Download all the great patterns in one place.

Squidfingers.com has the best source of free patterns out there, and has been used by thousands of web designers. Unfortunately, however, you have to download patterns one at a time. With 158 patterns, this can take a while.

I have compiled all the Squidfingers.com patterns into one ZIP file. Please remember

Feel free to use any of these patterns on your own site. If you do decide use one, a credit link back to my site [http://www.squidfingers.com/patterns/] is always greatly appreciated.

Please continue to respect the terms of use for these patterns, and link to their site. It’s a great, free resource.

No related posts.

Until a more in-depth analysis of the website is available, here are some screenshots and images.  Read my White House website’s design predictions, and subscribe to my RSS feed to keep updated!

The WhiteHouse.gov Website technical notes:

• Uses jQuery 1.2.6
• Passes HTML Validation
• Does not pass CSS validation
• Runs on a Windows server (the feeds are .aspx files). Hey, nobody’s perfect!

Here are a few of the wonderful new White House design touches:

Related posts:

1. Obama White House Website Design — the President's Web Site
2. Found: Barack Obama's Web Designer

The new White House website design: what to expect?

We know who President-Elect Barack Obama’s web designers were: SimpleScott, and later Walker Hamilton too.  My sources tell me (don’t you have sources? ) that Scott Thomas and Walker Hamilton are no longer working with the Obama or Change.gov website. Scott Thomas is busy working on an art collective project (VERY cool stuff).

Change.gov web design

The Change.gov site is basically BarackObama.com restyled a bit. The Change.gov site uses many resources from the barackobama.com website, including most of the main CSS file. The Change.gov website was designed by Matt Ipcar. The Change.gov website’s back-end (just like the Obama website) is being handled by Blue State Digital.

What can we learn about the WhiteHouse.gov web design?

If the Change.gov web site is any indication, we can extrapolate the following:

• Obama’s web designers are going to stick with the dark background and white content area.
• The new blue is here to stay. Gone is the youthful, buoyant blue — replaced by the somber, presidential blue.
  • Senator Obama Blue
  • President Obama Blue
• The blog will continue to be on the home page with a content slider
• For consistency with the current White House web site, I predict they will make some concessions, including perhaps moving to a three-column design. This may be temporary, if only to create a smooth transition from the past site to the new website.
• There will be landing pages that will provide focused information for the user. This is currently not being done on the White House website. 

Anyone want to be the President’s web designer?

It must be quite an exciting time for Scott Thomas, who (I presume) is about to be the web designer for the most influential man in the world.  Congratulations, Scott!

I look forward to seeing the (no doubt) beautiful redesign of WhiteHouse.gov – but not quite as much as I look forward to President Obama coming into office.

Related posts:

1. New White House Website Launched!
2. Found: Barack Obama's Web Designer
3. Katz Web Design re-branding — New logo and website preview

ArrayIf you find this article helpful, please share it, or Digg it!

In Part 1 of Building a real estate website in WordPress, you learned about a plugin called FreshPost that we used to set up the basic structure of your real estate website.  Using this article, you will be able to display a single listing page that has all the content your real estate website will need.

Before we start…

When writing a tutorial, it’s hard impossible to address all the variations that occur between projects; instead, just know that there are going to be differences — use the tips shown here, but possibly not verbatim.

A few notes:

• Gallery and map functionality are coming. They will be part of future installations of the series.
• All modifications are being made to the single.php file. If your real estate website will have a blog, simply add logic to only show the template if it’s in a specific category.
• I welcome all comments, questions, modifications, and improvements — as long as they’re constructive. No flame, please.

Show listing status in the headline

If you want to show listing status changes, you can do so like this:

<h2><?php the_title();
if(get('Listing Status') == "Sold" || get('Listing Status') == "Under Contract") {
	echo '<span class="sold"> – '.get('Listing Status').'</span>';
}?></h2>

This will add ” — Sold” to the title of the listing. You can also use that method for adding a “Sold” banner across your images.

Setting up WordPress for all that data

When creating a real estate website, the biggest design challenge is displaying all the data involved. There’s a slew of it, and the data may not be available for each listing.

In order to handle the data, I created two functions, one called length(), and one called wp_real_estate().  Length simple checks if the passed variable is empty, or if it has a result.  wp_real_estate() is for passing and parsing arrays, something the FreshPost plugin doesn’t do out of the box.

Add the following to your code:

Add the following to the bottom of get-custom.php included with the FreshPost plugin. You can also just add it to the top of your template file if you want.

