I clicked through to the site, signaturehouston.com/idx/35359-houston-heights/, to see an example of what you're talking about, and wow! great neighborhood site! Then I went looking to see how to embed a Google map in my own site and arrived at a contradiction – Google has discontinued them: google.com/support/forum/p/maps/thread?tid=5a992891051ac80c&hl=en

So of course I'm puzzled. Who builds your Google map? And what is Google's level of involvement?

On a sidenote, are you getting my email messages, Stephanie? Tryin’ to reach ya!

This was created using short code from Diverse Solutions. It takes me about half an hour to create and upload a video then create this kind of post. I admit that the sidebar makes this listing look a bit blog-y, but I have plans to create a template that doesn’t include the side bar on specific posts.

What do you all think?

I’m actually in the middle of a video tutorial series on how to do this on your own even if you’re not the most tech savvy agent.

I prefer to have all relevant info on the same page rather than breaking it up across different pages as in the author’s example site. My reason is that people still do print stuff out to bring with them or to pass around, and why make it hard for them or waste extra paper/ink/toner? Having all info on one page makes it less likely for visitors to miss important info, and when properly designed makes a nice instant flyer. Today people are not so averse to scrolling the web pages as long as the content is of interest. Furthermore, people with iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices won’t need to struggle with clicking on tiny buttons on their screens. With WP you can even use iPhone-friendly themes to display the property page. (Did I tell you I have an iPhone? )

Oh, and definitely NO FLASH please. Can’t have Flash on my iPhone. With jQuery and other Javascript framework, much of the functions can be done without using Flash. Why risk your visitor skipping your listing because they see an empty spot where the slideshow should be? Plus it’s bad for SEO.

I think keeping the site up even after sold is a great idea to market to future sellers and buyers. Don’t think how many thousands of dollars over 3-5 years. Think just $10 (or less) per property. What kind of newspaper/magazine charges $10 for real estate ads? For such low investment you get a whole year of exposure. Combined with Google Adwords, Craigslist, social media sites and the like, you’re really stretching that money!

For people who like to keep everything on one site but want a different look, you can create page templates, even squeeze pages, within a WP site. There is a plugin that grants the template functionality to posts as well. Search for “WP post template plugin.”

I find it interesting that the author’s example site has “Share” link on every item except the home page where the big beautiful photos go. Maybe it needs to be updated so people can share the property images not just the words.

Overall, a very helpful article. I like it!

Nonetheless it dawned on me to look into who else is providing such services to make sure the provider I am using is the most feature rich and cost effective. While I am A-Type personality and am self proclaimed tech nerd, I am hesitant to work towards a self developed solution as I do value the ability to give my REALTOR Referral Partners their own login and ability to create their own SPS via my subscribers wizard, but if it were deemed simple enough and cost effective I feel your solution may be the best?

Looking forward to your next post to find out!

The IDX solution we use is Diverse Solutions – which just released a WP Plugin a few months ago that’s absolutely fantastic.

By the way, if you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to call (713-952-3200)