The Phoenix Real Estate Guy » Blogging / Social Networking

LiveFyre Comments Added to TPREG

Jay Thompson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:15:23 +0000

Longtime readers know I like to play around with different things on this little corner of the Interwebs.

About a year ago, I tried out LiveFyre – a commenting system that has more bells and whistles than the built-in native WordPress comment system.

That little blogsperiment lasted about 20 minutes before I realized that it required a commenter to establish an account with LiveFyre.

Jay doesn’t like forcing people to create accounts just to leave a comment.

Well, LiveFyre is back again — this time without the requirement to create an account (though really, you should consider it. More on that later).

It’s super simple to use. Just write your comment and click on the “Post comment as” button. You will see something like this:

You can select to log on with accounts from LiveFyre, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, or OpenID. If none of those float your boat, you can just enter your name, email and a URL — as with the old standard WordPress comments.

Advantages to creating a LiveFyre account

By creating a free LifeFyre account, you can save your comments from all LiveFyre enable blogs centrally on the LiveFyre site, “Like” others comments, share your (or others) comments across your social networks. And more. You can build a little profile on LiveFyre that other readers can see if they click on your comment avatar. Like this:

In theory, this gives readers here a chance to learn a little about you. And maybe click over to your sites and/or Facebook / Twitter accounts.

You know, growing your social sphere and all that.

But, you don’t have to create a LiveFyre account (or login through any existing account) unless you want to.

Some cool LiveFyre stuff

Comments are loaded in real time. So you will see new comments posted as is happens. No need to refresh the page. In effect this creates a live chat system, though in reality, on most real estate blogs you won’t have people commenting simultaneously in most cases.
Post mentions on Twitter and Facebook Pages (not Profiles) are pulled into the blog post comment section
You can tag your Twitter and Facebook connections when leaving a comment.
You can post to and share your comments on Facebook and Twitter.
Comments are crawlable by search engines
Readers can flag comments as spam or inappropriate, allowing a moderator to check the comment
And more. Here are all the LiveFyre features.

Facebook Comments will remain

Some of you like the Facebook Comments feature that was added awhile back. That isn’t going away. You’ll find them below the LiveFyre comments.

Give it a spin please!

Try out the new commenting system and let me know what you think. Play around with the tagging (feel free to tag me if you don’t want to bother your friends, I won’t mind.) I can’t promise it’ll stick around forever, though I do want to give it a few weeks to see how it all shakes out. So far, I’m kind of digging it.

And I have to give kudos to the LiveFyre support team. I ran into some snags importing my existing comments, probably because I’d run LiveFyre a year ago and then returned. They jumped on the problem and actually came out with an update to fix it in just a few days. They’re very responsive on Twitter (@LiveFyre) and via email. Kudo’s to them!

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

TPREG Goes World Wide!

Jay Thompson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:40:24 +0000

Why yes, this is a shameless self-promotional piece. You are, of course, free not to read it! Read on though, for some thoughts and ideas on website analytics mining…

The World Wide Web is truly world wide.

In 2011, this little corner of the Internet had just over one million visitors. While that number boggles my mind, what I found the most interesting was the map (shown above) of visitors. Darker shades of green = more visitors.

Folks from 194 different countries / territories across the planet stopped by in 2011. Best I can tell, we only missed 100% coverage by 12 countries:

Cuba
North Korea
Guinea
Sierra Leone
Liberia
Western Sahara
Chad
Central African Republic
Congo
Eritrea
Turkmenistan
Papua New Guinea

The first two misses are no surprise. The next eight are all in (mostly central) Africa, and the final two represent either end of Asia. If anyone knows someone in those countries, with interent access, ask them to stop by sometime!

What’s the Point?

Does there always have to be a point?

OK, so maybe the point is a geography lesson or two. For example, did you know that Eritrea (zero visitors in 2011) is a former Ethopian province that became independent in 1993? How about that Azerbaijan (167 visitors in 2011) is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia?

Now you have the answers to two potential questions on Jeopardy!

See, learning is fun!

OK, so maybe geography lessons aren’t the point. What did I learn that might actually be of value by studying the locations of my site visitors?

