Virtual Results Blog

A Brand New Layout for the Virtual Results Admin Menu!

From new features to new themes to new services, Virtual Results is always looking for ways to keep their sites on the cutting edge. So we have decided to start off 2013 with a bang!

Introducing an Exciting New Feature: The new Admin Menu!!
Throughout the next week, VR will be activating a brand new upgraded Admin Menu to your dashboard! This new admin menu is sleek and clean with additional integrated functionality, such as direct access to your IDX, Market Stats and Email Marketing accounts, training webinars and our continually growing support center.

Here are some of the improvements to our new Admin Menu:

• Accessing our Support Center

The Virtual Results Support Center is constantly growing and contains wonderful tutorials, webinars and articles that will help you manage your site and its content. Now you can access our support center directly from your dashboard. Learn how to add items to your menu, create new content, utilize SEO plugins, edit your sidebar and footer, activate more features, tools, and so much more!

• Using your Complementary Accounts

There are so many wonderful features that come with your Virtual Results account. We have set up a direct link to some your complementary control panels, such as your IDX dashboard and Altos Research login. For example, your Altos Research account is more than dynamic charts. It also provides branded statistical reports and full market analysis, lead capture tools, branded marketing, and one-on-one coaching. Yet many people never get around to using these tools. We hope the new design will inspire you to take a more proactive look at all the services that come with your site.

• Managing Your Content and Understanding Your Settings

With our new layout, you will find it much easier to manage your content and settings. Everything is organized and simplified, making it easier for you to find and manage the tools and features that come with your Virtual Results website. For those users who have been more proactive in managing your site, these changes will allow you to maneuver more easily and rapidly. For those of you just starting out, it’s never been easier to learn! This is a great time to learn how to add and manage content, and how to fully exploit the valuable lead generating tools that come with your Virtual Results account.

• Introduction to the New Admin Menu Live Webinars

Ready to learn more? Great, because it’s time to explore your new Admin Menu. These 30 minute sessions will include a short walk through of your new admin menu and a Q&A session with Leah Marks, WordPress expert and Customer Support Manager. There are three sessions scheduled for your convenience, listed below. Register Now!

Monday, January 21 – 12pm (PST)/ 3pm (EST) – Click Here to Register

Thursday, January 24 – 10am (PST)/1pm (EST) – Click Here to Register

Friday, January 25 – 2pm (PST)/ 5pm (EST) – Click Here to Register

Virtual Results announces a brand new feature for AgentPlus clients – The Blog Post Thumbnail

We are happy to announce the development of a new feature, the ability to display a thumbnail image in your blog post excerpt. Activating this feature is a great way to spice up your site, offer a better user experience and add some great images to your blog and to your home page. This is an important feature because adding images to your articles will increase the number of page or post views exponentially. This is a visual culture, where the world’s largest social network, Facebook, and 2nd largest search engine, YouTube, have found success primarily due to their focus on multimedia. Those browsing the web are more inclined to stay on a webpage that contains images, rather than just text. Consumers are more likely to purchase a product they’ve already seen, rather than one that’s just been described. The value of images on your site increases every day. Plus it’s just fun! And it has the potential to make your site look amazing!

And the Virtual Results Community Agrees.

Virtual Results has activated this feature on the following sites, with great results! Take a look at the websites below:

Casa Bella Boca
Search Minnneapolis Condos

Need More Information?

If you would like more information about this feature, please contact Virtual Results at support@virtualresults.net.

If you would like this feature activated on your site, please complete the form below and the VR Support Team will be happy to set it up for you.

This is just one element out of many we are planning to launch in the coming weeks and months and we are excited to show you the new features and tools we’ve developed and are continually developing that will improve the site aesthetic and functionality. So stay tuned!

