We would like to introduce a set of new features that have just been published to myRealPage Private Office. We have given our Statistics package an overhaul to make it more usable and friendly. We have also created a tight integration for Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. It is now super easy to connect your website with myRealPage to a Google Analytics account, get quick Analytics stats, and with only one click, you can now connect your website to Google Webmaster Tools!

[ Find all the statistics in one convenient place ]

Here is a the brief summary of our updates:

• Created a new section in the Private Office for Statistics
• Created Google Analytics integration:
  • Instantly connect a Tracking code to your website's domain
  • Run quick reports, including comparative reports for a time period of your choice
  • Get started with Google Analytics in a few clicks even you didn’t have a Google Analytics account before
  • See a quick video tour of Google Analytics in myRealPage Private Office here
• Created Google Webmaster Tools integration:
  • Verify and link your website’s domain to your Google Webmaster Tools with one click
  • View and manage your Google Webmaster messages
  • Access your Google Webmaster Tools directly from the Private Office
  • See a quick video tour of Google Webmaster Tools in myRealPage Private Office here
• Listing Statistics received a complete facelift to make them easier to use and understand
• Virtual Office Website (VOW) Statistics also received a facelift and now sport easier-to-use controls

[ The above is a quick report view in the Google Analytics section in the Private Office ]

[ Quickly access Google Webmaster Tools and verify and link your website’s domains ]

[ Virtual Office Website statistics are easier than ever to use ]

We hope you enjoy these new updates and, as always, we would love to hear what you have to say. Send us your thoughts to feedback@myrealpage.com

We are very pleased to publish a very large update to the myRealPage Listings product. The update covers a pretty wide area and introduces new functionality, boosts existing features, and improves user experience. myRealPage has been long offering a very powerful set of listing tools and features; and today’s updates are designed to let you take advantage of these easier and faster.

When you login into your Private Office, you will notice the new changes in the “Listings” section:

Here is a quick look at these 5 main sections:

Embeddable Listings and IDX wizard:

Embeddable Listings and IDX is an advanced toolkit from myRealPage which allows you to embed a powerful Listing Search engine (IDX) and a fully featured Virtual Office Website (VOW) in a 3rd party website, such as WordPress, Joomla, or even if a website is with another real estate website provider that lacks these features. It has proven to be a flexible option for many who want to take advantage of myRealPage listing functionality but continue running their existing websites.

The new Embeddable Listings wizard is a veritable powerhouse of options now. If before, you had a limited set of embeddable listing scriptlets, now you can configure very exactly what sort of listing content you would like to embed, including:

• Your listings, including custom categories, etc.
• Predefined searches
• Hand-picked listings combined with your listings or searches
• An individual listing
• A search form

You can also fine-tune how your listing content will appear by setting a theme, template, custom width and many other options.

We have also made sure that this wizard allows you to create and edit your Predefined Searches and Search Forms right in place, without needing to go to the Private Office to do so.

In addition, we have “webified”, this wizard so that you don’t need to login into the Private Office to access it. If you prefer to use this wizard outside the Private Office, simply follow this link to login into your wizard in your web browser.

Mobile Links and QR codes:

myRealPage has always taken mobile very seriously and has been offering free mobile listing tools for all its customers, those that do and don’t have myRealPage websites. myRealPage also released powerful, simple to use, fully editable Mobile Websites which can be tightly integrated with your regular website.

We have also created easy tools for our customers to access and use QR codes for listings and contact information. QR codes are a great way to publish mobile friendly content to smartphone users.

We have now combined all the mobile links and QR codes into one coherent interface where you can get mobile links to:

• Your listings
• Office listings
• Mobile listing search
• Individual listings
• and a QR code for your contact information

Predefined Searches:

Predefined Listing Searches have been very popular with myRealPage customers: they allow you to create “canned” search pages with listing results matching a particular set of criteria. You can create searches, like “Luxury Downtown Condos”, or “Core Area Lofts”, etc. The new interface allows you easily browse, create, edit and preview your predefined searches.

Note the new “Preview results” button in the Predefined Search wizard: it should allow you to easily verify that the search is producing desired results.

Search Forms:

Search Forms are a great way to create a specially pre-configured listing search formes for your website that accurately reflect your niche market and audience. For example, if you specialize in a particular neighborhood or types of properties, you can easily configure your search form to have those types of properties and neighborhood areas pre-selected, so your visitors start interacting with your listing searches right away.

