The Diverse Solutions Blog

So, a few of you have expressed an interest in using the RSS feeds for content on your websites and blog sites.  While I think this is a good idea I want to pose a couple questions.  Is the goal of this to engage the customer in your self updating pages or is this for SEO reasons?  If it is just for your customers and the overall fantastic usefulness of your site then I agree.  There are countless creative ways to incorporate these RSS feeds into pages that would be very impressive.  However, (playing devils advocate here) if you are hoping that this will help your SEO efforts won’t this be considered duplicate content if this concept catches on?  And what about the content always changing?  Depending on how it is used do you really want some one else’s property description being shown as content you wrote?  What are your thoughts on this?

Justin LaJoie – CEO
Diverse Solutions

Wow have we been busy around here but that’s a good thing.  Over the past few months we’ve added several new MLS’s and helped hundreds of people with developing a new online presence with our AgentCast websites or improving what they already have with our dsSearchAgent mapping IDX solution.  Currently we’re putting together our new developments schedule to further improve dsSearchAgent and I’d like to get some feed back from the people who matter most, our customers.  We have quite the list as it is but I know there are some great ideas out there that we haven’t thought of.  If you’re in the trenches and are using dsSearchAgent we want to hear from you.  Examples:

• New types of reports for the clients or the agents
• New ways to search
• New types of modules/widgets
• Additional ways to view properties
• New options to customize the look of the solution
• Anything that would make it better for you or your clients

It is the time to speak up and be heard.  There are no bad ideas.  We want to hear them all from the big ones to small ones.

Yesterday was a big day for us. First, we finally released our new admin (yay!), and second, we saw an announcement that Google finally released API tie-ins to their Street View imagery (see my post on Geek Estate or the original announcement). Although we had been getting requests to integrate Street View into our IDX solution (demo) for quite some time now, the imagery was previously only available through Google Maps. However, with the new announcement and release, developers can now hook into the Street View imagery directly.

I / we have been incredibly busy lately, but when we saw the announcement, we knew we had to get this out to our customers ASAP. Well, I’m really happy to announce that it’s already been integrated! Check out this $2.7M Newport Beach beauty to see an example.

While I think it’s a really, really cool feature, there are limitations. First and foremost, it’s (obviously) only available in areas where Google has street view imagery. For example, just because we service the Charleston Trident MLS doesn’t mean that Google has street view there. Second, the placement and centering of the street view imagery is an inexact science at the moment. Our code currently tells Google’s servers where the house is, and they tell us if they have imagery there and then show it. Unfortunately, when Google does find a match, we don’t really know if the match they found actually represents the streets around the house. All that said though, it’s still an absolutely amazing technology that we are very grateful to Google for.

For now, it’s only enabled on our demo account, but if you drop a comment at the bottom with your name and a link to your dsSearchAgent IDX solution, I’ll be more than happy to enable it on your own account. We’ll should be able to add the option to enable / disable it on your own accounts to our new admin either today or Monday.

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Update: You can now easily enable Google Street View in our Control Panel.

Diverse Solutions is proud to announce our sponsorship of 4Realz Educational Seminars billed as “Valuable Internet Marketing Education for Realtors.”

Dustin Luther and Jim Marks have always been fans our dsSearchAgent Mapping IDX we just never knew how much. Evidentially they like it so much they ask if it was okay if they used it as an example of what TO use in their up coming REALTOR education seminars. The seminars are to focus on why Realtors are not succeeding on the Internet, and what they need to change and do, in order to be successful. Needless to say we were very happy with their choice.

Weeks went by then some great news came. They announced they were going to be having sponsors. We couldn’t think of a better way to get the word out about our IDX and help some REALTORS along the way. Not to mention after they explained the format and what they were going to be covering we knew it was going to be a success. So without hesitation we became an official sponsor. Little did we know that other power houses like Inman News, TOP PRODUCER, Zillow and Altos Research would also be involved. It doesn’t get any better than that.

4RealzEd.com will have 3 shows to start off with in the Southern California area with the first being in Los Angeles then to Irvine and San Diego. More cities will be scheduled later. Come out learn something new and talk with us. We’ll see you at the seminars.