Real estate professionals will hear directly from the consumer – the people who want to buy and sell homes – at a unique forum, “Hear It Direct” in Dallas, Texas on May 21^st, 2012 at the Dallas Marriott at Legacy Town Center.  Hear It Direct is designed to create the consumer as the keynote speaker of the event –unlike most events in the real estate industry.  Featuring panels of real home buyers and sellers from all over the U.S., Hear It Direct targets what consumers want and expect from agents.  The unfiltered discussion is set up to discover how to really focus and best address the needs of consumers in today’s housing market.

Hear It Direct’s concept reshapes the real estate business, creating a consumer-centric, consumer driven approach to home buying and selling.  Agents and market forecasters can gain insight and learn how to create value and trust through attending this groundbreaking one-day experience.

Developed by real estate leaders Sue Adler and Robert Hahn, Hear It Direct, was created to share the new consumer-driven real estate model with the industry.  Hear It Direct, Texas is the second in a series of events delivering the message of what people want from real estate tools, the agent they work with, and the home searches they conduct on their mobile devices.

Sue Adler was recently recognized as one of the leading women in the real estate industry by the Women’s Council of Realtors® and has been one of the top selling Realtors in New Jersey since 2005.

Tickets and an informative custom research report plus a DVD series recapping the event will be made available through the Hear It Direct website at http://www.hearitdirect.com/events/. To learn more about Hear It Direct, please contact 973.869.9357.  The Hear It Direct conference is scheduled for May 21^st, 2012 in Plano, Texas at the Dallas/Plano Marriott at Legacy Town Center located at 7121 Bishop Road, Plano, Texas 75024.  The event runs from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and will include a networking Happy Hour afterwards.  The cost for the entire day is $99.

Virtual Results to offer Happy Grasshopper Automated Email Service to all clients.

Laguna Beach, CA —  Virtual Results, LLC. is excited to announce it has teamed with Happy Grasshopper to offer all VR clients even more value in 2012!   “Virtual Results websites are already one of the best values an agent can choose.  They are beautifully designed, carefully coded on the WordPress platform and they are built to convert traffic to leads.  Just a great site at a great value.” says VR founder Jim Marks. “We provide our clients content, syndication tools, and we are rolling out more and more proprietary features all the time, like our new evergreen post tool.”

Virtual Results newest feature  is the partnership with Happy Grasshopper.  This will allow VR clients to engage their sphere like never before.

Happy Grasshopper encourages interaction, by creating interesting, clickable, relevant emails.  The emails promote interaction and create interest, therefore generating the ultimate goal… relationships.  “The synergy between the goal of Virtual Results websites and Happy Grasshopper makes this a perfect relationship,” stated Dan Stewart, President of Happy Grasshopper, “Both companies work very hard on creating clients from contacts.”

Virtual Results, Jim Marks believes the Happy Grasshopper service will be of huge benefit to Virtual Results’ clients.  “Combining the technology of Happy Grasshopper with Virtual Results creates a win-win situation for all of our clients,” Marks said.  “Now VR clients can send effective client emails ‘as is’ or with a little personalization, without getting bogged down on the wording of each email.”  Marks continued, “Combining our products makes it EASY for VR clients to reach their clients AND build relationships.”  “We have tested this product extensively and the contact rate is quite amazing.”

Adding Happy Grasshopper service to the Virtual Results offering enhances VR clients internet marketing plan seamlessly and effortlessly.  As each VR website generates leads, new contacts can be added to the existing mailing list easily and each email is carefully crafted by Happy Grasshopper.  With an average 29.3% open rate, effectiveness is guaranteed.  In addition, VR and HG has made it plain simple to get started.  Simply send us a client email list.  Virtual Results and Happy Grasshopper will do the rest.

To learn more about Virtual Results websites, please contact 888.99.RESULTS.

To learn more about Happy Grasshoppers email service, please check out happygrasshopper.com

 Virtual Results Clients  get started today!!  simply Fill out the simple form below!

At  Virtual Results, LLC, we are constantly pushing the technology envelope, striving to create a level of function and service that WOWs our clients… on a regular basis.

Well, we’ve done it again.

