WordPress Theme for Real Estate
June 23, 2010
WordPress and real estate are a match made in heaven especially when you start with a WordPress theme made especially for Real Estate like the AgentPress theme from StudioPress.
View the new goodGround Real Estate website…
Multiple Categories
You can write property listings (blog posts) under as many different categories and sub categories as you like. They all fit seamlessly into the website’s navigation and can then be searched or viewed by category, sub-category or keyword. Adding the Multiple category selection widget means many categories can be searched at once. Eg. Price, Location, No. Bedrooms etc. The Agent Press theme lets you show an image and content summary for each category. Click on photo below right.
Easy Photo Uploading
Upload multiple photos to a property listing all at once and click ‘Insert Gallery’ button to add them to the post. Sizes are setup in your administration so resizing is automatic and you get a professional looking gallery on each listing in minutes. With one click you select a main photo to represent each listing and this appears on your homepage and category pages. Click on photo right.
View gallery in action here… [Read more]
Multiple Category ‘Super’ Search Box
June 16, 2010
On large websites where posts are listed under many different categories, it makes sense for readers to be able to search several categories at once to narrow down their search. The Multiple Category Selector Widget does exactly that whereas the default WordPress search widget only lets you type keywords into a box, then searches your posts and pages for these keywords.
This plugin is perfect for Real Estate websites, Car Dealer websites, shopping sites and any other website with a lot of blog posts (like mine).
See the Multiple Category widget in action at www.goodground.co.nz
Plan Your Category Hierarchy
When you add categories to your WordPress website, decide on the main (parent) categories first, then add your sub categories, each with a parent category selected. In a drop-down list in either a navigation bar or search box, the sub-categories will appear under the parent category. Here are some examples of category hierarchies:
Real Estate Website
Parent Category: Property Type Sub-categories: Residential, Bare Land, Coastal, Lifestyle Block
Car Dealer Website
Parent Category: Make Sub-categories: Toyota, Mazda, Ford, Holden, Volvo
Add Super Search to Your Sidebar
- Click Plugins – add new and search for Multiple Category Selection Widget
- Upload and activate on your plugins page
- Go to Appearance – Widgets and drag the widget into your sidebar
- Add the id numbers of any Parent Categories you don’t want included in the search box
- Select the parent categories you would like readers to be able to search
- Select ‘all’ as the default if you only want results displayed when every category selected matches
- Select ‘any’ as the default if you want results displayed under as many as possible of the selected categories
Search Box Design
You can easily change the spacing and layout of your search box by adding a little piece of css to your theme’s style sheet. Follow these instructions from StudioPress’ Brian Gardener to add a custom heading to your search box like the one I’ve created at www.goodground.co.nz
If you love this plugin and it really changes your website for the better, consider making a donation to the plugin, author, Isaac Rowntree. Click the PayPal link on his plugin showcase website.
When I design myself a new website, this is one of the first plugins I’m adding to help you all sift through the millions of WordPress posts I’ve written.
