Jamie Howell-Reynolds<br> - My Real Estate Article

Agent Information: This is where the agent can modify their information, such as telephone numbers, name, email address, etc. The email address on this page is where all the leads will go for the agent.

Office Information: This is the agent's office information. The agent will need to call Member Services in order to change this information. It is updated via AP Tools.

Coverage Area: This covers what area(s) the agent covers; where they have listings, sell real estate, etc.

Change Password: This is where the agent changes their password. Once they change it, they will need to log out and login in with the new password.

Member Login Link: This is where the agent can turn on/off the member login button. The way to login then would be to type /admin after the url. (http://bobsmith.com/admin) Also, the Quick Search option is located here. Some templates support this feature. If they like a template but do not like the search, they can turn it off here.

Help/Member Services: This page contains Member Services' telephone number, email and support URL for the agent's convenience.

Leads

Lead Manager: This sections contains the Leads the agent receives (they also receive a copy in their email)

Address Book: The agent can store the leads in.

Web Marketing Services

Homes.com CMA Request: This is located in your Modify Your Buttons section. You can opt-in to leave this on or turn it off. A CMA request is a Comparative Market Analysis that gives an individual the value of their home. The agent is notified by email and sends the customer a report.

Email Search Results: The Agent can fill out this form and send the Results of their Search to whomever requests them.

Automated Email Settings: Also known as My HomeTracker; Individuals can request the agent's listings at a daily, weekly or monthly time frame for a desired amount of time. These are sent out automatically to the email address the interested party gives when they sign up. The agent can come here to see who is receiving his/her listings.

Auto Responder: If the agent would like an instant reply sent to visitors on their website whenever a customer fills out the "More Info" form, this is the tool for them.

Edit Signature: The agent can edit this signature if they please, but do remind them that if they change it, whenever they change their information; change offices, etc, this will not update automatically.

Lead Forms

Portal CMA: This sections covers Web Marketing Services as well as other Key Areas. Those areas are defined below.

E-Communications Center: Identical to Web Marketing Services. See Above.

Enhanced Listings Services: Agents can upload a Virtual Tour and Turn On/Off the True North Map Graphic. This graphic shows a star on a 3x3 map graphic in the Listing Details showing where the listing is located.

Information Services: Here is the Portal CMA, which when activated, allows the agent to receive CMA Requests from homes.com via email, if someone in their coverage area requests a CMA. The Weather strip that displays on the top of their website is also here. They can turn it off/on or change the city location in which the weather is displayed.

School Services: Homes.com uses a company, OnBoard. It gives users the information for schools in the city in which they search. They can opt to use an outside link of their own if they do not want to use OnBoard.

Neighborhood Information: Not all of the older control panels include this option, however the newer ones do. If they'd like to opt-in for this service, it's a $6.00 monthly fee.

Website Counter: Keeps an accumulative count of how many visits the site gets. The Agent can set the start number to any number they want and it is viewable to the public.

Suggestions: If the agent would like to see something in their control panel that we do not offer or have ideas, they can suggest them here.

My HomeTracker: This is where the agent can turn the My HomeTracker feature on/off.

Home Seller Report: The agent can fill out a report letting the seller know how their home is doing. How many calls, stops, showing, etc. it has had.

Marketing Design Center: This Center comes with the Agent Advantage site, not the Basic AA site. It allows the agent to design custom flyers, web commercials, virtual tours, brochures and postcards.

MHT Subscribers: My HomeTracker section. Also found in Portal CMA section.

Listings

Listing Editor: Here, you can Add, Edit, Remove Listings. You can also choose a listing and edit or add photos as well as upload a virtual tour. MLS fed listings only allow you to edit the photos and lead-line & caption.

Featured Listings Manager: Here, the agent can feature listings, as many as they'd like to be featured property. Also, There is a shortcut in here to the Featured Admin control panel on homes.com. They can get here by clicking the More Information button.

Open House Manager: The agent can post open houses (up to 10) on their website at a time. Be sure that when explaining this to them that you tell them the 'Display On-Line' time are the dates in which the Open House will display to the public. For example, if the open house is on the 11th, they want to set it a few days before. Also, the display date needs to be a day apart. (11th-12th)

Advanced Listing Options

Listing Export Settings: Shows what MLS' the agent is receiving from and also displays where the listings export to, such as homes.com, yahoo, etc. MLS' have different rules, so they will not all be the same.

Listing Display Settings: When users search for homes using the Search feature, the agent can change what information is shown on the listings. Also, be sure to let them know if their MLS requires one or all of the information then it will override their changes.

