1. Blog Title – Don’t forget to give your blog a title. Even if you decide to use graphics in your title like this,

Leaving this blank will make your title not recognizable by search engines. To have the best of both worlds, do this to your blog:

#pagetitle h1{

visibility:hidden;
}

2. Blogroll - change or add your personal blogroll links immediately by going to >>Blogroll >> Manage Blogroll >> AddLink
Usually your blog install will have default links that you may want to change to maximize your visitors benefit

3. Widgets – activate and drag your widgets into your sidebars. If widgets are not installed on certain themes , your blog layout will look broken.
This will not be a problem for installs 2.3.1 or greater.

4. Permalinks – make sure you set your permalink structure to "Custom" with a similar string "/%postname%/"
This will make your blog posts easily recognized and indexed.

5. RSS Feed - submit your new blog to Feedburner or any of your other favorite feed management systems so that site visitors can start subscribing to your posts,

install the FeedButton so that visitors have more RSS options

6. SPAM K2 – stop SPAM from the very beginning by installing Dr. Dave’s SPAM Karma plugin

7. Visual Editor - uncheck the “visual rich editor” so that you can embed YouTube videos and other 3rd party code. Goto “Users” >> “Your Profile” >> and scroll down to the very bottom to uncheck the editor under “Personal Options”

8. Sidebars – if you are running themes with multiple sidebars or sidebars on the wrong places, you can add/change them as you like by going to your
"sidebar.php" pages and adding the sidebar calls in the appropriate places.

< div id="leftsidebar">
<?php if ( function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’) && dynamic_sidebar(2) ) : else : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
< /div>

Also, make sure the number of the sidebar corresponds to your desired location.

9. Headers – to change your site’s header, just follow your "header.php" file and find the corresponding ".jpg .png or .gif file extensions" that is called to display your header"

10. Themes - install several themes to get yourself thinking about the design and layout you want, then focus on one and start customizing
There are tons of themes to get you started, install many and switch through them until you find the right one, explore lots, its free.

1. Wordpress Theme Viewer – This is the original source for free Wordpress themes. Choose from 1000s of themes and designs with 2, 3, 4 column designs, fluid vs fixed width, and 2 to 20 sidebars.

2. Wordpress Themes Community- Free themes from several categories including several real estate specific themes here…

3. Template Monster - 400+ premium themes from Template Monster, templates starting from $50 but designs are unique and make your blog stand out from the crowd

4. 83 Themes with Clean Designs – this has been around for a long time, but these themes can be used over and over because of their clean designs and simplicity

5. Wordpress Theme Generator – design your own theme in minutes. Change background colors, link colors, font colors, font types and sizes and then download your rockin design

6. WPDesigner – best place for premium themes including the popular Digg-like theme

7. Revolution Premium Theme - by Brian Gardner this series of themes is great for community sites and news-style blogs starting at only $79.95

8. 1Click Install – This plugin essentially reduces the time required to install any plugin or theme to 10 seconds.

9. PSDtoHTML – do you need help turning your custom designs into XHTML and CSS code , this is the resource for you

10. iThemes.com – look out for this site in 2008 as it is predicted to be one of the best premium theme resources on the net because 2 of its founders are some of the most well respected blog designers including Cory Miller who designed GeekEStateBlog.com and Brian Gardner the Revolution godfather.

1. Wordpress – the official Wordpress plugin repository for all of your plugin and widget needs

2. Housing Widgets from Trulia is a great place to get real estate specific widgets

3. Widgetbox – more than 30,000 widgets for your blog

4. Wordpress Plugin Database – very neatly organized directory of Wordpress plugins allows you to get right to the source and download directly

5. 300 + Tools for your Wordpress Blog - Mashable has put together a comprehensive list of 300+ great tools for any Wordpress need

6. Captcha Plugin – fight spam with this CAPTCHA plugin

7. 1Click - reduces the effort needed to install a plugin or a theme for wordpress to just one simple click (Winner of the Wordpress Plugin Competition)

