Blog

Website Movie & PDF Tutorials

Have you visited the “Help” module in your GraphicalData Admin Center? There are many topics from basic web page building, to activating your blog, to adding Google Analytics to your website.

Log into your admin center and then click through to your Website tab. On the  side of your screen you will see the Help icon. Click on it to access the help section. You will find movie tutorials, instructional PDF’s, FAQ’s, and more.

This help section is designed specifically to provide you with the assistance you need to build out and manage your website.

If you need assistance even after watching/reading these tutorials, feel free to contact our client support during normal business hours.

Need a Blog . . . Your GraphicalData Website Has One!

GraphicalData clients can easily add a Blog to their website . . . and at no additional cost!

The option of adding a Blog to your website should appear in the lower left side navigation when editing your website within the Website section of your admin center. It is entitled “Website Blog” with a blue and green “bubble” icon beside it. Just click to pull up your Blog, and get to know it. You will complete some simple set-up options . . . and then go ahead and create your Blog post.

Need help? Select the help section and find video tutorials showing how to start your Blog, and posting your first entry.

Once you have played around a bit you will see what an easy environment it is to work in . . .

Due to the fact that some GraphicalData clients have custom website designs, or have done extensive content editing, some may need a tweak from our end. If after creating an entry and viewing it, you find the layout looks strange, please email: support@graphicaldata.com with a link to your blog, and we will review it.

Customize Your GraphicalData Website

I often get calls asking to help an agent change around his or her website. I often can assist with an answer to a specific question, but many times, an agent wants a whole new look, and that is more than I can provide.

So, the answer is…if you currently have a standard GraphicalData website (or even an older custom design that needs refreshing) and feel that now may be the time to upgrade to a customized look, that is easy for our designers to do!

A customized look would include your own unique banner, designed with you in mind. Also your background colors, button colors and the like.

We can beef up the look and text content on your home page, and have additional content that can be added to increase the functionality of your site, including buyer and seller tips, interest rates (refresh daily), privacy policy, your loan officer if desired, area links, and other contents that you might have or want.

If you would like a more sophisticated look…the cool thing is that a GraphicalData site can become just about anything you would like it to be. And, it’s affordable too! Just contact us today at 360-698-1725…and ask for Toni our account manager. She will be happy to help!

Add Your Sales History to Your GraphicalData Website

Did you know that you can post Your Most Recent Sales to your Website?

What is cool about this is that it can include not only your own listings that have sold, but also any sales that you have made (since you own half that side of the transaction).

This is easy to set up. First, create a new page. Then select the “Sold Listings” module to reside on this page. Insert the mls #s for any of the sold listings. You can name your button/page “Sales History”, “Sold Listings” “Recent Sales” or anything that works for you.

This feature will hold up to 40 sold listings, and will keep them for as long as they are in the MLS database. Should you require more than 40 listings, consider adding two pages and dividing them into “Home Sales History” and “Land Sales History” or the like and you can probably include them all.

One thing, since older sales drop out with age when the MLS drops them, consider overwriting the old MLS numbers with your latest. This technique will always ensure having a full house of  recent solds.

Changing the Style of Your Website

If you haven’t checked out our new website themes lately, time to revisit them! Whatever your region or tastes, we have fresh, modern designs that will give your website a whole new look with just a few clicks.

If you’ve ever looked at your website and thought, “I need to switch this up a bit!” but can never find more than a spare moment, you’ll be delighted at how easy this is.

View this tutorial for easy insight on changing out your look. Both horizontal and vertical styles are available

We are adding new styles on a regular basis, so check back often.

Important Note:  This does not apply to clients who have custom designed websites with their own defined banners and styles.

Adding a Virtual Tour or Photo Gallery to Your Listings

It is easy to add a Photo Gallery Tour to your listing in the GraphicalData database. The Photo Gallery will then show as a button when the actual listing is displayed.

But wait, there’s more…most any type of media that has a web address can be attached to your listing. So, this could be the photo gallery, the photo viewer, a 360 degree virtual tour that you have had created, etc.

How? First, determine the address of the Photo Gallery (or other media). Then, just sign into your GraphicalData admin page and select the Listings Tab in the top navigation bar. From there, drill down to “Inventory”. Any listing(s) that are current in the MLS should appear in this section. Select “View” on the listing you wish to add your media web address link to.