// Created by Zack Katz of Katz Web Design
// http://www.katzwebdesign.net
// as seen on http://katzwebdesign.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/building-a-real-estate-website-in-wordpress-part-1/
// zack@katzwebdesign.net

function length($string, $length = 0) {
	if($string && $string != '' && (strlen($string) > $length)) {
		return $string;
	} else {
		return false;
	}
}
function wp_real_estate($fields, $type='', $class='') {
	 // The FreshPost plugin includes arguments that do essentially the same thing:
	// function get ($field, $before='', $after='', $none='', $between='', $before_last=''); , but get()
	// doesn't handle arrays, and with this many fields, it could get uglier than the code below.

	if(isset($class) && $class != '') {
		$class= ' class="'.$class.'"';
	} else { $class = ''; }

	if($type == 1 || $type == 'ul' || !isset($type)) {
		// Unordered List
		$open_wrap = "<ul$class>";
		$close_wrap = "</ul>";
		$open_listing_title = "<li><strong>";
		$close_listing_title = "</strong>:";
		$open_listing_value = " ";
		$close_listing_value = "</li>";
	}

	elseif ($type == 2 || $type == 'ol') {
		// Unordered List
		$open_wrap = "<ol$class>";
		$close_wrap = "</ol>";
		$open_listing_title = "<li><strong>";
		$close_listing_title = "</strong>:";
		$open_listing_value = " ";
		$close_listing_value = "</li>";
	}
	elseif($type == 3 || $type == 'dl') {
		// Definition List
		$open_wrap = "<dl$class>";
		$close_wrap = "</dl>";
		$open_listing_title = "<dt>";
		$close_listing_title = "</dt>";
		$open_listing_value = "<dd>";
		$close_listing_value = "</dd>";
	}

	$listing_module = '';

	foreach ($fields as $field) {

		if($field && get($field) != '' && get($field) != 'n/a') {

			// TBD for taxes, utilities, etc.
			if(get($field) == 'TBD') {
				// For new properties, taxes and utilities may not yet be set
				$field_value = '<acronym title="To Be Determined">TBD</acronym>';
			}
			else {
				$field_value = get($field);
			}

			if($field == 'Total Square Feet') {
				// In order to better inform the user of the website, you can add [title] attributes to a listing
				$field = '<span title="The sum of both finished and unfinished square feet in the house." class="info">'.$field.'</span>';
			}

			// Construct each field
			$listing_module .=
			$open_listing_title.$field.$close_listing_title.
			$open_listing_value.$field_value.$close_listing_value;

		} // end if field is not empty

	} // end foreach field

	if($listing_module && $listing_module != '') {
		// If any results have been obtained, wrap them.
		$listing_module = $open_wrap . $listing_module . $close_wrap;
		$details = NULL; // just making sure to reset $details
		return $listing_module; // send back the data
	}
	else {
		// If the results are empty, don't show anything and throw false
		$details = NULL; return false;
	}
}

Once you’ve added the functions, you’re ready to pass arrays to FreshPost and send out chunks of content all at once.

Create blocks of content

You can have all your content in one big wad, but breaking it down makes it easier for the user to scan and easier for you to style.

• A summary box: real estate websites often have a summary of each listing that is easy to find and compare with other listings.
• Listing description
• Listing details include all information about a listing’s features
• Room dimensions 
• School information
• Map — Coming in a future installation
• Inquery form – Coming in a future installation

Listing summary box

You may want to have a summary of the most important data for your listing.

// Summary box includes most important information
$headline = '<h3>House Summary</h3>';
$details = array('Price', 'Square Feet', 'Bedrooms', 'Full Bathrooms', 'Total Square Feet', 'Lot Size');
$details = wp_real_estate($details, 1, 'summary');
if($details) {
	echo $headline . $details;
}

Listing description

For the description of the property, all we do is use the standard WordPress the_content(). Double-check to make sure there’s anything to display, and if so, show it.

// Description of listing uses the standard the_content
$description = the_content('<p>Read the rest of this entry »</p>');
if(length($description, 10)) {
	// make sure the description's at least 10 characters (it should be!), then display
	echo '<div class="description">'.$description.'</div>';
}

Listing details box

The listing details box contains all house information except schools and dimensions. Have as many or as few fields here as you want.

// Set the headline for the section
$headline = '<h2 id="house_details">Details</h2>';
$details = array('Price', 'MLS Number', 'Address', 'City', 'State', 'County', 'ZIP Code', 'Neighborhood', 'Square Feet', 'Total Square Feet', 'Full Bathrooms', '1/2 Bathrooms', 'Year Built', 'Taxes', 'Construction Type', 'Roof Material', 'Average Utilities', 'Car Storage', 'Basement','Basement Details', 'HOA Fees', 'HOA Fees Include');
$details = wp_real_estate($details, 3, 'details');
if($details) {
	// If there were any results, show the headline and the results.
	echo $headline . $details;
}

Room Dimensions

Only three rooms were set up to be given dimensions in the first tutorial, so we use those three here. If you need more, add more using FreshPost in the administration.