8. Smashing Magazine’s Wordpress Plugins List – another great collection of Wordpress plugins, tutorials, and ideas

9. QuickOnlineTips.com – clean and well organized list of plugins and widgets

10. And of course, our own plugins page is a great place to get started on real estate specific blogs.

1. Branded Header – the first impression of your blog starts with your header design. You may not need a completely customized theme, but a unique masthead/banner is the easiest way to make your blog looking professional. Start by taking photos and pictures of your local area of expertise and then adding personal touches such as your favorite fonts and color overlays. Your header theme will be the anchor for your whole site and will set the tone for your overall theme and design. For example, if you sell real estate in wine country, then take photos of wineries around the area and of course the homes in your area of expertise like this. Match your theme to your offline marketing.

2. All-In-One SEO Plugin - this is an awesome plugin to install and you can see the results immediately. It helps you tag each of your pages without having to write the same keywords over and over again.

3. Featured Listing Plugin – after you’ve installed this plugin, go to your "Options" >> "Featured Listings" page and configure this page with your Realivent account.
You can choose a specific listing to display as the default upon page load or you can leave it as "Do Not Use" to show a list of all of your featured listings. You can
also choose to format your page with one sidebar or no-sidebars.

4. Zillow CMA Plugin – after installing this plugin, go to "Options" >> "CMA Request" to tune this page.
Add your email address which will direct all site inquiries directly to you. Change the page title and again
choose your page format.

5. Agent Profile Plugin – you can certainly create your own about me page, but this plugin breaks your profile down into several categories and presents it nicely on your blog.
This one is easy, all you have to do is import your profile from Realivent.com by just entering your username and choosing your page layout. That’s it.

6. Property Watch Plugin - you have a lot of options here… just go to "Options" >> "Property Watch" >> then configure.
Add your email address where the property watch form will send the inquiry to. Page title, and choose your layout.
Here you also have the option to change your introductory message and response page directly. And finally, you can change
the colors of your widget to match your blog look and feel.

7. Altos Research Widgets – Install Altos Charts – get data analysis widgets for your city with lots of trending information including median price, days on market, and inventory.

8. Google Analytics – one of the best free analytics plugins to date. Install this and check it constantly to monitor
your site traffic and sources.

9. Google Sitemaps – get the sitemap plugin here then configure it by entering in your site URL .
Then go into your WordPress administration page, click on Plugins and activate it.
After that you will have a new menu point called "Sitemap" under the "Options" menu.
You can alter the default change frequencies, filename and other options there.
Click once on "Rebuild Sitemap" to create your sitemap the first time.

10. Blog Lab – last but not least Dave Smith at the Real Estate Blog Lab has a lot of Wordpress experiments going and lots of good SEO articles and tips. Head on over to the lab for some great detailed Wordpress science.

First, I want to note that Craigslist has updated their formatting again…Our flyers, Postlets and Vflyer are all affected by the new formatting issues on Craigslist. From what I see, they have removed the style for "A" tags. I cannot remove the underline from links anymore. Many of the "Div" tags are not working properly. 

I remember the days when I could use javascript for image rollovers on CL, but that same magic for stylish images, also brought nasty pop-ups, and redirects.

Right after we released the Single Property Websites, I wanted to update our Listing Designer so you can post websites directly to Craigslist.com, Backpage.com or any other classified website.

Our listing designer is pretty useful for posting your listing to classified sites, but I wanted to make it even easier.

The solution was to take your property website, remove the navigation tabs, and the widgets, so only the listing was visible. Then allow you to copy and paste the code to when you make a Craigslist advertisement.

The benefits of this system:

1. All the links on Craigslist go back to your site. They do not go to a third party site.
2. The custom headers you upload for your Single Property Website will also be used at Craigslist.
3. There is no editing, you just click "Select Code" and then go paste at Craigslist.
4. They look really nice, and have your contact info.

This is our third update to way we allow you to post to Craigslist. It's funny that every time we update, it gets easier for the agents, but it looks like the agents more time on it. Your Sellers will love it, and it really makes the agents stand out above the crowd.

