news & marketing tips — February 20, 2006

Build your reputation as a top agent and local expert

According to the 2005 National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, both home sellers and buyers choose their REALTORS® based on two main factors:  reputation and knowledge of the neighborhood.

We're offering a special right now that can help you market yourself better in both of those areas.  Buy another professional XSite for only $249 (a $250 savings).  Buy three or more and they're only $199 each.  That's a savings of $300 on each XSite! 

Today, more than three quarters of buyers — 77 percent — use the Internet as an information source for real estate.  And almost one fourth of buyers first found the home they eventually purchased on the Internet.  You're already a leg up in the competition since you already have an XSite, but having multiple XSites can also help you build your reputation as a top agent and local expert.  Here's how:

Sellers
Nothing says "local expert" like having an entire website dedicated to listings and information about a particular neighborhood! Sellers will be impressed that their listings are showcased on a website that brings in more targeted buyers.

Do you deal with high-end sellers?  Why not give their listing its own website?  Not only will it make an impact on your sellers, but having such a specific website can boost your search engine placement and bring in more targeted buyers.  You'll gain the reputation for taking care of your sellers in ways other agents can't — thereby justifying a full commission.

Buyers
When buyers say they're looking in the "XYZ" neighborhood, you can direct them to your website where they can view all the listings in that area and any local information you choose to add, again solidifying yourself as the local expert.

In addition, while the typical buyer takes about 8 weeks to buy a home, your buyers may be able to find their homes sooner on a website dedicated to the neighborhood in which they wish to live.

The $199 offer for XSites ends February 28, so stock up and use them now or later since the sites can be activated anytime within the year of purchase.  And since the special is good for XSites in all of our markets (Appraiser, Agent, Home inspector and Mortgage), you can also give them to your business partners and clients to help build relationships! 

Call 1-800-ALAMODE or click here to order more XSites today!

Improved Page Content Editor for XSites

It's never a slow month in the product development department here at a la mode.  This week we're releasing an enhanced Page Content Editor, which is what you use when you modify or create any text on your web pages.

Here are a few of the cool new features you'll notice:

Dockable and floating toolbars.  These will enhance workflow when you're editing a page.  The toolbars can now be dragged and rearranged just like in Microsoft Office.  Plus, your toolbars can be undocked and appear floating over the content inside or outside your editor.

Multi-level undo/redo feature.  The new editor mimics a word processor even more with a multi-level undo/redo feature with "action trails" that allow you to see the past actions and undo/redo one or more of them at once, similar to Microsoft Word.

Enhanced spellcheck.  Dictionaries from Microsoft Word XP and 2003 can now be used to check spelling in your pages.

"Repeat last command" button.  This practical tool allows you to perform a single command multiple times by clicking on this button in your editor.

New paste options.  This feature makes it easier for you to paste formatted content from Microsoft Word and other applications into your editor and apply different types of format stripping. They include:  Paste from Word, Paste from Word but strip fonts and sizes, Paste as plain text, and Paste as HTML.

Advanced programming support.  The seriously tech-savvy XSite owners out there will be thrilled to know the new editor has improved support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).  Choose from a number of pre-defined styles, or add your own CSS code with <style> tags by switching to HTML editing mode. In addition, JavaScript is now permitted on any page.  This means that anything you can do with JavaScript you can also do in your XSite pages by embedding <script> tags in HTML editing mode.

Some of the new tools available might be vital timesavers for you, and others you may never think you'll use.  Our goal is simply to give you as many tools and features as possible to make editing and creating pages on your XSite easier and faster — and fun!