mobile phone camera which will then automatically load the mobile property page in the phone’s browser. For those users who do not have a camera phone, they can quickly enter the Mohbe tiny property url into their browser eg Mohbe.com/3467.

Agents have the option to upload their listings manually through the Mohbe interface or they can automatically send property data feeds via xml through to the Mohbe xml parser.

Agentpoint successfully integrated xml, with a wordpress platform which allows for complete account management and secure payments through PayPal while developing a mobile phone website which are compatible with the large number of different phones on the market.

Agentpoint is the First to Offer WalkScore to Real Estate Agents

Ryan OGrady — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:54:20 +0000

The popular application WalkScore has now become a phenomena in the US with many major real estate portals including Zillow, ZipRealty and Postlets all deciding to use this application along side their property listings.

What is WalkScore “Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle

Content Management Systems

Ryan OGrady — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:23:10 +0000

We are often asked why we chose WordPress as our CMS. Previously we used a proprietary product. It stood well for a period of time, however as it was only a basic system we decided to look around for alternatives. We came across WordPress and once we tested some development we knew it was the system for us. Flexible, extendible and with 1000′s of developers using the software, it just made sense.

WordPress is now pretty much the number one choice worldwide for blogging and extendible CMS systems and our decision has been vindicated not only by the core software but by the company it keeps.

Coca Cola, eBay, Ford, Times, Xerox General Motors, Sony BMG, CNN, New York Times and Sony Playstation all use the WordPress technologies for various business arms.

Even if you just want ot start a simple blog, it is hard to go past WordPress.

Social Networking and your Real Estate Website

Ryan OGrady — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:23:11 +0000

Getting into social networking can help you expand the reach of your real estate business. With ever increasing real estate business being conducted online it is important that your company places an emphasis on being open and human to your prospective clients.

By creating an atmosphere on your website that is not only about property listings but also valuable information to potential buyers and sellers you are giving these potentials the ability to communicate with and gain an association with your company..

Agentpoint web sites offer social networking opportunities that can boost your real estate business by drawing more people to your web site.

The key is taking advantage of our online real estate tools and integrated Web 2.0 applications to help your business communicate more effectively and grow exponentially.

Why your Future will be Multiple Portals

Ryan OGrady — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:24:56 +0000

Okay, so you list with realestate.com.au or realenz, do you think that will be enough? Fast forward 10 years and I guarantee you will be sending your listings up to at least a dozen websites.

Why is this you may ask? In short one word. Google! Google will soon launch their FREE classifieds site in Australia and New Zealand and its name is Google Base. This will allow your company to list for FREE every single one of your listings and photography. The site will carry only basic data and then forward the user to your website for full listing information.

So how do I get to a dozen websites? Well everything Google does, Yahoo and MSN (Microsoft) do as well and this has happenned all over the world and will happen here in Australasia also.

The one thing that will catapult Google to the top is the fact that in America when you search Google for real estate in their popular search engine Google gives a set of drop downs to refine your results from their FREE classifieds website. This means that people searching for property will not have to go anywhere but Google for their real estate listings. There will also be a number of new real estate portals come on board, some good, some not so good, but you can be sure they will all be free once Google comes on board.

At Agentpoint we are already one step ahead of the rest and our systems already send our Agents property data to the US based Google Base, so we are ready lock stock and barrel for the Australian launch.

Why RSS is so important!

Ryan OGrady — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:25:29 +0000

RSS Feeds are one of the big new technologies of the decade. For real estate agents understanding the platform that today’s agencies depend upon for their success is critical and that platform is the Internet.