I learned we had more visitors from Tucson (7,729) than from Queen Creek, AZ (6,082). Granted, the population of Tucson is significantly higher than that of Queen Creek, but “The QC” is local, Tucson is 120 miles away. We’re far more likely to help someone buy or sell a home in Queen Creek than in Tucson (thanks mostly to Jeff Turner). So maybe it’s time to step up the effort and attract more Queen Creek residents.

I learned that over 25,000 of our 44,000 site visitors from Canada are in Alberta and British Columbia. Not surprising since most Canadians interested in Phoenix real estate reside in western Canada. But I also see that the province that sends the third most visitors from Canada is Ontario, a decidedly eastern province. And we had more visitors (3,171) from the far eastern provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia than we did from twenty U.S states. Maybe it’s time to not focus entirely on western Canada… Heck, we get 121 people every day who live in Canada visiting the site. Maybe it’s time to provide a little more info to all our northern neighbors.

The point is, dig into your analytics. There is an insane amount of info in there (assuming you use Google Analytics. If you don’t, you should). I don’t care if you have a real estate site, an e-commerce site or a whatever-you-have site. There’s gold in those analytics. Mining gold can be tricky work — ever seen the show Gold Rush? It’s an oddly compelling show about a bunch of often clueless guys trying to mine gold in Alaska (2,1612 visits) and the Yukon (42 visits). Mining analytics gold can be tricky work too, but it can help you see things to improve and be rewarding as well.

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

The Best of TPREG 2011

Jay Thompson — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:53:34 +0000

“Best of…” lists are never easy to compile. What constitutes a “best” blog post? Number of comments, Likes, or Retweets? Number of visitors? Ones that make the phone ring with paying clients (YES! But that is virtually impossible to measure).

“Best” is subjective. What one person thinks is a great post, someone else may find to be complete crap.

So with all that in mind, I present you with what I felt was some of the best of the blog in 2011. I used a completely scientific and mathematical algorithm… I virtually thumbed through the archives and picked posts I liked. For whatever reason. Your mileage and opinion may vary.

Some of my favorite posts from 2011, in no particular order, other than chronological…

A life-altering moment. Putting things in perspective

Witnessing the aftermath of a fatal car accident — and one I thought momentarily might involve my son — made me think about things a whole lot differently. This was one of those rare posts that people reached out privately and said how much it moved them.

Does a Physical Office Matter to Real Estate Agents or Consumers?

It’s a subject near and dear to my heart. I’ll argue until the day I die that the answer is a resounding no.

On Presenting at Ignite Phoenix 10. From sheer terror to adrenaline overdose in 5 minutes.

Completely non-real estate related. But presenting at Ignite Phoenix was one of my personal highlights of 2011.

I’m suing you! You are illegally manipulating the Google!

This one garnered a ton of Likes and comments. Some folks still refer to The Google… And no, I never heard another peep from the dipwad that threatened to sue.

What You Can Learn from Lady Gaga

Even at 50 years of age, you can still learn things. This one was a lesson for me in preconceived notions…

The Final Season

It’s my youngest child’s senior year of high school. Lots of memories of “last time she’ll ever…” This one still makes me misty.

The Immutable Laws of Buying and Selling Real Estate

Any post that references Newton’s Laws of Motion deserves a mention… One of my most stolen posts of 2011.

How Real Estate is Like a Cheeseburger…

Probably my favorite title of the year. This is what you get when you “crowd source” a post topic.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Home Buyers

Kicked off a (small) series. Another candidate for most ripped-off of 2011. Maybe ever.

Hacked. Or, how I spent the last 60 hours

Three pretty shitty days. Nothing like thinking everything you’ve poured into your site for the last six plus years may never see the light of day again.

What Clint Miller Taught Me About Life

Clint Miller was a champion among men. We should all learn to live like Clint did. Hands down the most difficult thing to write this year.

The Thompson’s Realty Manifesto

Why it took over three years to articulate our brokerages philosophy in one place is beyond me.

THANK YOU!

Thanks to all one million plus of you who stopped by our little corner of the Internet in 2011 (and that number still freaks me out). Without you, this place wouldn’t serve a whole lot of purpose. Your reading, subscribing, commenting, Liking and Tweeting are why we’re here. You, oh avid reader, are appreciated and I wish you a fabulous 2012!

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

Word of Mouth. Via Twitter.

