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.

Popularity: 100% [?]

The 1st Day at Connect was a huge success, especially with the Bloggers Connect debut!  Joel Burslem , host at InmanTV asked for feedback regarding Bloggers Connect and our response  - "Absolutely a Must!" for any new or experienced blogger.  One of the most encouraging trends we noted was the large number of new local blogs that have been started by so many agents.   Discussions and sessions talked about everything from how to monetize your blog, to best blog widgets, to using blogs to manage your online reputation.   

The main conference kicked off with spectacular panel duets featuring:

Zillow's Rich Barton and Dale Stinton - CEO, National Association of Realtors 

Trulia's Pete Flint and Russ Capper - President, Prudential Real Estate Services

This was as usual some of the best panel match-ups that Brad Inman has been known to consistently deliver.  

Day 2 should be a blast with many more geeky sessions…

Popularity: 59% [?]

We have a major update to the realivent wordpress CMA Plugin, I'd like to say it when from "great" to "Holy Cow, this is awesome".

The biggest improvement is the new feature that allows people to guess on future home values. A new form has been added to the plugin that allows people to choose a future date anywhere from tomorrow to years from now and then enter a price that they think the property will be valued at. The valuation is coming from Zillow, just like the old plugin.

What makes this such a valuable tool, is that when the future date arrives for the estimation, that user gets an email with a link to see the results back on your website. This means constant traffic coming back to your website! Even if they completely forget about you, they will be reminded to go back to your site and see how good they are at guessing prices.

It is really a lot of fun.
Screenshots:

get your gallery at realiventblog.com

This feature is in beta and you can turn it off in the admin section. All data is stored and we will be producing data trends based on the guesses. This data will not be available immediately because we do not have that much data, but as we start seeing some interesting trends we will release the data. The data will be release in the plugin also, so the public will stay on your site (sticky) and see how the world is estimating values.

Since Zestimates update about every 2 weeks, if you enter a future date in the near future and the Zestimate has not been updated, an email will get sent out telling the person that made the estimate that the value has not changed, and they will get another email as soon as it does. 

Along with this feature we have improved many other features:

1. Better look and feel. Of course you can also edit the code to fit your website.
2. Along with the default sidebar widget, we added a function to pull out the form so you can skin with you own sidebar container. See screenshot above.
   to skin, call the form with this function: <?PHP get_cma_widget_form() ?>
3. better results. Removed many of the errors from missing data.
4. added a permalink to the results. You can now get the permalink and use as a reference when blogging about house values, or send to clients in emails. Here is an example of the permalink: Upcoming auctions in Oakland, CA

Download the plugin here: Realivent CMA plugin

typical plugin install, upload entire folder to your plugin directory, and activate. Go to options->realivent cma to configure. The Options page will make a new wordpress page automatically. To add the widget, go to presentation0>sidebar widgets and drag the realivent cma widget to your sidebar. 

Popularity: 70% [?]

A while ago I ran a report for my home comparing 4 online home valuation services. I seemed to have forgotten one called, homegain.com. Well Louis Cammarosano of homagain left some comments and a graph from compete.com that shows homegain traffic exceeds zillow traffic.

Yep, that definitely shows homegain.com gets more traffic then Zillow.com. End of story…or is it…

Like online home value sites, there are also many traffic sites. I went over to alexa.com to get to the bottom of this traffic controversy. I got some interesting results:

Wonder why this graph is completely opposite. I'm not going to go into how the 2 sites gets data and what algorithms they use, but I will give my 2 cents.

Homegain.com has tons of stealth sites…(Stealth sites capture leads, then sells them to agents) and Zillow has tons of widgets…(small tools realtors can add to their websites). I see far more google adword text ads for homegain. Actually I don't think I have ever seen a zillow banner, or text ad? please let me know where I find one.

Zillow is on the right track by creating an API to share their data. Their traffic is only going to increase because of it.

Popularity: 41% [?]

Trang sent me an email today that KW has partnered with Cyberhomes.com to market KW listings.  This was the first time I have seen cyberhomes, and I saw they have an online house value estimator, so I I thought I would put their values up against the other online estimators that I already know about. Cyberhomes is powered by Fidelity National Title, so I was expecting their information to be very comparable to Zillow (The leader in online property values).

Let's start by looking at the web ranking:

Now, My House Details
Bought in Oct 2005, as a 2 Bed, 1 Bath. Converted about 6 months after to a 4 bed, 2 bath. 

The Cold Hard Facts: 

Cyberhomes.com
Estimated value: 777K, Beds= n/a, Baths = 2, 2 Month value change=Down 77K (Ouch!).
I'm dissapointed that they have the beds and baths wrong…especially since they are title company. I'm also dissapointed in the price, since I gander at my zestimate every now and then, I know this is way below.
Trang's reaction: "That's crazy..they're totally wrong!!!!!!"