The applicable section is called “Virtual Tours”. You will note that there are 3 fields available to hold media links to. Select “Tour 1 Link” to begin. At this same point, are simple instructions on how to proceed. In essence, name what the link is to be called (ie Photo Gallery) and then paste in the link…save, and you are done.

Now, anyone who views your listing, will see your Photo Gallery (or other attached media).

Have you received a strange spam email and it looks like hieroglyphics?

There are good ‘bots and bad ‘bots crawling out there…in fact, more malicious than good…scrapping info. In this case, a “Form Pirate” scraped your form. This happens regularly on the web…on our forms actually not so much, but it still does happen.

We will be installing “Captcha” onto the forms in the very near future to combat this problem. You may have already experienced this technique on other websites when completing and sending a form. The “Captcha” solution involves a security letters graphic, the letters of which need to be replicated and typed into a field before you can send the form. This solves a lot of the problem as a human can do this . . . and machines less so.

Bottom line though, this is not a threat…nothing internal is being compromised…and implementing the Captcha system will help substantially.

Updating Your Listings in SnapViewer

If you have a SnapViewer activated on your website, it is easy to update the listings in it.

Probably the only tricky thing is to make the changes to your existing SnapViewer and not create a new one. Typically, you will be modifying an existing SnapViewer that we have already created within your site.

When modifying a SnapViewer that has already been created in your GD site, just follow the following simple steps:

  1. Login as you normally would in your admin center using your email and password
  2. Select Tools >>> Marketing Tools
  3. Select SnapViewer
  4. Then in the upper left corner of the subsequent page, select “Edit” under “Edit an Existing SnapViewer”
  5. On the page to follow, it will be evident how to add new MLS#s or replace existing MLS#s
  6. When satisfied, click the “Build Snap-Viewer” button and it will instantly update your SnapViewer Flash presentation.
  7. ***If you visit the “Help” section in you Website section, you will also find a movie tutorial on this topic***

Do I Have Unlimited Storage for my Domain-based Email?

Domain-based emails are provided by a 3rd party company that we use. The company specializes only in email services to large companies and do a pretty good job of it, as email services are a can of worms any way you look at it. When the total space gets filled, an automatic email is generated to you by the company indicating that an action needs to happen to free up space.

An email account is normally provided with 100 megabytes of space which is so huge I can’t tell you…unless one is working with major graphic attachments or the like. Actually it would not matter how much space is provided, sooner or later the space would get filled unless one tidies up occasionally.

For those of us that have an email that is associated to our domain name, or even have multiple email addresses, keeping track of which ones are filling up can be a chore. With all the spam that comes across these days, mailbox space is at a premium, and letting it go too long will result in messages not being delivered…and receiving the warning message to do some clean-up maintenance.

You should also make it a point to check your SPAM folders frequently, just to make sure the good things are being let in. Another option is to set up an automatic purge that will clear out messages after they are a certain age.

Checking email on a mobile device will not always remove them from the server itself. If you check emails via a mobile device, it is even more important to keep an eye on your available storage, as you would have received your messages via your mobile devise, but they will remain on the email server.  If regularly checking email from a mobile device, this is another good reason to set up a purge for your inbox. This way you can acquire your emails, and not have to worry about your available space filling up.

This would apply to any of our clients that have email through GraphicalData’s email provider. You can access your account at http://mailanyone.net/ and then use your user / pass to access your account.

If you should have any questions, feel free to call or contact our customer support department at 360-698-1725 or email support@graphicaldata.com .

Did You Know That You Can Manage Your Listings?

Did you know that you can add a virtual tour/photo gallery, reposition the listing on the map, and overwrite the MLS comments from your GraphicalData Admin Center?

After logging in, hover above LISTINGS on the top navigation bar, and select INVENTORY.  You will then be taken to all of your listings, from most expensive to least.  You can now navigate to the listing you wish to alter, and either click on the picture, or the listing number to the right of the picture.

You will then be on the Listing Information page, where items can be modified.  The 3 boxes under Virtual Tours can be used for Photo Galleries, Virtual Tours, or other media for this listing.  Beneath this section is the Listing Description, anything you enter here will overwrite the MLS remarks only on GraphicalData websites.

To the right of this feature is the map where you can change the position of the property if positioned incorrectly.  If you CLICK HERE TO REPOSITION PROPERTY you will go to a different page that has the location of the property, you can then click and drag the sign to the desired location.  After it is in the correct spot, click UPDATE LAT/LONG.

If at any time you have any questions, do not hesitate to give me a call and I can help in gettin things straightened out.