Jay Thompson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:29:52 +0000

Two separate “events” happend today, one on Facebook, the other on Twitter.

They got me to thinking.

<< Uh oh, there he goes, thinking again… >>

First, I saw this posted on a Facebook friends status update:

Do you use Twitter? I’ve been informed it’s a must have in real estate but I just can’t seem to get into tweeting. Input is appreciated.

Well, since he asked, I provided some input:

A “must have”?? Hardly. That said, I like Twitter, use it a lot, and have met some great people through it. Several of which have bought or sold a home with us. But whoever says Twitter is a must have is an idiot. Nothing but doing your job and providing superior service is a “must have”…

That’s what I said, and I’m sticking with it.

Twitter is a “must have” in real estate? Puhleaze.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Twitter. I’m a news junkie, and Twitter is a great way to get breaking news before any of the big boys even know it happend. Planes landing in the Hudson, natural disasters, political uprisings, you name it, someone is “reporting” it on Twitter.

Want to meet people? Like in real life? Go to a Tweetup. Do #evfn. (But, for the love of fluffy bunnies, do not be “that guy” at these things and pass out business cards and be a smarmy Realtory type!)

I love me some Twitter, but if anyone thinks it’s a “must have” for a real estate agent then, well, they are an idiot.

Later in the day, this conversation happened on Twitter. I thought it was pretty freaking cool.

Coop – @soul4realMy renter’s check bounced. Looks like I’ll be looking for new tenants in a few months. Not playing that game. No more checks either. MO only

JT – @julia72
@soul4real If you need a great property mgr, I use @PhxREguy’s company.

Jay Thompson – @PhxREguy
@julia72 Why thank ya!

JT – @julia72
@PhxREguy For sure. Experience has been nothing but good. I love the direct deposit into my account. So nice, since I am overseas.

That would be an unsolicited endorsement from a satisfied client, and I’ll take those any day of the week. Will it lead to business? I have no idea. Could it? Possibly. All I said to @soul4real was, “Just let me know if we can help Coop…” and that will be the end of the discussion. If she wants property management help, she’ll ask. She won’t get pressured or hard sold. The social media space doesn’t work that way.

Thank goodness.

But the social space isn’t a bad place to drum up a little word of mouth marketing.

And that’s always a good thing.

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

On Dashter

Jay Thompson — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:46:08 +0000

Dashter, a wicked cool new plugin for WordPress, was just released. Actually, Dashter is far more than just a plugin. From Dashter.com:

Dashter is a revolutionary way to listen, curate & amplify social media interaction, directly from your WordPress website.

I was fortunate enough to beta test the product, and can say I was enamored with all its functionality. Apparently, I am not alone as the internet buzz is beginning to build…

Oscar Gonzalez – @notagrouch
For those of you that missed the memo #Dashter launched! #SMMOC –> http://t.co/rve2bSdn

John Bunka – @SimplexStudios
Dashter is a revolutionary way to listen, curate & amplify social media, directly from your WordPress site http://t.co/zJ4LLwNG #wordpress

Steve Zehngut – @Zengy
We are proud to announce the official launch of Dashter! http://t.co/0JY3IjVp @heydavecole @respres #dashter

Jeff Turner – @respres
It’s alive! “@DashterWP: Dashter’s here! Social Media Management inside #WordPress. Check us out > http://t.co/3MnB0oif”

Doug Turkel – @UNnouncer
Thrilled to be the voice of this new @DashterWP video for some killer @WordPress functionality: http://t.co/OyXyLKK6.

I could drone on and on about what Dashter can do, but these two pretty much covered everything in their early reviews:

WPLift – @wplift
A review of the @DashterWP WordPress Plugin : http://t.co/CSOhAaLr by @alexjvasquez

innahamedia – @innahamedia
For anyone out there missing out on the awesomeness that is #dashterwp, here is how I use it & why I think it ROX- http://t.co/1JafjVVi

Here is a great question posed on Twitter (that I located through Dashter’s search capability, and inserted directly into this post (along with the others above) via Dashter’s Curate function:

chriskingree – @chriskingree
Anyone used #dashter yet? Pros/cons?

