How-To Create a Real Estate Search Page in WordPress
Posted on 26. Jan, 2009 by Joshua Ferris in Blog, Customizing WordPress, Featured, WordPress
Nearly all real estate search pages are merely pages on an agent or broker’s site that frames in a search page from a third party real estate search vendor.
When you decide to add a real estate search to your website you are going to need to iframe the page into your page by doing the following:
1. Locate your single.php file within the active theme’s folder.
2. Open the single.php file with a text editor like TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows). Alternatively, you could use a more powerful HTML editior like Dreamweaver (Windows/Mac) or Coda (Mac) but those programs are really overkill when it comes to simply adding a line of code to your page.
3. At the top of the code you are going to need to create a template name for the page so that when you create your real estate search from the WordPress backend it will have your pre-made template available to choose (I’ll explain more about this in a minute.)
Here’s how you add a template name to your page:
Paste the following code at the top of the file:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Real Estate Search Page
*/
?>
This php code will make your page appear as a template file so that you can use the template (with your real estate search embedded) on your website.
4. Now you need to add your real estate search link to the template by inserting the iframe code between your header and footer code.
The code you need to place is below:
<p><iframe src="http://idxlink.com" width="100%" height="2000px" scrolling="yes" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
Note: If you use Diverse Solutions or other IDX providers that provide their IDX solution through a script then you wouldn’t need to iframe the search into your page because the script will take care of all that. What you do in this scenario is follow the instructions above but replace the code with the script link from your provider.
5. Save your page and go into your WordPress dashboard.
6. Go to Pages -> Add New.
7. Type the name of the title you want for your real estate search page. I titled mine “Real Estate Search”.
8. On the right side, in the “Attributes” menu, go to the Template section.
9. Click on the Template drop down and select “Real Estate Search Page” from your options.
10. Publish your page. You have now integrated real estate search into your website! Congrats!
Questions, comments or suggestions? Leave a comment below!
Premium Theme Review: Revolution Two Agent Theme
Posted on 24. Jan, 2009 by Joshua Ferris in Blog, Featured, WordPress, real estate
Brian Gardner has made quite a name for himself in the premium WordPress theme marketplace with the Revolution series of themes in 2008 and the Revolution Two series of themes for 2009. Buying a Revolution theme is simple: Find the one you want and buy an individual theme for $59.95 or go all in and get access to all of the Revolution theme lineup for $199.95.
Today we’re looking at the first real estate oriented WordPress theme from the Revolution Two lineup called “Agent Theme”.
Agent Theme is a two column WordPress theme with strong emphasis on photos and functionality. Brian Gardner cleverly used WordPress categories to create a real estate search engine of sorts that highlights all of a brokerage’s or agent’s listings. Here’s how we rated the Revolution Two agent theme:
Theme Style: 4/5
The Agent Theme is a modernized take on the traditional real estate agent website. In the header there is plenty of space for a logo whether it be an agent photo or combination of photo and name in a large font.
To the right of the logo is a Feedburner subscriber box where visitors can submit their email address and receive updates by email when you add new listings or posts to your site. The Feedburner email box can be managed from the backend which we talk about below in the Options Panel section.
The overall layout is clean and its easy for the eye to distinguish between the more important content on the left and the secondary content on the right. The Featured Content Gallery plugin (included with the theme) makes for a beautiful, widescreen-esque way to show off your listings. Large thumbnails stand out from the rest of the page and draw attention to previously posted listings and articles.
Ease of Use: 3/5
From a visitor’s point of view the website is very easy to navigate with property posts clearly displaying detailed information and a gallery of photos. There is also an option for brokers or real estate teams to list all of the agents who are apart of their brand and give each of those agents their own profile page.
Setup wasn’t as straightforward as we would have liked due to the number of advanced features in the theme. For the novice WordPress user the Agent Theme may be a rough way to begin working on your first WordPress website but for more experienced users the process of setting up and configuring the theme should take less than an hour.
Backend Options Panel: 2/5
We were pretty disappointed in the administrative options panel offered in the Agent Theme because there are only two options:
That’s not to say that the Agent Theme is not customizable because it can be extensively customized by following tutorials found on the Revolution Two website and support forum. However, we were surprised to find so few editable options in the backend when recent premium themes have donned option panels that allow you to edit nearly every function of the theme from one place.
Theme Features: 4/5
As a real estate website theme the Agent Theme shines bright. When writing a post there are pre-made custom fields that allow an agent to enter listing detail essentials like list price, MLS #, specs of the listings (number of bedrooms, baths, sqft) and photos of the listing. No other theme has ever offered so many custom fields that catered directly to the real estate agent.
Agent Theme requires the use of two included plugins to gain the most benefit from the theme. The two plugins are the jquery Lightbox (Balupton Edition) and Featured Content Gallery.
The lightbox plugin works by darkening the screen and maximizing the listing images on the user’s screen. The Featured Content Gallery plugin is a nice addition to the homepage as it provides a slideshow presentation of articles/listings you specify. This is an excellent tool for agents looking to highlight properties and is configurable from the administrative control panel.
Thumbnails are created manually in the Agent Theme so be sure to check the online documentation for the theme to get the proper thumbnail sizes. The two instances where you will be creating thumbnails are listing photos and on the homepage/category pages.
Best For:
Agent Theme is best for real estate agents and brokerages who need a modern and relatively simple way to manage their online presence and listings.
What We Like About It:
We love the Featured Content Gallery on the homepage because it gives agents a way to control which listings they want to show off. The theme’s design is clean with white boxes framing each individual aspect of the homepage. The theme also includes a full width page which is perfect for agents and brokers who need to iframe a third party real estate search engine into their website.
The price of the Agent Theme is also reasonable given the number of custom theme features and excellent support provided by the Revolution Two staff.
Areas for Improvement:
This is a real estate theme through and through so repurposing the design for another industry would be more trouble than its worth. The lack of automated features (i.e. thumbnail resizer) and backend options are disappointing.
Overall Value: 3.5/5
The Revolution Two Agent Theme is a purpose built WordPress theme and that’s where it excels. The lack of automated thumbnail creation and more backend options is disappointing but the pre-made property detail fields make up for what the theme is lacking in other areas.
Brian Gardner takes great care to improve the Revolution themes. In fact, in 2008 many of the first Revolution themes went from version 1.0 to version 3.0 before the successor to the series was offered. It’s our sincerest hope that some of our concerns will be addressed in upcoming versions because Agent Theme is an excellent start for real estate agents migrating to WordPress.
Recommended: Yes
Click here to visit Revolution Two and learn more about the Agent Theme!
Removing WordPress Categories From Nav Menu
Posted on 24. Jan, 2009 by Joshua Ferris in Blog, Featured, WordPress
Have you ever wondered how to remove WordPress categories from navigation menus? Perhaps you have too many categories and it turns your website design into mush or you simply don’t need certain categories to be displayed in the nav menu because they serve a different purpose (i.e. Featured category). (more…)
Top 7 Must Have WordPress Plugins
Posted on 23. Jan, 2009 by Joshua Ferris in Blog, Featured, Plugins, WordPress
WordPress is all about expandability and nothing says that better than the vast array of free and premium plugins available for the platform. Whether its your first WordPress site or 50th, you’re bound to find new plugins that make running your website a more streamlined, fun experience. (more…)
Creating SEO Friendly Permalinks in WordPress
Posted on 23. Jan, 2009 by Joshua Ferris in Blog, Featured, WordPress
There is much debate in the SEO community as to what type of permalinks work best in WordPress. Now before we begin on what we feel works best let’s talk about what permalinks are. (more…)