1. If I want to add extra links to the sidebar how do I do that?

That’s easy. In your admin panel you’ll see a menu that says “links”; click on it and then enter the URL (http:// address) that you’d like to link to, then click ’save’ and you’re done. Refresh the page and you’ll see your new link has appeared in the sidebar! You can see a fuller explanation of this by clicking here!

2. Is there a limit to the number of images I can add to the gallery?

It’s now possible to have up to 68 images on every one of your IS-selling sites. On the primary gallery page there’s a limit of 12 images, but you’ll find another 3 image spaces on the bottom of the main page and another 4 on the bottom of the gallery page,- all of which have the full ‘zoom on click’ feature. So that makes 19 images, plus the main page image gives a total of 20 images. Added to that are two newly introduced extra gallery pages which give an extra 48 images if you should need them. So if you used all three gallery pages available you’d have 68 images in total which should be more than plenty for the average property.

3. Am I able to add video to the site?

At the present time we haven’t included that feature, but it will be coming shortly. We’ll arrange it so that video can be embedded from any one of about 20 different streaming video sources. This isn’t hard to do but we just need to incorporate it into the gallery section or create a separate page entirely for it.

4. What about virtual tours,.are we able to feature those on the site?

In theory we can include virtually anything on the sites, and we could include on-site virtual tours. Whilst we haven’t at this stage set up any ‘in-house’ virtual tour facility there are many separate virtual tour hosts and specialists around. You can create a link right now in your sidebar that links directly with a separate virtual tour that could be on your own server or via a specialist service provider. So yes,.. in fact it can be done right now via a link that you can easily create yourself in your admin panel.

5. I’d like to feature a basic agent profile on the site,- can I do that?

Yes you can do that because every site template automatically has the “Agent Profile” page included. You can include your basic profile details in the “Messages” section of your admin panel. we’ve included a basic template on our Resources page that you can use, and your uploaded agent’s image picture will automatically appear on the designated Profile page. Later we’ll be including a standard style template that agents can just load up all their basic details (and perhaps extra pictures) but prior to that, the current Agent’s Profile page works fine as seen on the demo site. You can of course create a link to your own corporate website or directly to your own agent’s blog or profile pages.

6. Can we upload our own agency header or logo?

Yes you can. Right now you can load up your agency logo which fits into the header area. We will be introducing a feature where agents can load up a different styled header either from our library stock or a unique one of their own. This feature will incorporate its own cropping function as well, so as to make the header sizes fit exactly. In the meantime, any subscriber can make a direct request for a custom header or color & graphics style and we’ll arrange it for free in most cases unless excessive graphic detail is needed.

7. What about corporate colors, are there any plans to make specific colors and styles available?

Yes, definitely. Already we have custom corporate themes available  for Century21, Remax, Keller Williams and several others. We will be introducing a range of standard corporate colors for more specific agencies over the next 4 to 8 weeks. In the meantime we’d like to hear from any agents that have specific requirements or that wish to ensure they’ll be included. Furthermore, we can create unique template styles for agents. There may be some cost attached to those unless the order comes from a volume customer or a premium level member.

8. Does the fact that these sites are built on the WordPress platform have any influence on their performance or search engine ranking?

Yes,.. absolutely. Because these sites are built on the WordPress platform (we’re using WordPress 2.7) they are seen as social web2.0 sites by the search engines (in fact they see them as property blogs) which immediately increases their page rank value. These sites are very easily and readily crawled by the Search engine bots and they link very well with all the other web2.0 social media such as facebook, dig, stumble, del.ic.ious, twitter, etc. etc. In fact, every site has its own social bookmarking button and the “follow agent” on twitter as well. Plus WordPress has well and truly established its platform stability over the past 6 years and is widely and powerfully supported and respected.

9. I’m not good with html coding; do I need to know about that?

No you don’t. We’ve set the site up so that it can be used by a complete coding novice. The only thing that may need to be done in the “Messages” section (the text input for the various pages) is the addition of Bold, Underline or Italic text and some line spacing. We’ve simplified that by placing the copy & paste tags on the left hand side of the message boxes so it’s really easy to add those font emphases. We may include a text editor soon but we really would like to keep it very simple for everyone to add detail rather than complicate it with too many gadgets and features.

10. What about plug-in modules, I know that WordPress has lots to chose from, will we be able to include any?

Well, we decided to not open up the sites to too much individual manipulation because we are just focusing on keeping then simple and very uniformly functional. We already have hard coded several plug-ins into the files and later we will be adding more to keep the sites performing and ranking to their optimum. Any users or members that wish to request the inclusion of a specific plug-in or widget is welcome to do so, and if it appears to be of an overall group benefit we’ll put it in for sure.

11. Can we link our sites up with Trulia, Zillow, Google Base, Oodle, Vast & Craig’s List etc?

Yes,- that’s already been factored in and automatically happens as soon as your site is activated and goes live. You don’t need to do anything else because we’ve set up a script that converts all the basic property particulars into an XML feed (the platform that most of these mass listing agencies have settled on as being the standard to use). At present we’ve got the XML feeds pointing to Zillow, Trulia, Google-Base, Yahoo Real Estate, Oodle, and Vast. It can take from 7 to 21 days for listings to show up on some of the networks but we’re working on turbo charging that process. Craig’s List works on the html platform and we have created an ‘html code generator” that automatically creates the details page with 11 images (by way of URL links) that can be simply copied & pasted into Craig’s List enabling your properties to be listed in just a few minutes. You can use the html code generator to post html ads to Craigslist or any others you choose (Craiglist policy forbids us to create the listing it for you).

12. The features of the is-selling .com sites are already great, but when they’re added to by all the extra features you have planned will they become more expensive?

As you’d know from our “Prices” page, the regular price we’ve listed each site at is a very low $9.95. We believe that that’s really competitive right now, especially considering the personalized domain name (thisproperty.is-selling.com) and the free hosting for as long as you need the site to be active (keep it active for months after sale if you like with one of our SOLD banners splashed across it!). Once our beta-mode launch period has ended, our current low rate of $9.95 will cease completely and only be available under certain volume and membership plans. However, any customer that has purchased site credits at the low rate of $9.95 or subscribed to one of the low monthly subscription rates will continue to enjoy those low prices as part of our ‘Fixed Price Guarantee” as they’ll be permanently locked in for our initial subscribers. Although we do expect that we’ll eventually be adjusting our prices upwards, we’re very clear that the whole objective is to make them very widely affordable and a complete ‘no-brainer’ for any progressive agent to include in his or her marketing strategy.