This new feature has been added to the admin section of the Single Property Websites.

Basically, this theme is the first Wordpress theme that will post directly to Craigslist.

To make a Single Property Website, Go Here 

I also found a very, very nice stripe generator that make stripes for tiled backgrounds on the fly. If anyone knows how hard and time consuming it is to make tiled stripes, this website will knock your socks off.

www.stripegenerator.com – You can edit the thickness, color, and shadows, then download the image as a png and use on our themes instantly.

If you have a stylish condo, or trendy loft, a stripe background adds an element of design and makes the website looks very nice. Here is an example of our olive theme with a newly added stripe background

Go ahead and start a website here and then play with the design features. Add a custom header, change the background colors, add some images…you can do it all! 

Website Samples: (Click to go to website)

In less then 5 minutes you can have a fully functional website, that has all the search engine optimization, spam filtering, lead generation, and contact forms for you to get more business.

Simply add your listing details, add your listing photos, choose a theme and publish. If you have a listing in our system already, you can just select your current listing and choose a theme…this takes less then a minute.

The themes have an interchangeable header image so you can upload your own header to the website. You can change most of the colors on the website including the background color, menu color, and link color.

Change Colors with our color picker 

Since the website is built on Wordpress, you can blog about your listings, and people can subscribe to you listing and get automatic updates via RSS 

Many plugins are installed for you automatically.
The Realivent plugins include:

• Featured listing plugin – This plugin puts your listings on every website you make, add a listing once and it is will appear on every website. includes mapping, neighborhood data, email to friend, print flyer, and information request forms.
• IDX smartframe Home Search plugin – this allows you to put your home search in every website you make.
• About Me Plugin – make one professional profile and use it on every website you make.
• CMA form with Zillow estimates -This plugin is a lead generation monster…It allows people to get the value of any home in the US instantly from your website. There is also a form that allows people to request a CMA from you.
• Calculator – A wonderful financial calculator that returns monthly payments.
• Property Watch – Allows people to send you their home search criteria to you as an email, you then put them on an automatic home search.

Wordpress plugins:

• SEO Title Tag – makes your website better for google search engine
• Spam Karma 2 – blocks all comment spam from your website
• Ultimate Tag Warrior - fills your metatags with keywords based on the website content to make your website better for google search engine
• Related Posts – Adds a list of related posts to each blog post you make.
• Google sitemaps – allows you to add your website to google search engine for indexing and use Google webmaster tools to make sure your site is high in rankings
• Meebo Plugin – Adds Instant Messaging to your site.
• MyBlogLog Plugin – Adds social networking to your website
• Google Adsense Plugin – Allows you to monetize your websites.
• More coming soon!

As we update the websites with more plugins and features your active websites will stay updated, and you will have access to all new plugins immediatly after they are released. This also applies to themes…

Manage Your Listings From Within Your Website Control Panel

Another great feature is that you can add and edit your listings and your profile from any admin section all within your own website. Say you have 5 listings, and therefore 5 websites… You can control all your information from any website…simply amazing. You can also create beautiful HTML Posts for Craigslist, Live Deal, and Backpage from your admin section, and we syndicate to many sites like Google Base and Edgeio automatically.

You can also add a custom domain name your single property website instantly. Just point your domain nameservers to Realivent servers, and your set.

You can make unlimited websites for Free. Custom Domain Name hosting starts at $9.95/month, or host your single property website for a full year and save $50!  

Before we go any further, you will have to be able to access your wordpress theme files, so basically this cannot be done on a shared wordpress site, such as wordpress.com or propblogs.com (I edit most of the themes on propblogs so you can choose page templates, so you do not need this tutorial if you use propblogs)

This is for a basic theme, some themes can get pretty tricky...if you can't figure it out, let me know. I can figure it out for you. 

