by Kris Cone | Jul 22, 2015 | Listing Tools, What's New
Great news for non-Showcase agents linking tours to Realtor.com
As of July 1, 2015, linking the FloorPlanOnline virtual tour to Realtor.com is now completely Free! In the past, Realtor.com charged us a fee to link non-Showcase tours to Realtor.com, and we therefore passed on this cost by charging $25 to link to Realtor.com. Going forward, linking to Realtor.com, whether you are a Showcase member with them or not, is free!
We made this change in our pricing system a little after the first of the month, and we did attempt to refund any charges for non-Showcase linking made from July 1 to July 7th. If you find a charge for Realtor.com linking in July that we missed, just shoot us an email at support@floorplanonline.com and we will issue a credit.
Behind Zillow/Trulia, Realtor.com is the 3rd most vistited real estate website, so it benefits you to link the tour. In additon, if you are a Showcase member only because of the tour linking savings (it was free), you might be able to save some bucks now with the nonShowcase membership.
How to link your tours to Realtor.com
It is easy, you just need to do a few things:
1) Update your linking profile to make sure Realtor.com selected.
To add Realtor.com, login, go to Edit Profile and click the Edit Tour Linking & Distribution button towards the top. Then just make sure Realtor.com is checked. Go to the bottom and save.
Then select the box for Realtor.com
2) Add Realtor.com to older tours.
Go to Manage Tours, then select the Edit Details link (it is a blue text link) under the Tour Details column, scroll to the bottom and make sure Realtor.com is selected for that particular listing (and that we have the valid MLS number) and then save.
3) Manually link to Realtor.com
Go back to Manage Tours an on the far right under Tour Actions, select See Tour Linking and hit the relink option to manually link the tour to Realtor.com.
You can also send us an email to support@floorplanonline.com with a request to set this up and relink for you. Note if you have a lot of tours, it might take a few days for us to complete this task.
For new tours, if we have the MLS number at the time you Approve & Publish the tour, the virtual tour will get added to Realtor.com within a few minutes automatically. It shows both on the small thumbnail view as well as on the lower right of the main photo slider. Granted…it is not that visible, but at least it is there on the listing!
Call2Action Photo
As a reminder, you can get more people clicking on the virtual tour by uploading the unbranded version of the Call2Action photo into your MLS photo gallery, which then will make its way to Realtor.com, Zillow and other sites to call out to the user to click on the virtual tour link. Click here to read more on the Call2Action Photo.
Note for the Northwest MLS
Some MLS systems (namely the NWMLS in the Seattle area) make you jump through some hoops to get your listings pulled into Realtor.com in the first place. If your listings are not on Realtor.com, we can’t link the tour there. So you need to make sure Realtor.com pulls your listings in from the MLS first.
What you need to do:
The following forms need to be completed and faxed back to MOVE® at 480-556-4508.
1) REALTOR.com® Designated (BDCP) – Broker Data Content Provider Agreement
2) NWMLS Form 110 – Data License Agreement – This needs to be downloaded directly from the NWMLS website
3) Realtor.com NWMLS Broker Website Agreement
You can also contact Realtor.com directly at
REALTOR.com® Customer Care: 800-878-4166
E-mail: CustomerCare@REALTOR.com
by Kris Cone | Mar 7, 2014 | Real Estate Info, Real Estate News
An interesting article from Inman the other day where the top 3 real estate portals are really dominating the search results. Zillow was at the top with 16.53 percent of real estate traffic. Then came Trulia with 8.66%. Rounding out the top 3 was Realtor.com (which used to be #1) with 7.26%. But what these numbers do not show is Zillow also powers several other websites, including Yahoo Homes, which is #4. So you have Zillow with over 64 million monthly visitors to their site and listings. Realtor.com does power MSN Real Estate, so together, they represent about 26 million monthly visits.
by Kris Cone | Nov 2, 2010 | Listing Tools, Real Estate Info
Today, Realtor.com operator Move Inc. said it has renewed the content agreement with MSN that allows consumers to access Move’s property listings and related information via MSN Real Estate. Combined, Realtor.com and MSN Real Estate reach 18.6 million unique consumers each month, Move said, citing comScore data. Hitwise and comScore consistently rank both sites among the nation’s top 10 most visited real estate websites.
This is good new for FloorPlanOnline users.
First, if you are a Showcase member with Realtor.com, you get more distribution to MSN as part of this relationship. Second, if you are not a Showcase member, you can still reach these users by paying our $20 linking fee (which they charge us), and you can get your tour attached to your listing on Realtor.com and the other sites it powers. Either way, the tour shows up under the four main photos as the TOUR button. We have to link the tour for you. For those with few listings, it is likely more cost effective to not be a Showcase member. Call Realtor.com at 800-878-4166 to discuss options.