On the night of Feb 21^st we will be conducting server maintenance at our data center.  We are making numerous upgrades to our servers to increase speed and reliability.  While we do this maintenance between 11pm and 3am PST there may be short times of slow or sporadic service.  This maintenance will NOT affect your email service.  If you can not log into the control panel for any reason to get to your web mail during this time try accessing it from http://webmail.diversesolutions.com.  If in the rare case we do encounter any problems or delays we will post updates here.  If you have any questions please let us know.

Diverse Solutions IT Team

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.

“To continue, you must login to your account or register for a new account.”

…to many users, that sentence may be the most frightening (not to mention annoying) screen they will see on your site.

That said, although capturing leads with your site may be your ultimate goal, forcing registration on your visitors can be an unwelcome alarm to some. However, your dsSearchAgent admin area has some pretty customizable options to help you encourage your IDX users to provide you their information, without the risk of scaring them off.

To begin, go to the “Options” area of your IDX admin. Towards the middle of this page you should see your “Visitor Options”; this is where you want to be to edit your registration requirements.

You have three choices for your “Registration Level”, and the option you choose will determine which of the next two boxes you will need to complete.

Results Page

This option restricts the number of searches a user can perform before they are required to register. If you select this option, type how many searches you want to allow before registration in the “# of Searches Before Registration” box. If you type in “5”, users will be able see as many results as they want, but they can only do five searches; on their sixth search they will be required to register prior to viewing the results of their search. Additionally, a user will be required to register if a user clicks on any listing to see more details on that property. If you select this option but do not type in a number, the user will be required to register when they make their first search.

Listing Page

If you want to allow many searches but simply limit the number of listing pages they can view (ie property detail pages), use this option. Simply select this option from the list, then type in the number of listings you would like to allow the user to view in the “# of Listing Views Before Registration” box. Again, for example: if you type in “10”, the user can perform unlimited searches, but can only view ten listing detail pages. Once they have viewed ten they must register to view any more. Also, just as above, if you do not type in a number the user will be required to register as soon as they try to view any listing page.

Never

Users can search and view listings as they please without registering. If they want to receive email updates, subscribe to an RSS feed, save a search, or other advanced features, they will need to create an account. However, regular searching and property viewing will not require any registration.

Ultimately, the decision is up to you, and determining at what point you want to require registration can be a tricky one. One school of thought says the requiring registration helps weed out those who are “not serious.” Others agents adhere to the principle of making their site so simple and non-intrusive that not only will visitors stay on their site, but they will return.

Clearly, finding a balance between these two attitudes can be a tricky one; but with dsSearchAgent, you can easily experiment with your options.

Hey there blog readers. My name is Andrew, and I’m another one (the best of all) of the lead software developers who works around here. My responsibilities include maintaining our current suite of products, developing nifty new products and features, and dutifully getting here at 8:00 AM 8:15 AM every single day.

I’m really excited to announce that today is new feature Friday! It’s sort of like Taco Tuesday, but without the tacos and with more real estate technology. While you’ve been busy getting completely overwhelmed with feedback on how great your AgentCast website is or how incredibly easy and powerful your dsSearchAgent IDX solution is, we’ve been secretly working on a whole bunch of new features for you to have fun with. Best of all, all of these new features are completely free to all of our existing customers.

I’m definitely fired up about the first new feature I have to share with you, especially since there is literally no one else out there that offers anything at all like this. It’s our new map statistics panel that conveniently slides out as soon as you hover over the tab on the right-hand side of the map. Once it slides out, you’ll find some really cool pricing, home size, and lot size statistics for all of the properties that are within that very map view. Actually, to be more accurate, the statistics are only for the property types that you have checked under the “Advanced >>” portion of the search tab. If you don’t like this functionality, you’ll even be able to turn it off in your dsSearchAgent admin area. However, it’s both really fun and really easy to use, so I encourage you to try it out!

