The Diverse Solutions Blog

Overview

We have been hard at work improving the backend for both our mapping mls idx-solution, dsSearchAgent, and our contact & lead-management solution, dsAgentReach, for some time, and today we wanted to introduce to you some of the overall changes & additions to these programs, as well as announce our beta program.

Before we get started, for those of you who just want the bottom line, here is the short-list of what you’re going to see with in our new control panel:

• Streamlined Interface
• Improved integration & consolidation between dsAgentReach & dsSearchAgent
• New applications (Form-Creator and Lead-Pipelines)
• Complete re-tooling of incoming lead integration

Our main goal for this release was to fully integrate dsSearchAgent with our dsAgentReach & Lead Management products. This alone was the number one request from many of our customers, and by far one of the most useful.

Our second goal was to streamline the user interface of all our dsAgentReach applications. We decided to start from square one and take the user interface in a completely different direction. We think this new system will really help you to better organize and utilize your Leads & Contacts.

Third, we decided to change how we handle incoming-email leads, in addition to providing more avenues for lead aggregation. We feel that our new method and avenues will help streamline the lead-distribution process.

Beta Information

We also wanted to let you guys know that we’re starting a limited-beta program to help work the kinks out and ready the new control panel for wide release. If you would like to participate, you must already have our dsSearchAgent product. To request to be included in the beta, email your Customer Support Representative, or our general support line: support@diversesolutions.com. For those of you we’ve contacted to be in the beta, remember that you can post your thoughts and bugs in our forum.

That’s it for our overview. Again I’ll be detailing all this information in individual posts, describing our changes, and how each feature will work.

It’s been a looooong time coming, but it’s time for me to put on my new-feature-dude cap again and share with you a whole bunch of new features that we’ve been quietly adding to our dsSearchAgent IDX solution over the past two months or so. I’m only allowed to talk to the outside world everyone once in a while before I have to get back to coding, so I hope to make the most out of this time before I’m banished back to my closet office.

Search by communities and tracts
Website visitors can now search for properties with certain communities, tracts, and neighborhoods (everyone seems to have different names for them). For example, you can now search for that killer home in Boston’s Beacon Hill community or Seattle’s Queen Anne community. In many MLS’s, this means that you can also search for homes in 55+ communities, specific condo tracts, and neighborhoods that span multiple cities.

Ultimately, we decided that the best place to put the community / neighborhood / tract search is in with our city and zip search box. We kept the same auto-complete technology we were using before, so you’ll now see all the different names and types of locations when you start typing in the location box.

Search by year built
You can now search for properties by the year they were built. It’s possible to limit the search to new properties, historic properties, or anywhere in between with this sweet new tool. Looking for that old, dilapidated junker you’ve been just dying to snap up? Now you can find it that much easier!

If you’ve chosen to use sliders in your IDX, you can choose how far you want the low end of the spectrum to go; the high end is automatically updated for you every year.

City marker statistics
Even though our city markers were great before, they’re “el fantastico” now! (Like my Spanish? I’ve always been good at it.) When you hover over any city marker, you’ll now see some quick stats about the city based on the default property types that are checked for you when you or your clients visit the IDX. The great benefit of these quick stats is the ability for out-of-area visitors to quickly get an idea about the pricing in the different areas without having to spend the time exploring and researching each one.

Full size photos!
Based on popular demand, we’ve added complete support for the full-size photos that come from the MLS. To see these photos, just go to any property you wish and click on the “View full-size photos” link immediately beneath the mini-slideshow. You’ll see a slick new full-size slideshow open up, and in it you’ll see all of the photos for that listing in the original form that they were provided in by the MLS. Just think, you’re finally able to see all of the superfine details of this “investor dream” to “purcahse (sic) and re build”.

Better zoom support
Previously, dsSearchAgent would only zoom to your search area if you either entered a single city in the city search box or if the number of properties that matched your search was less than 250. With the enhanced zoom support, dsSearchAgent now zooms to the area that matches your search no matter what you in put the location search box and no matter what other search criteria you specify. Hopefully this will make it much easier for you and your visitors to always be able to relate each search with a visual representation of that search on the map.

Sold properties!
Although this feature is only for members of SoCal MLS at the moment, we’re very excited to tell you that we’re working to get sold property data from each MLS and integrate it into dsSearchAgent! Now, when the owner of each IDX solution has it enabled, sold properties will be displayed immediately beneath the map whenever active listings are also plotted on the map. To see what I mean, hop over to this demo account and zoom into an area that you find interesting. Once you’ve zoomed in far enough, you should see the sold properties display pop into view; using it should be pretty self-explanatory.

