The Easiest Real Estate Content Management System (CMS): A Tour of Simplicity and Efficiency

At Reactive Web Services, we understand that managing your real estate website should be as effortless as possible, allowing you to focus more on selling houses. That's why we've crafted a Content Management System (CMS) interface that is not only easy to use but can be securely accessed directly through your website. In this post, join us on a tour of our Real Estate CMS, exploring how it can simplify content creation, modification, and customisation to meet the unique needs of your agency.

Summary:

• CMS Empowerment: A CMS grants you the ability to effortlessly create, modify, and delete content on your website.
• Secure Access: Accessed through your website, our CMS is password-protected to ensure only approved members can manage your content data.
• Organised Content: Content is intelligently categorised into various 'Content Types,' streamlining the editing process for a more organised dashboard.
• No Styling Required: We have taken care of all site styling for you. Just add your typecopy and pictures and the website will take care of the rest.
• Content Referencing: Enjoy seamless cross-referencing of content types. For example, a Blog Post can reference an Author, allowing updates in one to automatically reflect in the other—saving time and energy.
• Effortless Management: Content creation, modification, and deletion are simplified, requiring just a touch of a button.
• Third-Party Integration: Our CMS easily integrates with 3rd party data sources, enabling automatic content generation for a more efficient workflow.
• Custom Content: We tailor our CMS to your content needs. Want to separate market trend reports from your blog? We have you covered.

What is a CMS?

Before we dive into the specifics of our CMS, let's define it. A Content Management System (CMS) is software designed to help users create, update, and delete content on their website without requiring technical expertise. In simpler terms, we've developed your website to showcase specific content in designated places—leaving you to add the words, links, and pictures.

How to Access Your CMS

To access the CMS dashboard, you need to navigate to the /admin URL route on your Reactive Web website. To do this you can either click on the ‘Admin’ link within the website footer (see figure 1), or you can type /admin after your domain name in the URL bar of the internet browser (see figure 2).

Once the Admin route loads, you will be asked to log in to the CMS using a secure email and password (see figure 3). When we develop a website, we will provide the site owner and anyone in the agency that is required to modify website content CMS log in credentials.

Once you have logged in, you will be presented with the CMS dashboard which is shown in Figure 4. To the left of the screen, you will be presented with all content types that can be created and modified on your site.

By clicking on each content type, you will be able to see the content that exists from within that type. Figure 5 shows the content that has been created under the ‘Post’ content type (which display as blog posts on your website).

What Content Is Editable?

All non-structural content—blog posts, testimonials, agent profiles, listings, and more—can be changed. However, static pages like the homepage and about-us page are handled by us to ensure site responsiveness. Static page updates are part of our ongoing support plans and are no extra cost to you.

How to Add Content?

To demonstrate adding content, we will create another blog post. To create a piece of content, simply click on the content type you desire (in our case ‘Post’) and then click on the ‘Create Document’ icon in the content sidebar (Figure 6 shows the position of this button).

Once this button is clicked, a new post will be created (shown in figure 7). This post will now provide various input boxes and options to create the post such as titles, a feature image, the post content and even SEO metadata.

Some content options such as the ‘Author’ reference already created Content Types. This is handy because any changes that you have made to an author's profile (such as their image) will automatically be updated within that authors posts – simplifying content management.

To publish the post and have it show on your website – The green publish button in the bottom right-hand side of the screen can be clicked.

Do I Need To Worry About Styling?

No need to worry! We've structured pages for seamless content insertion, eliminating styling concerns. During development, any desired styling changes are handled by our team and finalised alongside your approval.

Post-development page layout changes will attract development and design fees due to ensure visual appeal and responsiveness across all screen sizes.

How to Delete Content.

To delete content, navigate to the drop-down menu displayed next to the Publish button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen (see figure 8). After clicking this button, you will be asked to confirm once more before the content piece is deleted – you will not be able to recover deleted content.

How to Update Content.

Updating content from inside the CMS is easy, simply open the published content that you want to change and then make the required changes within the input boxes. You will notice that the ‘Publish’ button will change from grey to green when a change has been made (see figure 9).

To confirm the changes, click the ‘Publish’ button. Due to browser caching technology used to enhance website loading time for repeat visitors, it may take an hour for you to see the changes; however, new visitors to the site will be able to instantly see the updated content. If you would like to instantly see how it looks on your website, open your website in ‘incognito mode’ if you are using Google Chrome or activate Private Browsing if you are using Mozilla Firefox.

Customising Content.

Our CMS allows easy customisation and addition of content types to meet your specific needs. For instance, if you want to integrate regular market updates into your content stream, we can create a separate Market Update content type. This way you can have separate styling from your blog and also stay better organised.

Integration with third-party data sources is another feature, enabling automatic content generation at the touch of a button.

During our development meeting we will ask if you have any unique content requirements and then modify our CMS to suit as needed.

Conculsion.

In conclusion, our Real Estate Content Management System (CMS) provides simplicity and efficiency, ensuring that you spend less time managing your website and more time selling houses. Partner with us and experience the difference – where simplicity meets effectiveness.