My real estate WordPress blogging clients are quite happy with the fast-track startup of their WordPress blogs for real estate. They are working toward retiring old static websites that never performed as lead generators.

I’m not a programmer, coder, CSS manipulator, or any of those background software type consultants. I do sometimes dip into the code of WordPress for simple fixes or addons, but it is rare that it’s necessary.

WordPress, with thousands of themes and tens of thousands of plugins, is capable of doing just about anything you want with a website. And, it doesn’t have to look like a blog at all. However, taking advantage of the content management power of the WordPress platform, as well as the love of blogs that is demonstrated by the search engines, is why I believe it’s the only way to go for any consulting, real estate, mortgage or other professional.

My “WordPress How To” posts here will help anyone to get a great start on their blogging with WordPress. I consult for independence of my clients, using online screen collaboration and training so that they are able to chart their own course quickly, ending up with a highly successful blog in a few short months.

Feedblitz.com provides a service, one that I use on this blog in fact, that sends out regular newsletters with your blog posts.  You set the frequency, and Feedblitz takes your RSS feed and produces the newsletter in a very nice format, pulling images and allowing full post or excerpt publishing.  The one for this blog goes out every Wednesday, subscribe here.  Feedblitz looks at my feed, determines if I’ve published my set minimum number of posts since the last issue, and creates the newsletter, sending it out to the subscriber list.

I’ll give you two links here, one to this blog’s Newsletter, and the other to my real estate site issue.  Since they dynamically generate, you will see whatever is new since the last issue.  So, if you look right after an issue went out, you won’ t see much.  Just come back later and check again:

Gallery Realty of Taos Newsletter that goes out on Tuesdays.

FunctionalTech.com Newsletter that goes out on Wednesdays.

It is important for your visitor to have a pleasant experience, and to have a good impression of your blog’s appearance.  However, it’s much more important for them to be able to locate the information they want easily.  The theme you choose can do both, but there are several important considerations.

[important]Here are those very important things to help you to select the right theme:[/important]{+++}

• Screen size and scrolling – Check themes to see if they are a fixed width or if they are variable, changing width to accomodate the screen size.  Though variable seems to be better, sometimes it’s a problem with different browsers.  I like a fixed width of 900 or fewer pixels, as this is good for most notebooks as well as desktops.  Also make sure that it centers on the screen.  Visitors HATE to scroll to the right to see all of your information.
• Header size and “above the fold” – Above the fold is that area on any screen that is visible before you must scroll downward.  This is your critical display area, and you want your most important content and navigation there.  When you select a theme with a very large header, this is eating up your usable “above the fold” screen area.  Real estate template themes are very bad about this.  They think that large images of beautiful homes or areas are great.  They aren’t!  This is especially true if you manage to get repeat visitors who finally tire of always having to scroll down to see what they want because of an image they’re very tired of seeing.
• Number of columns – WordPress themes can be found with two, three or even four columns.  This is a very personal choice, but also one of visitor ease of use as well.  I tend toward two or three column themes, as I want the text of posts to be easy to read in a wider format in the main column.  However, the type of information and graphics that you’ll be posting is a major factor here.  Don’t just add columns so that you can have a lot of cool widgets and plugins.  They do slow down your page loads.
• Custom themes – I recommend “magazine” and “newsy” themes for community oriented blogs.  These usually tend toward very custom looks for the main page, without the list of posts you’re used to seeing.  They’ll have lead and feature stories, as well as very nice image display.  Just fit the look to your content, and always be cognizant of wasted space in the header and what they’ll see “above the fold.”

Here’s a link to the WordPress.org page with hundreds of themes that can be searched by type, number of columns and more.

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• Blogging gets a pro look with iTheme designs

GoDaddy.com or another hosting provider will give you the ability to select a WordPress installation and have it done for you.  GoDaddy does it for about $60/year at the basic level, enough for most of us.  By hosting your blog, you gain a lot more selection of themes and designs.  You also get a huge selection of plugins and widgets to give your blog greater functionality and make it more useful for your site visitors.

If that’s the case, why did I host this blog free at http://turnkeyblogging.wordpress.com?  I did it to show anyone that they can have a free blog, hosted at WordPress.com, and get their presence out there effectively.  I didn’t want to cloud the information I’m providing with fancier plugins and things.  You’ll find that this free version does a fine job of selling of the WordPress platform and providing useful information on starting a blog in WordPress.

However, if you want to do video, podcasting or any of a host of other innovative things on your blog, you should spend the very small amount required to host their WordPress blog.”