Welcome to Week One of the Website 101: Working with Websites Self Learning Tutorial.
During the first week we will review the primary essentials of setting up your website:
At this point you should have gone through the Website Wizard, which means your site is live and ready to go. Our websites come with default content that is great in the in-term, but to begin creating a truly professionally-designed Website and transforming it into a powerful lead-generating tool requires some customization.
Note: If you have not gone through the set up wizard we recommend doing so before preceding. Follow this link to learn more about the Website Wizard.
Website Wizard Review
The set up wizard guides you through some essential steps in laying the foundation of your website. Take the time to make sure you have done these basic steps. Click the below link to view or printout a check list of very important things that should have been done during the set up, quickly look through the list and make sure you have completed them, if you need assistance use the help link in the right hand column.
Important Steps to complete| Done? | Important Steps to complete | Help Links |
| Contact information – the information and photo’s you add to your profile will be used through out the site to brand you and your services, take the time to make sure the information is accurate and the photo’s are of good quality | ||
| Communities Served – The content you put in this field is autopopulated throughout your site giving you custom content with little effort | ||
| Header Messages – These are used by search engines to categorize your site so it’s important to use terms that are specific to you. i.e Ridge Dale Real Estate and Condo Sales | ||
| Setting up a Theme – You want to make sure your site represents you and they way you do business so the look and feel is extremely important |
Removing Default Information
The wizard creates a default website. While your default site contains useful information for your customers, there are placeholder information you should change right away. For example, there is a sample listing to show you how the Featured Listing webbox works as well as a testimonial page to remind you the importance of referrals from previous customers. Click the things to remove and/or update link below:
Things to Remove and/or Update| Updated? | Things to Remove and/or Update | Help Links |
| Sample Listing – A sample Listing is included by default. You will want to delete the sample and enter your own listings using the Listings Manager. | How to Manage Your Listings | |
| Open House Calendar Page – You can enter open house information for each Listing on your site, and it will automatically be displayed on this page. | Creating an Open House Web Box | |
| Testimonials Page – Sample testimonials are included by default in the About Me section of your site. You will want to edit the content of this page and insert your current testimonials, or simply remove or hide the page. | Editing a Web Page |
It’s All About Listings
One of the most important reasons visitors come to your Website is to look at listings. There are various ways to present the listings. Depending on other products you’ve purchased, this may include importing from Top Producer 8i, or realtor.com®. Use the following links to learn more about getting your listings on your site.
- Adding realtor.com® Listings
- Importing Top Producer Listings
- Adding IDX Pages to your Top Producer Website
- Manually entering a listing