The Pros

(In no particular order)

The ability to match real-time social conversations with my blog’s content.
Fully integrated Twitter client into the WordPress backend. It is, as Dashter calls it, a “social home” built into a place I spend a lot of time.
Full-blown, feature rich capability to schedule social output.
Curated content posted directly to my site. Easily.
Tools to cultivate social relationships.

And a bunch more.

The Cons

It’s not free, but then most of life’s good things are not free.

It’s easy to get sucked into the social world. That’s not really a con, but it seemed like I needed something other than just whining about the cost (which is well worth it).

Dashter, it’s reinventing how you use Twitter. Give it a whirl, I think you’ll like it. Read the reviews linked to above. Go to the Dashter Tour page and watch the videos. It’s cool stuff…

Disclosure: I know a couple of the folks behind Dashter and consider them personal friends. However, if Dashter sucked, our friendship wouldn’t stop me from saying so. In fact, Jeff and Steve would be disappointed in me if it did. Believe me, if Dashter sucked, I’d say it sucked.

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

Thinking about using Genesis / AgentPress? Now is the time to buy!

Jay Thompson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:30:33 +0000

I’ll freely admit that I am now fully assimilated into using the StudioPress Genesis framework for this site. And a (highly customized) AgentPress child theme.

Why?

Because it just works. And the team behind StudioPress and Genesis (and all their child themes) is brilliant. And the user community is outstanding.

Works + brilliant + community = happy customer

In honor of “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” (the online shopping experience equivalent to Black Friday, without the crowds) StudioPress is having a 25% off sale from now through 7:00pm Pacific Monday.

It’s a chance to grab Genesis, AgentPress, or any StudioPress child theme (or the whole package) at 25% off an already great price.

Here are the details

For Genesis / StudioPress:

Using the code THANKS at checkout (don’t forget that), you can save 25% off of anything you’d like at WordPress design shop, StudioPress.

1. Get the Genesis Framework for only $45.

2. Snag most Genesis / design combos for a song and save close to $20.

3. Wipe the entire shop clean and get the StudioPress Pro Plus All-Theme Package. Get Genesis plus every design they’ve made, plus every design they make in the future, and save more than $74 off the regular price and over $875 off the retail price — and that’s just the existing 43 designs!

All you need to do is use the code THANKS when you check out and you’ll save 25% on anything and everything at StudioPress.com. This deal ends promptly at 7:00 pm Pacific time on Monday, November 28, 2011. So don’t be late, claim your new WordPress theme before the code expires!

For Premise:

Get Premise Ultimate for only $95. Copyblogger Media just released version 1.2 of their Premise landing page software for WordPress, and it includes lots of cool new features and refinements. Most impressive of all is the introduction of an innovative 8th landing page type — the social sharing page.

Premise Ultimate usually goes for $165, as it gives you:

1. All the landing pages you can build

2. Use on as many domains as you want

3. Access to ongoing optimization seminars

4. Copywriting advice from inside WordPress

5. 1,100+ custom graphics by Rafal <—who designed this site

6. Unlimited technical support

7. Unlimited updates (you’ll thank yourself for this next year)

During their Thanksgiving sale, you can get Premise Ultimate for only $95. Yes, really. Just use the code THANKS when you check out and you’ll save $70 on the best landing page software available for WordPress. This deal ends promptly at 7:00 pm Pacific time on Monday, November 28, 2011. Hurry up and get Premise Ultimate before they come to their senses!

Why are you pimping products?

Long time readers know I’m not a product pimper. Sure, I have some affiliate ads in the sidebar over to your right and at the bottom of posts, but I only put up affiliate links for products I use. And yes, the links above are affiliate links, so I get a cut of what you spend.

I’m posting this specifically for two reasons:

1) It’s a great deal on great products and it’s only available for a very short time. Let’s face it, It would suck to pay full price on Tuesday…

2) I’ll donate all affiliate earnings during this sale to Clint Miller, my friend that is in a hell of a fight with advanced metastatic testicular cancer.

So before someone gets all twisted out of shape and accuses me of selling out, take a deep breath and relax. This is a great deal on some terrific products, and Clint needs some help. It’s just that simple.

DON’T FORGET TO USE THE CODE “THANKS” WHEN YOU CHECK OUT!

Enjoy the long Thanksgiving weekend, and be safe!

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

Look Ma! It’s an all new design for Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Jay Thompson — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:43:03 +0000

Welcome to the “new and improved” Phoenix Real Estate Guy!

