The Diverse Solutions Blog

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

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.

“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 everybody, we’ve upgraded everyone’s webmail to a new-and-improved web-2.0-ey client. We just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up, and an overview of the major changes that might affect your normal usage.

First of all there is a distinct new look, as you can see in the screenshot to the right. The main improvement in the overall user interface is that all your main tasks and email-folders are located in the easy-to-use menu on the left hand side.

Additionally the rest of the available options and tasks are in the streamlined dropdown menus in the top-left of the page. One thing to note on this interface is that when you have enough emails that paging is required, you have to remember that the paging interface is in the top-right of the page.

Another major thing of note is that when you are looking at an email, if you want to take an action on the email, (such as Reply, Forward, Delete, etc.) the buttons are on the very top of the page, you can see this reflected in the screenshot on the left.

Secondly, if you can’t find the “button” or “dropdown” to take an action, create a new item, etc. in any of the areas of webmail, try right-clicking your mouse, more than likely a simple list of options has been given to you. For example, from your list of emails, you can right click on any given email and take any of the necessary actions on it, such as reply or forward.

Anyway, we hope you like the new webmail, and as always, if you have a problem feel free to call or email our support team. Thanks!

Wow! I’m tired! I arrived in Vegas Tuesday at 2pm, while Justin and his team had been here since Sunday night to prepare the endless tasks to get this show rolling. We have been SO busy ever since the start of the show. Anyway, I really wanted to put a “shout out” to all the awesome people I’ve met and finally been able to put not only a face, but a voice, to the “post” per-say. Thanks everyone for coming by to chat a little about this crazy industry of ours!

Pat Kitano - Transparent Real Estate

Kevin Boyer - 3 Oceans Real Estate (who unabashedly fired up a crazy discussion about mls rules and regulations, awesome!)

Michael Price - ML Broadcast

Brian Boero - 1000Watt Blog

David Gibbons - Zillow Blog

Loren Nason - Future of Real Estate Technology

Reggie Nicolay - My Tech Opinion

Mark Flavin - Tales from the Tech Side

I never thought we’d get so many of these blogger-dudes over to our booth, it was pretty sweet.

In addition to all of that, I also was given the chance to talk to a couple of our current clients:

Stephen, Todd Webster & Christine - SuccessRealEstate.Com

Jay Valento & Stella - RedWagonTeam.Com

Make sure to come back in the next week to check out our full low-down on this year’s NAR Convention.

Again, thanks to everything that made it out, and if I’ve left anyone out feel free to berate me in the comments

Everyone should know by now that the all-time classic car is a ‘57 Chevy. As I realized that the car has now been around for 50 years, I began to think what it must have been like 50 years ago. There was a strong sense of community, soda-pop fountains (I recommend Watson’s in Orange, CA), hula-hoops, and service stations that actually offered service. Attendants would run out to your car to check the oil, air pressure, clean the windows, and fill it up. We all know about those feel-good days which are often referred as the “bubble-gum-era,” and the ideas of that era are forever immortalized in movie’s like “American Graffiti” and “Back to the Future.”

Similarly, as the real estate industries begins to descend into rougher waters, consumers will demand more for their dollar and will expect this high level of service for the commissions paid. Today’s consumers are far more tech-savvy than ever before, and over the past several years, I’m sure that they’ve noticed that agents’ websites have began to all look alike and offer the same content. Such similarities between sites allow those consumers to more easily differentiate agents when they stand out from the crowd, and with the recent turmoil in the real estate industry, it will allow them to choose an agent which they believe will offer them a higher level of service per dollar.

Additionally, consumers are also expecting that the latest in technology be a part of that service. The “salad days” of simply putting a listing on the MLS and having it sold within days or weeks with little or no marketing are a long ways behind us. Agents who intend to stay in business and do well in today’s real estate industry must also understand and effectively use newer technologies to their benefit. For example, agents must be willing to place their listings in Craiglist along with photos, links to their listing page, links to their blog, etc. What agents should not do is put their listings into Craigslist without putting photos or any other similarly important information. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Like I was saying, consumers are more tech savvy than ever before, and agents now have more technology available to them than ever before. The key to unlocking the relationship is to provide a 1957 service experience for the consumer. Your use of technology is a reflection of you and your service. That being said your website should provide a positive experience for the consumer with interactive maps, chat, and other useful content.

The lesson here is 50 years old. Take the time and effort to provide a sincere service to the consumer in order to making their experience a beneficial one and, in turn, both you and your client will be handsomely rewarded.