Listing Ordering Settings: Choose the order in which listings display on the site. Availability, Price and City Name are the available options. For example, if they Choose first sort by Availability and then by Price Descending, the most expensive available properties that have not been sold or are not under contract will come up first.

Recover Deleted Listings: This option is for hand entered listings only. If the listing expires or is sold, it will expire. They have 30 days to recover the listing. They can set it live again anywhere from 3 months to 2 years.

Listing Enhancements: This is covered under the Portal CMA section. Please see above.

Search Options

National HomeSearch Options: The features in here enable the agent to allow searches by subdivison and streetnames. Also, allows the agent to require a guestbook login, which, when someone does a search for property on their site, they need to supply a name, email address and telephone number in order to see the search results. The home channel finder is a setting for smart/simple frame feeds. If this is checked, it will frame the search in a new window.

My Listing Channel Options: Here you can also enable searches by subdivision and street names. You can also display a link to the agent's Company's listings and show street addresses for the the agent's listings only. They can also enable a search interface for Listings, Featured property, Open Houses & the Virtual Tour Gallery.

Website Editor

Site Settings

Choose Your Layout: The agent can choose from our many layouts to give a different look and feel to their website.

Modify Your Buttons: The agent can change, edit, delete buttons here. Note: If the agent has a template with custom buttons, and requires custom buttons, they will need to submit an 'order' for us to create it for them. This is at no cost to them.

Main Page Options: This area covers the above 2 sections, as well as other areas covered. You can refer to them Above. The core areas in here are Edit Title & Head Line Snippets, Main Body Copy & Images, Upload Your Logo or Choose Franchise Logo.

Edit Title and Head Line Snippets: Page Title Displays in the title bar. It has a limit of 105 characters. The site title and front page header are pulled into different areas of the template, depending on which template you choose.

Keywords: The keywords are hidden in code & should be a guide to what your site is about. Often people overuse keywords & some search engines frown on this practice. Use about 15-20 relevant words for this page or site.

Description: The description is also hidden in code. Sometimes you see the description under the link in the search engines. This text should include 2 well-formed sentences with relevant keywords included.

Main Body Copy and Images: This is the main page content. Here you can upload a photo, add a lead-line, or slogan and edit the caption. The caption is usually the information an agent wants his page to have on it. Some agents use html and put it in here. This is perfectly acceptable. One thing you should note, is that if you come here to make some changes and it looks nothing like the front page, please check the storage locker for a _CustomIntro.html file. If this is in the storage locker, the changes will need to made to the html file.

Upload Logo or Choose Franchise Logo: Here the agent can upload his/her logo or choose a franchise logo from the drop down list. They can also have it link to a website. If the link leaves their website, please urge them to check the 'Open in New Window' box. Otherwise, the customer will leave the agent's webpage.

Search Engine Tools

Meta Tag Builder: Our search engine optimizer allows you to make updates to your page titles, meta descriptions, meta keywords and page header. Search engines often use these elements in ranking the relevance of your site.

Search Engine Help: This section is a great tutorial on how the agent can get their site on the search engine and optimize their site for search engines. Urge the customer to go over this section when they have a good hour to themselves.

Articles, Links, & Reports

Articles Editor

Create New: Create a New Article

Edit Existing: Edit an Existing Article.

Delete: Delete an Existing Article.

Links Editor

Create New: Create a New Link.

Edit Existing: Edit an Existing Link.

Sort Order of Links: This allows the agent to sort the order of his/her links.

Delete: Delete an Existing Link.

Reports Editor

Create New: Creates a New Report.

Setup Reports: The agent can check which reports he/she wants to display on their site, as well as turn them all off.

Storage Locker

Add/Manage Current Files: Allows the agent to add multiple files to the storage locker, which they can link to in the website. Photos, Documents, PDF files, etc.

Create Article with Document(s): Allows the agent to create an article which has a document inside of it.

Make Link Directly to Document: Allows the agent to link directly the document instead of creating it inside of an article.

Purchase Additional Space: By default, the agent has 10mb of storage locker space. They can purchase more space here.

Preferred Partners: This area allows the agent to add links and/or information about partners and/or mortgage centers.

Website Activity: This area logs the website activity, displaying which pages are visited, how many visitors they get every day, where the visitors came from, etc.

Home: The Page they see when they first log in. This area displays news that homes.com wants the agent to hear about and it also gives them a resource center which can be very useful toe the agent. It has links to html tutorials, control panel tutorials, homes.com contact info, etc.

Agent Control Panel Options