Does Your Real Estate Website Suck?

  At REBarCampTO the other week, I led a discussion about agent’s websites. The first question I asked the group was ‘how many of you are happy with your website?’ Of the 50+ people in the room, only three people raised their hands. I have to say that I wasn’t all too surpr
Continue Reading →

Sage NAR Recap Notes | Plug-ins To Improve Your WordPress Site

  One of the beauties with WordPress is how many developers have developed plugins for it. A plugin is just a bit of code that adds additional functions to your WordPress site. Although there is an incredible amount of free plugins some of them do have one time or recurring costs
Continue Reading →

NAR Tech Edge Presentation | SEO VS SMO or Getting Found Online

SEO+SMO= Getting Found Online SEO- Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of positioning your website or blog high in the organic search results. There are two main elements involved in SEO: 1 ‘On Page’ elements 2 ‘Off Page’ elements ‘On Page’ elements - the way the site is
Continue Reading →

Advanced WordPress Coaching Session Notes

What a great discussion we had this past Monday on Advanced WordPress topics. I really love these sessions because I never know where they will end up. I always have a rough idea of what I want to cover but depending on who asks what questions, we always end up going down roads I neve
Continue Reading →

Intermediate WordPress Coaching Session Notes

Thank you to everyone who came out today to the group coaching session on WordPress. For those of you who could not attend, here are the notes from today’s session. Setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog: Register domain name through GoDaddy.com Register both .com and .ca for minimum
Continue Reading →

WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com | A Toronto Real Estate Agents Guide

There are two versions of WordPress: WordPress.org  (self-hosted WordPress), WordPress.com (fully hosted WordPress) WordPress.org is what we’re usually talking about on this blog, as this option gives the blogger 100% control. WordPress.com, on the other hand, is a blogging service th
Continue Reading →

How to Market Your Real Estate Blog

Writing great content for your blog on a regular basis is only half the battle. The other half is letting the world know about this great resource you have created. The best place to start is with your existing network and encouraging them to spread the word. Some tactics could includ
Continue Reading →

Anatomy of a Typical Toronto Real Estate Blog

A typical Toronto real estate agent’s blog will consist of the following elements: 1)      Domain name (i.e. www.TheAstuteAgent.ca): This is your website’s address on the internet. Select a domain name that is in keeping with the topic/content of your blog; stay away from incorporatin
Continue Reading →

6 Reasons Why WordPress Is So Great for Toronto Real Estate Blogs

WordPress is a blogging platform. The best way to think about is as the software that runs your blog. It is incredibly powerful software: according to many different studies it powers 8.5% of all websites online. Why is it so popular? For many reasons: 1)      It is free. It is ‘open
Continue Reading →

8 WordPress Widgets and Plug-ins that Every Real Estate Blog Should Have

Whenever I set up a blog for a real estate agent, there is a handful of plug-ins that I always install. Here is a list of 8: 1)      Text Widget – The text widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. It is probably one of the most useful widgets in your toolbox because of i
Continue Reading →