The new screens allow you to quickly and easily manage your Search Forms:

Listing Showcases:

Listing Showcases are a great way to publish and advertise various groups of listings or individual listings via a variety of formats, such as:

• Listing slideshow with and without Flash
• Listings on a Google Map
• Listing grids
• Horizontally sliding listing bands
• Simple featured listings

These showcases can be created based on your listings, a predefined search, or a combination of hand-picked listings. They can be embedded in your website or any other website.

The new interface allows you to quickly and easily manage these showcases:

We hope you will find these updates useful and easy to use. We would love to hear your feedback: simply leave a comment here to drop us a line at feedback@myrealpage.com

-- Brought to you by myRealPage.com

SplitMango has just published a WordPress plugin to feature listings from myRealPage websites available for general use and download from the Official WordPress Plugins site. We have tested the plugin right after learning about its availability and it worked great and displayed a random listing from “My Listings” page on our test WordPress blog’s sidebar.

So, if you have a website with listings from myRealPage and also have a WordPress blog, you can take advantage of this great plugin to feature your listings.

You have been able for a while now to also use myRealPage Listing Showcases to feature your listings on 3rd party websites, including WordPress. The important difference between this plugin and our Showcases, is that the plugin displays the listings “inline” in the HTML code, which makes it indexable by searchbots.

Kudos to SplitMango for the great work! We look forward to “version 2” of the plugin with more options and will be glad to share ideas and lend a hand.

Some time ago, we have launched a Media Center for our listings that offered a compact and attractive way to showcase your listings: hi-res photos, videos, virtual tours, as well as Google Map, Google Earth and WalkScore. Now we are making it possible to link to this Listing Media Center on its own, without the rest of the details. Why would this be useful? This can serve now as an external Virtual Tour link which you can submit to your Real Estate board to be part of your listing’s information. You can use MyRealPage Private Office to “decorate” your listing with hi-res photos and videos and you may find that you don’t need to have external hosting for your virtual tours (which of course you may still do: the choice is yours).

This external Virtual Tour link can be generated in the “More…” tab in your Listing Editor, and you can even configure it to include the link to your main website and/or your contact details along with a contact form: please ensure though, that this abides by the rules of your Real Estate board as some disallow branding information in external virtual tour links.

Do you have ideas or suggestions? Send us an email to support-<at>-myrealpage.com or post your comments there.

Brought to you by MyRealPage.com

If you are wondering what a QR code is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code), don’t worry! QR codes are just a variety of barcodes, the kinds you find on things you buy; except they are especially easy to scan for smart phones. Almost any modern smart phone can have a Barcode Scanner application installed and capable of scanning the codes using the built-in phone camera. What’s interesting is that QR codes can make the smart phone do a bunch of interesting and useful things. For example, they can make the phone navigate to a web page, or they can automatically create a contact record and let the user save it; or create a calendar event. Now if you start thinking about it: QR codes provide an ideal connection between your printed materials and your leads equipped with smart phones: be it a property “FOR SALE” sign, or your business card, or a flyer. QR codes can even be scanned directly from a computer screen!

Here is a hypothetical scenario: imagine that someone is walking by your freshly planted “FOR SALE” sign for a property you have just listed. She notices the QR code with “SCAN THIS FOR LISTING DETAILS” caption nicely attached to the sign. Being a hip mobile savvy user, she pulls out her iPhone and scans the code; and within a few seconds she is looking at the full details web page of your listing, complete with all the photos, contact info, etc. She also notices your phone number and next to it another QR code that says: “SCAN THIS FOR MY CONTACT DETAILS”. She does just that and instantly sees the QR reader create a contact record with your details and ask her whether she wants to add it to her Contacts. All this has happened without your lead typing a single character into her phone.

Think about the possibilities now. You can print a QR code at the back of your business card, on your listing materials, anywhere where you can save your leads some typing and instantly increase your mobile coolness factor!

MyRealPage now gives you a way to create QR codes for each of your listings, as well as for your Contact Information. Just download the resulting image and incorporate it into any printed material or signage as you see fit.

Here is quick sketch of what happens when you scan a QR code that takes you to a web page (URL):

And a quick sketch of what happens when your Contact Details are scanned:

You can find your Listing QR code by simply clicking on the “More…” tab in your Listing editor in the Private Office:

And you can find your Contact Info QR codes in the Listing Options under the “Listings” tab in your Private Office:

Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you know of a creative idea to use a QR code? Let us know!

-- Brought to you by MyRealPage.com