$headline = '<h2 id="house_dimensions">Dimensions</h2>';
$details = array('Dining Room', 'Living Room', 'Family Room');
$details = wp_real_estate($details, 3, 'details');
$box = 0;
if($details) {
	// Dimensions and schools are both 1/2 width; wrapping them in .width50 acheives that
	echo '<div class="width50">';
	echo $headline . $details;
	echo '</div>';
	$box++; // These modules are only 1/2 width; I want to keep track of when to clear them
}

School name & website

Schools are a different type of content, so we use a different function that takes the name of the school and if there’s a school website, links to the website.

function wp_real_estate_schools($school_name = '', $school_url = '') {
	if(length($school_name)) {
		if(length($school_url)) {  // if there's a website, show the link
		$school = '<li><a href="'.$school_url.'" rel="external" title="Visit the '.$school_name.' website">'.$school_name.'</a></li>';
		} else { // otherwise, just the name
		$school = $school_name;
		}
	}
return $school;
}
$headline = '<h2 id="house_schools">Schools</h2>';
// Pass each school (Elementary, Middle, High) through the function
$schools = wp_real_estate_schools(get('Elementary School'), get('Elementary School URL'));
$schools .= wp_real_estate_schools(get('Middle School'), get('High School URL'));
$schools .= wp_real_estate_schools(get('High School'), get('High School URL'));
if(length($schools, 7)) {
	echo '<div class="width50">';
	echo $headline;
	echo '<ul>'.$schools.'</ul>';
	echo '</div>';
	$box ++; // keep track of odd/even content box
}

Clearing the float

The Dimensions and Schools content boxes were 50% width, and so is this box. If only one was shown (because the other had no content), we clear the floats so that the map & contact form are side-by-side.

if($box % 2 != 0) { // if box divided by 2 has a remainder, then it's odd.
		// Make sure there's not a single widow box, if so, then clear it --
		// We want the map is on the left and the contact form on the right
		echo '<div class="clear"></div>';
}

Until next time…

If you have any questions, comments, revisions, leave a comment below. Have you used this advice on your website, or for a client? Please link back to this article, share it with your friends, and/or Digg it. Thanks!

Next time: Incorporating Google Maps

Related posts:

1. Building a Real Estate Website in WordPress – Part 1
2. Denver Real Estate Website – Blue Sky Development Group
3. WordPress Real Estate Plugin: Stay Tuned…

Westside Business Builders is a networking group based in Golden, Colorado. Their website provides general information about the group, and it serves as a member directory. Katz Web Design is a member of the group.

The membership committee asked Katz Web Design to prepare a proposal for the WSBB website, and this Wednesday, the group voted to have KWD redesign the website to improve appearance and functionality.

Updating the design of a functional website

The current WSBB website is functional, but it lacks visual consistency.  The changes made will appear minimal, but in fact, the website will be rebuilt from the ground up.

Katz Web Design will:

• Update the home page to focus on the group’s benefits
• Feature the new logo by Lynn Pike Designs
• Create page templates that standardize layout, typography, and contact information
• Improve search engine optimization for the website by improving the structure of the underlying code
• Make the site easier to update by using standards-compliant XHTML code, CSS, and server-side includes.
• Move the site to its own domain; currently, it is forwarding to a subdomain of another website.
• Set up Google Analytics tracking code in order to monitor and analyze website traffic

These changes will provide immediate usability benefits, will make the site simple to update in the future, and will result in better Denver search results for members.

Related posts:

1. Katz Web Design Updates — The BBB, Inc., SEO, and Web Design
2. Katz Web Design re-branding — New logo and website preview
3. Web Design Coupon — Up to $300 off a new website!

Introducing IDXPress+, the best WordPress real estate plugin

I am designing and creating a real estate website with WordPress, and I’m going to be writing a few articles that detail how it’s done.  This article will get you started — please leave feedback with any questions or topic requests for the next installment. Real estate using WordPress Part 2 is now available!

A little background — why use WordPress?

I’m working with a Denver company on a real estate website. Their goal is to showcase their listings in an easy-to-update CMS.

I’ve worked with Open-Realty, and — to say it bluntly — it’s a huge pain in the ass.  When you scratch the surface of OR, you begin to realize how cobbled together it is. Customizing the code to work as it should requires a steep learning curve.  The templates are relatively simple to work with, but the administration section is horrible.  The Open Realty user experience is just awful.

WordPress is my CMS of choice currently, and it’s so easy to develop for that I recommend it to many of my clients.

Starting off in WordPress real estate websites

So the obvious first step is this: real estate websites have a LOT of information on them.

Real Estate websites have this basic content:

(Alphabetized, none-the-less!)