Long time readers know I go through theme changes on a pretty regular basis. Anyone remember this one?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

That was circa 2005 / early 2006. Back when the University of Texas football team were the national champions. Since those days we’ve been through at least 5 major design changes and countless minor revisions.

Today we roll out a spiffy new design. At the core is the Genesis Framework with a custom (as in completely) AgentPress child theme.

Why Genesis and AgentPress?

Because I have mad respect for Brian Gardner (the creator of Genesis) and the Copyblogger Media team. Because I don’t have a “designer’s mind,” and they do. Because I want to what I do best – create content – and leave the look and feel of the site to the experts.

My last design put calls to action, and nothing but those calls to action, on the home page of the site. At the time that seemed like a good idea. It was kind of cool and different. But search results started to be impacted and it became apparent that I needed to get the content back on the home page where it could do its magic.

Enter Copyblogger Media, here’s what I wrote in my last post after the Great Blog Hacking of 2011:

If you’re not familiar with Copyblogger Media and names like Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, and Brian Gardner, well, you should be. These folks are internet studs. Their lead designer I’ve been working with, Rafal Tomal, is a freaking genius and is the man who has served up designs for a few little sites like Problogger.net, Copyblogger.com, ChrisBrogan.com, Jay Baer’s Convince & Convert, and real estate’s own Better Homes & Gardens blog Clean Slate blog (and others).

The Highlights

Four prominent calls to action (CTAs)on the Home page. These correspond, naturally, with what I want people to do when they come to this site – search for homes, get general real estate information, get specific info on short sales and learn about our brokerage. The ultimate goal of this site is to inform consumers and generate business for our agents. Prominent CTAs help in those endeavors. If you’re reading this in your reader or on the single-post page, head on over to the home page and check it out. We’ll wait…

Article titles/links and snippets on the home page – We serve at the pleasure of The Google.

“Social Sharing” – Social media isn’t going away. The ability for people to share content is important. It’s better now.

Revamped (and FAR less confusing/intrusive) navigation – visitors need to be able to find what they are looking for. That seems obvious. Yet it wasn’t really so swift in previous iterations. Of note – the nav structure isn’t where I want it yet. More on that below..

Wigitized Footer – Oddly, one of my favorite features. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and there are four sections for… stuff. There will be much tweaking and playing in this area.

White space and typefont is your friend – “cleaner” is better. And Rafal knows clean.

New Server – Copyblogger Media, who redesigned the site, stepped up big time immediately after the hack. They reached out and helped move the site to a stable, secure and highly optimized environment configured for Genesis. I can’t thank these folks enough. Not just for the redesign, but for lending a hand to someone they hardly know and really accelerating the redesign work.

Still to Come

Because of the aforementioned hack, we released the design a little early so we could get it all over to the new server. Some things (most notably navigation) isn’t quite there yet. That’s not Copyblogger Media’s fault, that’s all on me. I’ve got lots of ideas of how to get the right content in front of the right visitors. So stay tuned for that.

There could be the occasional photo or two that is missing in action. Moving a site the size of TPREG isn’t an easy thing to do, particularly when one realizes the horrific job I’ve done with file structure on my server. I’ve learned a lot since starting this thing over six years ago, but there were many remnants of the early days lying about. It’s quite likely that some links may point into the ether, some embedded charts and videos may not work. That sort of stuff.

Let Me Know What You Think!

I want to hear what you think about the design. Be honest. If you hate it, say so. If you love it, that’s great too. If you see something broken, I’d love to know. What would fill my world with awesome would be if you have suggestions and ideas. I like that kind of stuff. Can’t promise I can implement every thought, but I can promise you I’ll consider anything you have to offer.

Change is hard. This is a pretty radical change. It may take getting used to. But what we have here, I think, is an amazing foundation that is in place to bring you even more goodness over time.

As always, I appreciate each and every one of you. No redesign will ever change that. YOU are what gives me this platform out there on the world wide interwebs.

Thanks for stopping by our new digs! And stay tuned, it’s going to get better and better…

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

Hacked. Or, how I spent the last 60 hours

Jay Thompson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:42:12 +0000

Remind me to never Tweet something like this again:

I fired that off around 7:30am on Wednesday, you know, trying to be all positive and everything. “Setting the tone for the day” as those bright and cheery people say you should do.