However. Now that we are also creating an exact video file of the tour’s virtual WalkThru video, this creates further reason to be a Showcase members. Showcase members can login to their Realtor.com control panel and upload the video to your listing. When you do this, it adds a VIDEO button below the Photos as well. You have to upload the video – there is no way for us to do this for you (we have asked Realtor.com several times now….). If you add a video, your listing gets further preferential search treatment.
All you need to do to download the video is login at Floorplanonline.com, go to Manage Orders, then click the VIEW link under Marketing Materials. If there is a Download Video button, click it and select the AVI option. Save on your computer, then login at Realtor.com and edit your listing and upload it! It should be ready within 40 minutes. If your listing does not have a video, go back to Manage orders, click on the Edit Tour link under Tour Editor, click on Edit Video, and then click the Save & Close button. This will queue the video up for production. It should show up in your account within 1 hr, but it could take longer, depending on the time of day and how many other videos are being processed.
by Kris Cone | Sep 21, 2010 | Real Estate News
Move Inc. to offer listings syndication through its Realtor.com website via ListHub
Realtor.com operator Move Inc. finalized a deal Monday to acquire Threewide Corp., operator of national listing syndication platform ListHub. The acquisition comes on the heels of an amended agreement between Move and the National Association of Realtors concerning the operation of the Internet’s most popular real estate portal, Realtor.com.
In addition to giving Move more leeway to redesign the real estate site, the amendment also gave Move permission to syndicate listings data to third parties such as online portals, real estate listing sites and other “designated destinations,” if instructed to do so by the multiple listing service or broker supplying the listings.
“By acquiring Threewide and elevating the ListHub brand to a primary product offering at Move, we’ll combine Move’s core competencies of listing aggregation, relationship management and the delivery of effective marketing services with ListHub’s leadership in national syndication and market intelligence,” said Steve Berkowitz, Move’s CEO, in a press release.
You can read more on the release by clicking here.
by Kris Cone | Nov 17, 2009 | Real Estate Info
I listened to the virtual rebar camp that is going on today. Some good points…
1. Create a Post, not an email. Each time you have a question or issue, create a blog post…because it adds more content to your site, helps answer other people’s questions, and increases your search engine status! So write the post and then email the person the link to the post. Tell them it was a great question and I thought others would benefit from seeing the answer, so here is the link to the blog post.
2. Hyperlocalizm….focusing in on one area. Your local town, neighborhood, or development, not your entire metro area…it is too big and hard to get to the top.
3. Spacial Match – 2010 technology coming…When people search, they search by city, street and zip code….Lifestyle variables will be added with Spacial match, so add lifestyle content to your site. Example: what is it like to live in your community, pictures, etc…show the lifestyle and how you live it…..
4. Later Music! Get rid of music on website. Google has new tool on search that translates video into text…so music will impact that….
4. Get a zipcode based URL, like livein64152.com or WeatherbyLakeLifestyle.com and sub domain of zip code….google does not care what order it is in.
5. Facebook – 24% of all web traffic is Facebook. 32 minutes on site, 14 page views. Do not put your birth date online….Create a fan page using zip code. Note – realtor.com has a nice little widget that you can add to your Facebook profile page and sidebar. It is free. See more at seemylistings.com.
6. Topics for a blog post. Set up a google alert on a topic. Google will email you the alert. go to www.google.com/alerts to create the alert. Select comprehensive info. Select a daily alert option. Set the alert up for the city you live in. Include the words real estate. Include your name. Create a calendar event to review the alert and write a post. Save them into a Blog Topic folder or Label. Use local keywords.
- Use Local Keywords for your posts-Use [City] Real Estate in your blog post. If you service multiple cities, rotate the city among your blog posts.
- [City] homes
- Add on to the basics for longer keywords, like [city] real estate agents
Where to put the keywords? Place keywords 3 times in a 350 word post. Once in the title, once in the first paragraph (preferably the first sentence), and one more anywhere in the blog post. Also include links in your posts. You can even link to other pages in your website or other blog posts you might have previously posted, so the search engines look through all of your site. Adding authoritative links also helps.You can get a free ebook on the topic at www.Leadbosterclub.com free ebook on the topic of blogging….
7. Posterous. What is it? A really simple blogging platform. Lets you completely customize the look and feel of the site. You can also get your own domain name for the posterous site. You can set up a Posterous site for a buyer or seller. Create an online diary. Use the street address.yourdomain to create it for the house on a seller, which then could be given to the buyer. You can also set up additional contributors.
8. Free Tools. Jing, Gimp (photoshop like), Audacity (sound files), NVU (html editing program), Dropbox (Back-up of large files), Yousendit (email large files), Filwfilla, Alltop (info), Popurl (what is popular), Post Templates (for blog), PDF995, FreeMind, Google (lots of free stuff), email? Mass awebber is not free but works good. Get more at www.steverosenbaum.com/million including wordpress plugins.
by Kris Cone | Oct 20, 2009 | Real Estate Info
We are working on a new FAQ page. Please check back next week for updates!
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