You are most likely going to edit 2 files. The style.css and the page.php file. You do not need to know any PHP for this, and you can do all the edits with notepad. Do not use microsoft word, it will just mess everything up for you. If you plan to do more customization to the themes, I suggest getting a professional editor. I use Dreamweaver, but there are many others.

first, let's edit the page.php file and make a template so you can use it over and over.

This is the default page.php file

Pretty simple...remove all the code in the middle, and you just have get_header, get_sidebar, and get_footer. The content in the middle display your page content. Save page.php as page_no_sidebar.php and then update it to look like this

Notice I removed get_sidebar, and I added a comment to the top of the file. Wordpress scans all files in the theme folders and when it comes across a keyword like "Template Name" it knows what to do with it. Wordpress will add this file to the template dropdown box.


Now you will not see the sidebar, but in most cases the main body of content will still not extend all the way across the page. you now need to edit the style.css file to make the main body fill the page. Open style.css and look for this: #primary-content. You see primary content in the main div tag in the above code. When you find it, look to see if there is a width attribute. If there is and it is 100%, you might not need to edit anything. If it is something like 500px, it is probably too narrow to fill the entire page. copy the entire section

then paste it right below the section and rename it to:

Make the width around 900px-1000px...you will have to play with this to get it right. Of course there are ways to make it perfect, but the majority of themes will all be different and this is just a basic tutorial.
Another attribute to look for is a margin, or padding attribute. If you see margin-right:200px...you will probably also need to change that to 0px. Again, you will probably have to play with it.
now go back to page_no_sidebar.php and change the div tag with id='primary-content' to id='primary-content-full-page'

now upload all files to the server and you should be golden.

BTW, I hold no responsibility if you take my advice and it ruins your website

On the more advanced side, this is a fix to the IE6 problem with z-index (layers). When I was making this header, I first start in Firefox, which is a big mistake, you should start in IE, because you will run into more problem with IE. With Firefox, I made this header in about 5 minutes. It worked fine using z-index, but then when I looked at it IE6, it looked awful. So I started to tweak it and tweak it, and TWEAK IT!...4 hours later I have a nice header that works in both Firefox, IE6, and IE7. When I was googling "IE6 z-index" I came across countless forum posts on this same problem. Bottom line, I don't use IE at all anymore, only for testing Firefox is the way to go.

Here is the code if you want to just get it and go. You also download an example using images:
download code: code.zip

When I say stylish header, I mean a header that stays centers when you resize the browser and has 2 background images or colors. If you look at our header, the left is mostly black and the right is gray with a fade. Main image is 980px wide, has a gray color on the right and a dark image on the left. The downloadable code has a background with brown on the left and black on the right, with a middle image that matches the 2 colors on each side.

My initial theory about how to create this header was to make two div's for the background of the header, both with a width of 50%, and then float the main image over then, centered to the screen using z-index. This create an expandable header image. It works great in Firefox, but not in IE6. After struggling, I finally figured out that it has nothing to do with z-index. It is all about positioning. I also found it was hard to put 2 div's together with a 50% width. If you look at the code above, I make a full width background div that holds the color for the right side of the main image. Inside that div, I make another div that is positioned to the left, and width of 50%. Now when I resize the browser, both sides of the main image will expand properly. Now I just have to put the main image over these 2 div's. You would think z-index would be the answer, but you really just need to make the main image's position relative to the main div container. It's probably easier to just look at the code to figure it out.

Good luck with your wordpress headers, and if there is an easier way to do this, let me know.

Introducing Listing Beautifier Version 1.0

download it here

It is a clean look, with no header image or CSS customizations, YET...I plan to create admin functions that will allow you to upload your own header, change background color, text color, and menu color. This is coming soon, so stay tuned.

This theme is a 3 column theme, with 2 sidebars that are widget ready. I also included 2 templates for pages, that allow you to create a page with 0, 1 or both sidebars. I did this so I can feature properties, or home search and still have one sidebar that displays our advertising. I could not find a theme that did this. All the themes I found either showed all sidebars or no sidebars.

Try it out and please let me know what you think.