Three hours later, my email, phone, text messages and Twitter DM’s starting lighting up with things like, “Dude, your site is throwing malware warnings” and “Why am I getting redirected to some Russian site when I go to your blog?”

Hackers!

Bastards.

And here we are, a full 2.5 days later…

As you can see (assuming you are actually on the site and not looking at your feed reader right now), things are quite different here. We’re now running on a plain Jane Twenty Eleven theme. That’s because once I found out the site was hacked, I started purging any file that might hold rogue code.

Nothing I did got rid of the redirection problem.

I tried:

A clean install of the latest version of WordPress.

Nuking every plugin and reinstalling them.

Peeking into the MySQL database looking for oddities. Noting the bloat from running a database for over six years harking all the way back to the WordPress 1.5 era, I decided to obliterate the whole thing and do a restore from a recent backup (you DO back up your database regularly, don’t you?).

That was fun.

NOT.

I had to split the backup file up because phpMyAdmin chokes on big files. And 1600 some-odd posts with 22,000+ comments and a boat load of photos makes for a choke-worthy file. (Thank goodness I stumbled across BigDump – a Staggered MySQL Dump Importer. It worked like a charm).

Trust me, dinking around in the database makes me nervous as hell. It’s terrifying to delete a database that contains the last 6.5 years of your blogging life.

Several hours into this madness, I started seeing this in Google:

Isn’t that special? There’s my friend The Google telling the world that my site may harm their computers. That lovely little warning was on every search result returned for PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com…

My first thought was… well, I can’t print that here, kids stop by some times. My second thought was, “This is not good.” It was time to call in the professionals.

Enter Sucuri.net. They remove malware and monitor your site for future issues. These folks are good. Just a few hours after dropping $90 (the best $90 I’ve spent in a long time) they had located, isolated and fixed multiple compromised files.

Or at least so we thought.

Fast forward several hours, I forget now exactly how many. The nasty warning in Google results were gone, the site wasn’t redirecting to Siberia. All seemed well in Phoenix Real Estate Guy land. And then, it all came rushing back. Redirections, malware warnings, flags in the search results…

Enter Day 2 of the nightmare.

What Went Wrong

I got back with the wizards at Sucuri and they immediately asked if I had other sites running on the same server. With their direction and guidance, I purged a bunch of old stuff from the server and updated what was left. They then scrubbed everything again.

If you are a regular reader you know I try a lot of different “blogsperiments” – testing new ideas, new sites, themes, plugins, you name it. Most of these experiments fail, some miserably. Some just fade away. A lucky few actually work and get incorporated on this site or others.

The problem is, I am woefully poor at cleaning out these failed and faded experiments. I just leave them laying around on the server. After all, they can’t hurt anything, right?

Wrong!

When the warnings and such returned with a vengeance, the message was clear. The hackers still had a way into my site and were hell-bent on destruction.

By leaving old, and neglected, WordPress installs around, I was leaving the back door to the server wide open for these… sub-humans… to waltz right back in and do their nasty deeds. Some of these sites were running very old versions of WordPress. Versions that had no business being on a live site/server. You see, hackers love to attack WordPress installs, because WordPress powers 14.7% of the top million websites in the world, and 22 out of every 100 new active domains in the US run WordPress (source – State of the Word 2011). ~~Douchebags~~ Hackers like to find vulnerabilities in software that has a large user base. WordPress qualifies. That’s why the WordPress development team is so diligent about releasing new versions – not only to add cool new features, but to thwart hackers.

It is not WordPress’ fault I had live sites that were FIFTY FOUR versions (I kid you not) behind the latest release. Right now, some WordPress geeks are saying, “For the love of God man, 54 versions? You deserve having this happen to you!”

And they’re right. But honestly, I had no idea a hacker could get in through one site and use that to infiltrate another one on the same server. Hey, I’m neither a hacker or a developer, I’m just some dude trying to sell real estate.

Lesson learned: Update EVERYTHING you run. Or just delete the old sites (don’t forget to delete the database too!) I used to think it was OK to be a couple of versions behind. (Clearly being 54 versions behind is just stupid.) Never again. I will forever more update ALL my sites within 24 hours of WordPress releasing a new version. Especially versions that are released as “security updates”. Thinking, “My site is inconsequential, no hacker would waste their time with it” is also stupid. Hackers are stupid, we don’t need to be practically opening the door and saying, “Come on in fellas!”