Another set of crazy new features that we are releasing are our blog and website modules. While you might already have modules on your site from Altos Research, Trulia, or any other company, now you can add our great new modules to your site. Our slideshow module allows you to display your listings, or any listings that match any criteria you set up as a link in your dsSearchAgent backend, in a nice slideshow fashion. Our map module allows you to take those same properties and display them nicely on a map. Finally, our map search module is essentially a mini-IDX search application that you can put on your page when you don’t want to instead link to the full-fledged version. Using it, your visitors can search for homes based on almost any criteria they’d like. Clicking on a property that is displayed in any of the modules will bring the visitor directly to that property in the full-featured IDX.

Next (not that we need to wow you anymore for today), you’ll very shortly be able to tie your IDX solution to a domain name of your choice. For example, say you specialize in real estate in Elbonia and you have the domain name elboniarealestate.com. Previously, you’d probably use that domain to either host a site where you advertise yourself and what you know about that area or to host a blog. Well now you’ll be able to hook that domain name up our dsSearchAgent solution so that visitors who go to that domain will be able to immediately search for real estate in Elbonia and contact you via email or a dsAgentChat instant message when they have questions. Yay!

We’re also releasing a number of features that aren’t as, um, take-your-breath-away-awesome. You’ll soon be able to turn on the option to embed your contact info into the results panel. We’re also now announcing that you can connect your rockin’ dsSearchAgent IDX solution to your Top Producer lead management system. Finally, we’re rolling out the ability to search for houses by community, year built, and tract in many of the MLS’s. If you don’t have it yet in yours, be patient as it will be there very soon.

Sooooooo, now that I’ve got you all worked up, I’m going to risk getting my car egged by a rogue gang of agents and brokers by telling you we’re not going to immediately release all of these features to everyone at the same time. Instead, we’re going to do a slow rollout over the next two weeks or so in order to monitor any issues that pop up because of these features. If you have dsSearchAgent, you want to be one of the first to have these features, and you enjoy having stuff break on you (just kidding), drop us a line at info-attt-diversesolutions-dottt-com and we’ll see what we can do to turn the features on for you. In the meantime, be on the lookout for the press releases relating to these great new things!

Well, until the next time I have something cool to share, hasta luego!

In reality, ignoring the “links” feature of your dsSearchAgent IDX may not be detrimental to your health, but IDX links can truly play an important role in providing your site visitors easy access to listings of interest. Here are some ideas of how you can start using links on your site to great effect…

Target visitors based on their price-range.

Filtering by price ranges can help separate out types of home seekers who visit your site. Try adding links to homes in medium price ranges on pages such as a “First Time Buyers” page or a “Bad-credit” section. You may also want to make links with higher price ranges in sections of your site intended for high-end buyers.

Show your specialties with links for single cities or neighborhood.

Depending on your market area, there can be thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of listings for users to search through. Creating links for specific cities or neighborhood will not only help users jump straight to areas they may be interested in, but it can also help promote those areas you most specialize in. In addition, adding IDX links for a city or neighborhood to a page which talks about that area can reinforce your commitment to servicing a given area or neighborhood.

Utilize the “Features” and “Property Types” checkboxes to further limit results.

Your links can also limit based on features such as “Ocean View”, “Pool”, or other details like “Rental” listings (based on what your MLS offers). Adding links to your site for “Ocean View Listings” or other specific listing types gives visitors immediate access to the specific homes they are looking for without any extra searching.

Help orient visitors with types of homes in the area.

For people relocating to, or otherwise unfamiliar with, your MLS area, these links can be most helpful. Similar to a city or neighborhood link, try creating links for:

- “Coastal cites” …that limits to beach cities

- “New development” …that limits to cities or subdivisions new and coming

- “Downtown” …that shows homes within the main area of your city(ies)

Create links that combine a combination of the above search criteria.

Links that show properties as specific as “Coastal homes from 500-700k” or “Los Angeles Condominiums” or other criteria combinations can help you target specific home-seekers quickly.

In summary, your dsSearchAgent IDX search program affords you many powerful tools and features you can use to “wow” your site visitors and convert them to clients; and “Links” can be one of the most beneficial to giving your site substance. Links allow people access to your IDX outside of just a single “Search MLS” button, and therefore promotes visitors to your IDX and overall lead capture. Ultimately, that can be of great benefit to your health.