We understand that your TWO major challenges are LEADS and TIME.   We have created something that will make a difference in your life by freeing up TIME for you to engage clients.  Oh, and we are giving it to you FOR FREE.

Starting today, you can subscribe to be a part of the new Virtual Results PubSub Network. “VRPubSub” is our innovative blogging syndication service delivering extremely high quality real estate blog posts to your website twice weekly, AUTOMATICALLY.

Once subscribed, you will have the opportunity to not only get fantastic content for your website (with YOU as the author), but you can also edit, link, and share the posts as you like.  This is NOT just more regurgitated content.  Every VRPubSub blog post is written by our top Virtual Results’ real estate blogger, a professional journalist with over 20 years national writing experience, ensuring you the quality that your clients  appreciate and WANT in their inbox.

All you need to do is choose WHAT delivery method you would like.  You have 3 choices.

1) The automatic option, which will automagically just post the VR post to your blog.  No Muss, No Fuss and you get to choose who the author is.

2) The draft option, which places the post in draft mode so you can edit it, make it YOURS, and manually publish it to your blog.

3) The “I dont need no stinking blog posts” option which allows you to turn off posting completely, although why you would choose this is beyond us.

However in the interest of vacations, (wouldn’t you prefer auto posting while you were away) or a need for less readership (you are overwhelmed by positive comments on your blog), we needed to give you that choice.

If you would like to receive your posts in Draft Mode, you dont have to do anything.  We have you handled.

However, If you would like NOT to receive posts OR Receive them Automagically?  Its just 3 easy steps..

So, look for the notification emails that signify we have sent a new post..  and watch your VR Blog grow!

What did I learn from Steve Jobs? That building great products (such as Apple’s) comes down to being obsessive about every last detail of the entire user experience. It makes me realize why I came to work at Virtual Results. In an industry cluttered with antiquated solutions that don’t work built by people who don’t care how they make a buck, we build the best damn real estate websites on the planet and we care about giving our clients value for their money. There are enough people in this industry (and the world) delivering crap — there’s no sense being another one of those.

Jobs’ thoughts on Microsoft & Bill Gates were interesting to say the least. One concept that was discussed at length throughout the book was closed versus open systems — Apple versus Microsoft. Apple is an example of a closed system, since Apple controls the hardware, operating system, software, and user interface. Compare that to the most notable example of an open system approach, Microsoft, which controls the operating system, but nothing else. I don’t think there is any question which user experience is better. Is Apple’s more expensive? Sure. But quality costs money. Will open systems reach a broader audience? Yes. Margins are higher on closed systems, but open systems have historically made up, and surpassed, that with volume.

I used to be pretty firmly in the camp of open systems but have shifted a few notches toward closed systems after reading the Jobs biography. Don’t get me wrong, I still think open systems have a place — and it’s clear based on the volume of Android’s being purchased that many agree with me. Microsoft has proved that with Windows. But I’ve come to appreciate the power of great products — and great products require a more controlled environment. Individuals don’t know what they want, until you show it to them. The Model T, iPhone and iPad proved that. At Virtual Results, we’re not shy about telling agents and brokers we understand websites and consumer web behavior better than they do. We have millions of clicks of analytics behind what we do. Frankly, if an agent or broker thinks they can build better websites than us — they should probably go start a website design company rather than sell real estate.

Reading the book made me better understand Jim’s perfectionist nature when it comes to products. There are times where we’ll show him something, and his immediate reaction is “that’s crap” (not unlike Steve Jobs’ reaction to many early products shown to him by the Apple team). He doesn’t mean it’s literally crap, he means it can be better…and that we need to spend the time it takes to make it perfect. There are certainly tradeoffs; operating to perfection takes longer to ship and costs more money. But we believe it’s worth it.

What’s the take away from all of this? If you want the cheapest website solution on the market and/or want to spend a ton of your own time figuring out how to build a website that works? That’s your choice.