Zillow.com
Estimated value: 894K, Beds= 4, Baths = 2, 1 Month value change=Up 32K (I love you).
that's more like it, I can't remember if I went in a changed the beds and baths, I don't think so.

RealestateABC.com
Estimated value: 723K, Beds= n/a, Baths = 1, 1 , they do not provide value change.
Not much to say here

Reply.com
Estimated value: 779K, Beds= 0, Baths = 1, 1 , they do not provide value change.
Not much here either…this site has a few errors, and I think they do provide a price trend, but it was not working.

Results:
Zillow is the winner, not because they priced my house higher, but because they had the correct information and priced my house higher. But with a high of $894K and a low of $723K, I'm not too confident with the results.

On a side note, I really wish the other players would release their data as an api, like Zillow does, so I could put them all together in a simple search, but I doubt that will happen. 

Popularity: 25% [?]

I think we nailed down all the bugs and ready to release this widget.

Download it here (zip file)
Extract and upload the entire folder to your website plugin directory.

What is it?
This widget will add 2 forms to your Wordpress website. One form is for instant house values, retrieved from Zillow.com. The other form is a request form that allows users to send you a description of their property so you (the agent) can send then a custom made comparable market analysis of there home.

Both forms can be turned off, so you can only display the Zillow form, or only display the agent form…or turn them both off and display nothing.

Why Should I use it?
Offering instant online house values is a great way to advertise your website. You can make newspaper ads or google adwords offering this services. It's all about getting people to your website, and staying there. This adds value to your website. Sometimes Zestimates can be high or low, so the agent form allows people to send requests for professional home estimates if they need additional help while checking for house values.

Editing Options:

To configure the pages and widgets, you have to active the plugin, then go to Options > CMA Request. From this page you will create the CMA page. If a CMA page already exists, this page will update the public CMA page. To delete the public page, go to Manage > Pages then delete the cma page 

1. Add your email address because that is how you will get the request form set from potential clients
2. Make a page title. This will appear in the menu bar.
3. Choose page template. I prefer wider main sections, but this should work with main sections as narrow as 400px.

• Then you need to add a Zillow Api Key and select what forms to display. You can get a Zillow API Key in about 30 seconds here

• You can edit the introduction message for the agent form, and edit the message after the agent form is submitted.

• The widget colors are configurable also.

• Zillow provides some very nice graphs for address, city, state and zip. These graphs are configurable. You can adjust the height and width so they fit perfectly onto your pages.

Once you have it all configured, the page will be created automagically. The forms will work without the sidebar widget, but the widget will allow people to get house values from any page on your site, so I recommend adding it.
Note: this is only for widget enabled themes

Go to Presentation > Sidebar Widgets and drag the "Realivent CMA" to your sidebar

The widget will disappear when the CMA page is accessed so you do not have the main form and the sidebar form visible at the same time. The widget will be visible on all other pages.

Enjoy  

Popularity: 32% [?]

No less then 3 days after we announced our army of real estate data collectors, the competitions started announcing their plans for global real estate domination. Greg Swann at bloodhoundrealty built a zillow bot to compete with our new mega real estate monster…Well, all I have to say is bring it on. 

Any of you, bring it on…if you think your little bots, and computer hacks can compete with our geniuses, so be it.

By the way we added another child superstar to our team:

This is little Hairy, we found him in a box eating lightbulbs in the BestBuy parking lot , and yes…That is his real hair, and Yes, He CAN read minds, and will probably move our completion date up at least 3 months.

Popularity: 30% [?]

In the business world, keeping a tight wrap on company secrets is key to success. Has Rich Barton of Zillow just given away one of Zillow's major business components? 

The real estate community has been working for months to get at the data extraction Zillow uses to get all the information about your homes. With just a few clicks and insightful research, Realivent has uncovered a how Zillow does it.

And this whole time we thought they used computers…I guess the joke is on us.

In response to the newly found Zillow secret, we at Realivent are throwing away all our computers, all 3 of them, and acquiring a large army of children to do our research. So if a kid between the ages of 5-7 starts asking you about you home, just smile and know that the information is going to make online real estate better. We are hoping to get all the data by 2013, and unleash the next real estate monster.

Sorry Zillow, welcome to the business world

Here are some of the kids you might meet:

Timmy's in charge of our Bird's Eye View of homes. Here he is practicing.

Jonathan is in charge of weekly price changes. Before the kids can go out and ask the general public real estate questions, we make them practice on zoo animals. We also tell them that no matter how busy the people look, they will always have time to talk real estate.

Little Ricky is in charge of recent real estate news

Lastly, Jenny is in charge of graphic design…not sure if we are going to keep her though. She does this to everyone in the office.

Popularity: 36% [?]