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Some people assume that because it’s a ready-made content management system, WordPress is meant for people and companies that don’t have the cash or the web development know-how to build a “real” website from scratch. But beneath WordPress’s convenient, user-friendly chassis is a seriously powerful engine that can handle just about anything you or your customers can dish out. In fact, some of the world’s most successful companies and highly trafficked websites use the WordPress platform as their foundation. Some notable WordPress users:
… and many more.
It’s true that the core WordPress system is pretty basic, but there are a great many ways to add features and functionality. You’ll have to pay for many of these additions, but because the core system is free, it’ll reduce your overall price tag. Unless you’re doing everything yourself, you’ll have to shell out for quality web design, data integrations, custom functionality, content management tools, user management tools, syndication tools, commenting systems, media management tools, and web hosting. For the DIY set, there are countless free themes and templates out there to choose from. (Full disclosure: Placester.com offers a full suite of free and paid real estate themes with data integration, syndication and hosting.)
A WordPress website can do almost anything.
Since it’s open source, WordPress has tons of developers working on tons of plugins, and many of these perform functions that are especially useful for real estate professionals. WordPress’s many features give you the ability to perform and provide a wide variety of real estate-specific tasks and services for your customers. Here’s a partial list of the real estate-specific tasks and services you can perform and provide on your WordPress website:
- Show property listing data
- Integrate map data
- Share with social media
- Post on Craigslist
- Syndicate content
- Create favorites lists
- Set and show pricing levels
- Enable subscriptions
- Show geotargeted information
- Provide CRM integration
- Capture leads
- Integrate a payment gateway
- Import and export data
- Use coupon or discount codes
Naturally, you can use all of these capabilities to build different kinds of websites—which is a good thing, since there isn’t just one type of real estate site. There are many types, each with a different focus and a different result in mind. Some sites are designed to attract leads with displayed listings; others are built to accommodate bidding and payments; still others aren’t for meant for leads or customers at all, but rather for other professionals. With WordPress, you do all of the above, and then some. Here’s another list of the different kinds of websites and pages you can design in WordPress:
- Residential Real Estate Listing Site
- Business Directory
- Vacation Rental Site
- Auction Website
- Rental Property Website
- Review Website
- Recruiting Site
- Social Network Clone
- Forums
- CRM Tool
- Invoicing System
- E-commerce Website
- Image Gallery Website
Remember, this is only a sample of what you can do with WordPress. New features are being developed every day, giving you new ways to use the WordPress platform to take your real estate business to the next level.