And at this moment in time, we are clean as a whistle. Google has just removed that ugly “This site may harm your computer” warning from the search results (it may take a few more hours for those to clear completely) and we are back in business.

What I Learned

The afore mentioned keeping the server clean of ancient sites is the primary lesson. Do that. Stop reading right now and see what all you are running. If you have an old site that’s been abandoned, kill it off. If you’re like me and you also try things like adding a forum, putting in a server based chat, putting separate WordPress installs on subdomains, get in there and update the software or purge the files.

You should scan your site for malware regularly. Pay Sucuri Security $90/year and they will run scans every 6 hours automatically. And they perform malware cleanup for you. They are outstanding to work with. Good, fast, and cheap with superior customer service. Trust me on this.

Recommended: Host your main site by itself. Host your toys, tests and experiments somewhere else. Keep the money site separate from the test sites.

There are other things you can do to help keep the nasty people out. I’ve read a TON about WordPress security in the past couple of days. While I am certainly no expert, I know far more than I did two days ago.

I’m going to lock this thing down tighter than the vault at Fort Knox. Here’s a great post on WordPress security – Top 5 WordPress Security Tips You Most Likely Don’t Follow. Read it and heed it.

What’s Next

Things are still a little goofy on the back end. Most notably I can’t get the Facebook Comments plugin to activate. I likely deleted something I shouldn’t have. So for now, Facebook comments are missing. I may or may not bring them back. But that’s another blog post.

You’ll have to deal with this rather drab theme for a couple of days. In a fortunate stroke of coincidental timing, I’m really excited to announce that for the past several weeks I’ve been working with the world class team at Copyblogger Media to do a wholesale redesign of the theme TPREG runs on.

If you’re not familiar with Copyblogger Media and names like Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, and Brian Gardner, well, you should be. These folks are internet studs. Their lead designer I’ve been working with, Rafal Tomal, is a freaking genius and is the man who has served up designs for a few little sites like Problogger.net, Copyblogger.com, ChrisBrogan.com, Jay Baer’s Convince & Convert, and real estate’s own Better Homes & Gardens blog Clean Slate blog (and others).

Just to be in the same design portfolio with these folks is a ridiculous honor, and I can’t wait to roll out the site. It’ll be a BIG change, but it will set the stage for some really cool stuff to come.

Any day now, we’ll be a full-blown custom Genesis Framework site. Due to this hacker mess, we’re bringing it online a little sooner than expected, so it may be missing some minor functionality here and there, but it’s going to be awesomeness. This will cause a little downtime as I’ll have to switch Domain Name Servers over to the new host, but that’s downtime I have no problem with. This may happen very soon.

Thanks for Bearing With Me

This has been an excruciating couple of days. (Having to take an online traffic school course in the middle of all this crap sure didn’t help!) I appreciate all the folks that let me know about the issues and things they were seeing. Special thanks to Jon and Inna Hardison at HA Media for a call and offer of their considerable experience and skills! Sucuri Security along with Brian, Rafal and Derick at Copyblogger have been a godsend. And the support of my wife and kids, our agents and lots of friends as I lost my mind over the past few days helped save me from finding a bridge to take a header from.

I’m sure there are other broken things. But most importantly, the scary career-limiting warnings are gone. The site is clean. We’re back online with bigger and better things to come!

Thinking about using Genesis / AgentPress? Now is the time to buy!

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

Testing Hello Bar. Highlight your Calls to Action!

Jay Thompson — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:39:57 +0000

Over the weekend, I installed Hello Bar on our little piece of internet real estate.

Look up at the top of the page and you’ll see a colored bar spanning the width of the page, practically begging you to click through to search for homes.

Which color bar you get is randomly assigned because at the moment, I am A/B testing various colors and text to see which is most effective. That’s just one of the slick features Hello Bar offers.

Real estate bloggers and those with more traditional sites know well (or should know well) the power of the “Call to Action” (CTA). I want, nay I need, visitors to this blog to do certain things – primarily search for homes. That is what puts the food on the table, the shoes on the children — for myself and many of our agents. I also want people to request a short sale consultation, and read the blog. All of those calls to action help drive our business in one way or the other.