Practice what you preach, right? Well, this month I’m going to practice something I preach to my clients not to do… I’m going to veer off my outline and write about something that happened to me in the last month that truly annoyed me. I believe, generally speaking, in following an outline when writing pages for your site. But I am veering off my outline because there is no better teacher than personal experience. And I want to share my experience with you in hopes that you will evaluate your own website for these common issues and mistakes.

Evaluating websites is my job. It’s what I do and have done for the last seven years of my life. I evaluate countless real estate sites every year. However, I don’t stop there. I live online. I am online an estimated 10 hours each day and visit countless non real estate related websites every day as well. I evaluate them, I scrutinize them, and some make me want to throw my monitor out the nearest window. My actual computer sits on the ground to the right… the far right… of my kicking range for good reason. My left foot wished the same was true of my computer at home a couple weeks ago.

I was getting ready to go out celebrating a special occasion with a good friend. I’d put my makeup on, straightened my straight brown hair, put on jeans, a new shirt and earrings. I was ready to go. My friend called to let me know what time he would be to my house to pick me up and asked that I find out what time the kitchen closed at the Anaheim House of Blues. I hopped online and typed in HOB.com to find their dining hours…

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

Five minutes later I had not found their dining hours and was rather annoyed that a restaurant as well known as the House of Blue’s would not have thought to put their dining hours on their website!!!

Could I have called them to find out when their kitchen closed? Sure… I could have… but guess what? I DIDN’T WANT TO! And further… I WASN’T GOING TO!

Without wasting another moment of precious time we chose another restaurant within Downtown Disney, Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen, that we hoped would have their dining hours listed. And they did. So, off to The Jazz Kitchen we went to enjoy New Orleans cuisine and forget for the moment about our tasteless experience with the HOB.com website.

To those of you who are thinking, “Well, that’s not such a big deal that HOB left off their dining hours” and maybe YOU would have called them yourself to find out when their kitchen closed… the 20 year olds of today are just as picky as I am when it comes to finding information. They don’t want to pick up a phone to get an answer… they want the answer NOW… they want the answer from you ON your website. And if you don’t give them the information they are seeking they WILL find it somewhere else. Further, the 20 year olds of today are your home buyers and sellers of tomorrow.

If you want to keep their attention you better get on the ball and make sure that…

1. Your website is a complete resource for real estate in your area. Have pages about the areas you serve as well as relevant real estate related topics.
2. Your email address and other contact info are prevalently located throughout your site. List it on your homepage, your about page, and if possible, on the navigation area of your site.
3. You have contact forms throughout your site.

Okay, so you might be thinking to yourself… but I thought you just said “they don’t want to contact you”… Of course the idea is to get the people visiting your site to contact you! I’m not suggesting that your visitors will not contact you once they find the information they are seeking from your site. The idea is to make sure they don’t go to ANY OTHER WEBSITE for the information they are seeking. If they are able to find everything they need from your website they will have no need to search elsewhere and will eventually contact you when they are ready to buy or sell. Isn’t that the idea? Don’t you want to be THE source for real estate information in your area? Don’t you want to be THE REALTOR that every other agent strives to become? The way to do that is NOT to be an information hog. Don’t require that people ‘sign in’ to get to the information they seek. You will lose more visitors than you will gain. All too often agents tell me, “But the people that are serious buyers/sellers won’t mind signing a form”.

First of all… YES they do. No one wants to offer up their email address for a potential increase in spam. Further, everyone starts off as a non-serious buyer/seller. Your website is supposed to work as a bridge between yourself and potential buyers/sellers in your area. Statistics show that an increasing number of buyers research real estate for approx. 7 weeks before contacting a REALTOR. What does this mean for you?

1. Leads from your website are likely informed buyers/sellers.
2. They will waste LESS of your time than those that have not researched real estate online.
3. They will likely buy/sell more quickly than others.
4. You will do less work and get paid the same!

Of course… to actually get visitors and eventually leads… you must continually work to improve your website and its pages of content. Refer back to my blog last month where I began discussing the importance of content and look forward to my next blog where I promise to focus on a different aspect of content again.

Hey everyone, we’ve updated our dsAgentChat Desktop with the most recent changes to the Adobe AIR framework, and a couple minor tweaks to dsAgentChat itself. To get on board with the latest version head to: http://admin.dsagentchat.com/Desktop/ and click the [Install Now] button, then you should be all set. Please post comments, questions, and issues here or email your support representative.

Here are a few notes on this release

• Better cross-platform support (Including support for Windows Vista)
• Audio and task/dock-bar chat notifications
• Cleaner Buttons, and small usability tweaks
• MUCH faster initial load (In most cases)

Also, I wanted to thank all of our customers that have been sending in their feedback and bugs with this program, it has been extremely helpful in finding our cross-platform issues, keep up the good work!