But if you want a product that just WORKS without the hassle? Contact us so we can get you up and running for 2012.

Contact Us

URL: https://www.facebook.com/LifestylesofLaJolla?sk=app_320201431331067

URL: http://tsegroup.com/

Description: Tse Group is powered by our Bravado theme and covers Saratoga, CA and the surrounding area.

Those that know us personally know we don’t do press releases very often, but we thought our brand new Broker/Agent Website Platform and Partnership was worth it…

Introducing VR Broker’s Choice, THE Website Choice for Brokers who value their agents’ success.

Leading real estate Internet marketing firm Virtual Results, LLC is pleased to announce a new, strategic broker/agent website platform and partnership. The newly released VR Broker’s Choice is a powerful real estate WordPress website solution built for Brokers to provide to their agents as part of their technology package. Agents can choose from a variety of beautifully designed themes and Virtual Results designers will customize their choice to produce a personal, stunning, finished website that will reflect their brand.

M Squared Real Estate, a leading Washington, DC brokerage, known for cutting edge technology, was selected to pilot the program.

“With the growing percentage of consumers searching for property on-line, it’s more important than ever for brokers to guide or provide to their agents, the best designed and best converting websites on the planet. Websites are an agents “curb appeal.” said Jim Marks, Virtual Results founder and President. “We’re thrilled to have M Squared as our initial VR Broker’s Choice partner. They are leaders in Internet marketing we are proud to bring our world class design and conversion to their agents at the most affordable price imaginable.”

Unlike traditional broker-offered website solutions, VR Broker’s Choice doesn’t “lock” an agent to their brokerage solution. While branded and enhanced with brokerage provided content, the agent always has the ability to migrate their website without losing content… or momentum.

“At M Squared our top priority is to provide agents with theVR tools they need to succeed in today’s marketplace. VR Broker’s Choice gives our agents a first-rate website themed for their individual brand, and customized for their target market areas.” Says Dominic Morrocco, M Squared Co-Founder and Partner, “When making the decision to offer WordPress websites to our agents, we evaluated vendors extremely carefully. We needed a scalable solution to incorporate our existing technological offerings with that in-development and planned. It was evidently clear the team at Virtual Results understands the needs of today’s agent better than anyone. Their Broker’s Choice program provides industry-leading IDX with world class design to create a complete, easy-to-use solution for both the agent and client alike. Moreover, Virtual Results’ management of plugins, hosting and general website upkeep, allows our marketing department the time and freedom to work one-on-one with our agents to truly maximize their online potential.”

The first two example VR Broker’s Choice websites are MyDupontCircle.com andDCRealtorCapitolHill.com. M Squared Real Estate chose to base their Broker’s Choice websites on the latest theme developed by Virtual Results, LLC, called Moondance. According to Jim Marks, “Moondance is the culmination of the best of class design and accessibility for clients seeking a classy, simple and effective website.”

Virtual Results, LLC

To learn more about opportunities, call a Virtual Results sales representative at 888-99-RESULTS, or visit VirtualResults.net/vr-brokers-choice/.

About Virtual Results, LLC
Virtual Results is the leading provider of real estate WordPress websites that convert traffic into leads. In addition to websites that work, Virtual Results provides world class Internet Marketing Consutling to Brokers utilizing real estate SEO, traffic and lead acquisition, Google Analytics consulting, and social media branding packages. The company operates Virtual Results.net, GeekEstateBlog.com and is headquartered in beautiful Laguna Beach, CA . Learn more at http://virtualresults.net

About M Squared Real Estate
M Squared is a Washington, DC, independent real estate brokerage focusing on technology, marketing and agent offerings. M Squared has been recognized within the industry and received national attention for its unique, non-traditional brokerage model and service offerings. Learn more at http://msqrealty.com

URL: http://dcrealtorcapitolhill.com/

Description: Jessica Wilkie is one of our pilot sites for the VR Broker’s Choice Program. She is an agent with M Squared Real Estate in Washington DC.