Virtual tours for all
We’ve gone through every single one of the MLSs that we service and added support for the virtual tours feed that they provide. Now, if the agent that lists a property has provided a virtual tour (or more than one), you’ll see a link that says “View virtual tour(s)” immediately beneath the “View full-size photos” link. Each virtual tour will open in it’s own window, so your visitor will never be taken away to someone else’s site.

dsAgentChat in contact module
Ever since we completely revamped our dsAgentChat instant messaging application, we’ve been striving to integrate it into all of our products. We’re happy to announce that it’s now part of each of our clients’ IDX solutions! You can easily customize dsAgentChat so that visitors can chat with you via your cell phone, via the dsAgentChat desktop application, or via the dsAgentChat administrative area. Remember that all of our products come bundled with dsAgentChat for free, so there’s no extra cost for you to kick the tires on this really fancy technology.

Alrighty, that’s all for now. I’m off to work on some more cool features that will bring you riche$ beyond your wilde$t dream$. If you have any ideas for features that you’d love to see added to dsSearchAgent (or any of our products for that matter), or if you otherwise have a snide remark to share with us, feel free to post it in the comments. Don’t worry, we probably won’t laugh at you.

Purchasing a Domain Name

When you are looking to purchase a domain name there are a few items you need to take into consideration. The first thing and most obvious item you need to consider is what you would like your domain name to be, and the second item to consider is where you are going to purchase your domain name.

The key quality in choosing your domain name is whether or not it is easy to remember. Ultimately, make sure it’s relatively short in length. Studies show that the average length of a domain name is 11 characters long, meaning that most people agree that shorter is generally better. To see what I mean, take a look at some major companies and see if their domain names are easy or difficult to remember. Washington Mutual’s domain name is WaMu.com (very simple since they are pushing to be called WaMu). Prudential’s domain name is prudential.com. Other good domain names I have seen in the real estate space are: bringdreamshome.com, lillingtonforsale.com, yourdreamsyourhome.com, and texashomecentral.com; all of these are relatively short and easy to remember.

Lots of agents use their names as domain names. This works well providing that your name is easy to remember and easy to spell. If your name is more complicated, it is recommended that you explore other options like using your city name in conjunction with the words “real estate” (such as irvinerealestate.com) or something catchy about buying or selling homes (such as jensellsirvinehomes.com).

Letting people know what you are about in your domain name will help with getting them to remember it. If I have a website at jennifermabe.com and I am selling jewelry, my domain name doesn’t give you a clue as to what I am putting on the Internet. If I have a domain name of jewelrybyjennifer.com, I will be better promoting myself and what I am doing. This is not a requirement, but rather something to keep in mind.

Once you have decided on your domain name, check to see if it is available for registration (link). If your requested domain name is not available, that link will give you suggestions as to others that are available. If your domain name is available, you will want to purchase it right away.

You can purchase your domain name with any registrar (e.g., Go Daddy and Network Solutions). The main difference between the different registrars is the price. You can point your purchased domain name at any hosting company’s servers. Additionally, you can purchase your domain name directly through us, in which case you will have the benefit of not having to do any of the work to set it up.

Transferring a Domain Name

Although transferring a domain name is different with every company, the overall process is mostly the same. In order to execute the process, you’ll have to perform the following steps:

1. Unlock your domain name at your current registrar
2. Make a transfer request through the new registrar
3. Obtain a transfer number from your current registrar and enter it at your new registrar
4. Wait for the transfer to take effect (up to 60 days, depending on who the companies are)

If you do not know how your registrar handles transfers you can check their FAQ or contact their support center. Transferring a domain name is often very annoying; I would recommend avoiding it unless you really do not like your current registrar.

Changing Settings for Your Domain Name

The most frequently changed setting for a domain name are the domain name servers (DNS). To change your domain name servers, you may or may not need to unlock your domain name through your registrar’s online control panel. Once unlocked, you should be able to access a page in the admin area named something to the effect of Domain Name Servers or DNS. If you are switching your domain name servers to Diverse Solutions you will need to change them to ns1.diversesolutions.com and ns2.diversesolutions.com.

(*A note about changing your DNS: this will affect any email addresses you may have set up with your domain name (e.g., Jennifer@jennifermabe.com). Please let us or your new website hosting company know if you have email addresses so that they can be addressed and set up right away or other options can be explored. If you have your email addresses through another company and you would like to keep it that way, we can change the MX Records so that nothing with your email addresses will change.)

To forward your domain name, there will usually be an area called Domain Forwarding or something similar to that. You would then just enter in the domain name that you would like to forward the domain to.

Domain names play an important part in the website process. This is how people will access your website. Remember to place your domain name on all of your marketing materials and in your email signature.