Getting people to click on those calls to action isn’t always easy. Countless studies have shown that website visitors spend precious few seconds on a web page. You’ve got to grab their attention quickly, but you can’t be obnoxious about it.

Enter Hello Bar.

It is super easy to set up and use, and they have a vey capable and hands-free way to A/B test different aspects – color, text, time displayed on site – of the bar. Statistics are included. Mmmmm, statistics…

I have no idea if a 0.26% click-through rate is good. But it is very interesting to see the differences that colors and text can make in click-through rates. This test has been running for less than two days, and over the weekend to boot (our lowest traffic period). I’ll let it run through the week before tweaking and re-testing.

Things I like about Hello Bar

It is far less intrusive than a pop-up.

A/B testing rocks.

Lots of variations available – user definable colors, CTA text, link text and time displayed on-site.

Easy to interpret statistics. Know which variation works best!

Some very smart and internet marketing savvy people are already using it – Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Seth Godin to name a few. If it’s good enough for that crew, it’s good enough for me.

Things I don’t like about Hello Bar

. . . Hmmm… Well, you have to wait for an invite code if you’re interested in testing out the free version. Mine took five days to get. But wait! I have some invite codes. More on that at the bottom of the post.

What does Hello Bar Cost?

Funny you should ask. Hello Bar just changed their pricing model. Today. There is a free version that allows unlimited Hello Bars, A/B testing, stats and customization options. The free version is limited to 25 click-throughs a month. Three levels of the Pro (pay) version include all the free version has to offer plus the Hello Bar logo is removed, you can save customizations as “themes”, and you can insert an RSS feed into the Hello Bar (a great way to highlight your most recent post. Or pull in a recent blog post into a web site). Pro levels are based on monthly click-throughs (CTs): 100 CTs for $4.95, 500 CTs for $12.95 and 2500 CTs for $29.95.

What could a real estate type do with the Hello Bar?

What do you want to do? What is the goal for your blog? (You DO have a goal, don’t you?)

The obvious use is what I’ve done here – direct people to a home search page. Some less obvious uses might be: highlighting a recent, or specific, article; newsletter signups; download an eBook/whitepaper (you can open a form with Hello Bar), ask people to Like a Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, or circle you on Google+; entice people to subscribe to your blogs RSS feed, and more. If you ponder the possibilities, virtually any action you want people to take on your website/blog can be highlighted with the Hello Bar. Highlighting actions = clicks on actions = good.

I want a Hello Bar invite code! How do I get one?

The guys at Hello Bar have been nice enough to give me 50 invites to give to Phoenix Real Estate Guy readers. All you have to do is leave a comment below saying that you want one. Be sure to include a valid email address when you leave your comment as that is how you’ll get your invite code. If you use the Facebook commenting, you’ll have to put your email address in the comment itself. If you use the WordPress comments (below the Facebook comments), just put your email address where prompted for in the comment form. I’ll send you an invite as soon as I can get to it (but it’ll be much faster than asking for an invite code though the Hello Bar site). Invite codes will be sent first come/first served. No whining if you snooze and miss it!

UPDATE! Even easier, use this Beta key: phoenixreg Just go to http://Hellobar.com. Click the “Sign Up Now” button. Enter your email address and click “Get Free” button. Enter phoenixreg in the “Have a Beta Key?” box. Click Submit. You’ll get a password in your email!

Disclosure: I get nothing, zero, zilch, nada for handing out invite codes (other than helping people try out a cool new thing). No free Pro account, no form of monetary compensation. Just a little hit of good karma – and I’ll take all the karma I can get…

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.

Now Pondering – it’s a new blog.

Jay Thompson — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:09:16 +0000

Several days ago someone asked me, “What’s the URL of your personal blog?”

We both stood there staring at each other realizing it seemed strange not to have one.

So now I do.

What to expect there? I really don’t know. It’s a personal, not business oriented blog. Personal blogs tend to morph, wax & wane and evolve over time. Well, I guess this blog’s done that too, but you know what I mean.

If you’re so inclined, stop on by. If not, no problem.

Originally posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. If you are reading this anywhere but inside your RSS feed reader, the site you are on is guilty of stealing content.