• Address
• Basement type
• Basement finished %
• Bathrooms
• 1/2 Bathrooms
• Bedrooms
• Brochure (PDF)
• Car Storage Type
• # of Car Storage
• City
• Construction Type
• County
• Country
• Latitude
• Longitude
• Lot Size
• MLS #
• Neighborhood Name & Website
• HOA Fees
• HOA Includes
• Price
• Roofing Materials
• Schools
  • High School Name & Website
  • Middle School Name & Website
  • Elementary School Name & Website
• Status of Listing (Sold/Under Construction/Pending/Active)
• Square Feet
• Taxes
• Utilities (Avg.)
• Year Built
• Zip Code

It would be tough to ask your client to create Custom Fields manually for each listing for each one of those items.

Using Custom Fields for Real Estate in WordPress

UPDATE:
I have updated this tutorial without using Freshpost (now Flutter). It’s way too complex. Instead, use the More Fields plugin.

More Fields is essentially a WordPress plugin that allows you to define custom sets of Custom Fields to be included in a post.

By using More Fields, it’s simple to create an administration template for creating a new listing.  Just set up the fields above, and then use More Fields’ super-simple code (ex: meta('zip code'); to insert that information into your template.

Planning your Real Estate website in WordPress

Once you’ve got the capabilities provided by FreshPost, a WordPress real estate website is more realistic, and less daunting.

The next phase is planning. Realty websites are an interesting challenge because users are going to be interested in finding a listing many different ways — and your client will want to be SEO friendly for searches about the neighborhoods they work in.

Structuring the website: flexibility is key

It’s important that the website will be able to handle listings in different counties, zip codes, cities, and potentially states. As such, create a category structure that mirrors real life.

For example, let’s have the following sample listings:

1. In Denver, Colorado’s Cherry Creek neighborhood – Zip code: 80023
2. In Littleton, Colorado (a suburb of Denver, CO) – Zip code: 80211
3. In Albuquerque, NM’s Sandia Heights neighborhood – Zip code: 87101

Categories

• USA
  • Colorado
    • Denver
      • Cherry Creek
    • Littleton
  • New Mexico
    • Albuquerque
      • Sandia Heights
• ZIP Codes
  • 80023
  • 80211
  • 87101

There are many ways of setting up the categories; you could have a Neighborhoods parent, rather than having the city as the parent.  The point is that once you set up categories, you can properly sort the listings.

Once basic capabilities are set up…

Now that you can have tons of Custom Fields with More Fields, and have set up hierarchal category structure, you’re able to set up a basic Real Estate website.

Some possible next steps:

• Use the Category Description to create SEO-friendly Neighborhood and City pages
• Download and install a plugin that lets you search Custom Fields, allowing users to actually search all your listing data
• Further optimize your site for search — write articles for each of your neighborhoods and have the articles displayed above your Multiple Listings (archives) view; write about events, local restaurants, etc. to build up a large amount of relevant information. (On a Single listing page, you could dynamically add those articles about the neighborhood)

So, as you can see, using WordPress as a Real Estate CMS makes a lot of sense, and has fewer barriers than you might expect.

As my project continues, I will write another article detailing the process of creating the WordPress real estate website.

Please let me know if you have questions or requests!

If you’re having trouble making WordPress work for your RE website, please let me know in the comments — I’ll try to answer your questions.

What topics do you want the next WordPress Real Estate article to cover?

Real estate using WordPress Part 2 is now available!

Related posts:

1. Creating a Real Estate Website in WordPress — Part 2
2. Denver Real Estate Website – Blue Sky Development Group
3. WordPress Real Estate Plugin: Stay Tuned…

I’ve looked through the CSS and there’s no trace of the designer. Anyone know?

Hillary Clinton’s web designer has been found!

Thanks to krs who left a comment below, Hillary’s web designer has been found.

• Design by Mayfield Strategy Group
• Backend by SolutionSet
• Great analysis of website by PoliticalGastronomica.com

A company of few words

The only content on Mayfield’s website is this:

The Mayfield Strategy Group is a leading provider of strategic internet services for political campaigns, non-profit organizations, and corporations. Our unique experience and methodology allow us to provide the highest quality and most professional services in the industry.

And I guess that’s all they needed to say about that!

Related posts:

1. Found: Barack Obama's Web Designer
2. What is a web designer, and who are these people?
3. I support Hillary Clinton

Update: Who will be the White House web designer?

ArrayA lot of people have wanted to know who designed Barack Obama’s website. With good reason: Obama’s website is beautiful. It even conveys Obama’s message of hope in it’s wistful design. Well, here it is:

Barack Obama’s web designer is:

SimpleScott. SimpleScott designed Barack Obama’s website, so here’s to SimpleScott for a gorgeous design.

From Scott Thomas, of SimpleScott:

I am the creative director of New Media for Obama for America. The team consisted of many people in house as well as many volunteers. Project leads were myself and John Slabyk. We are maintaining site and brand in-house. Sol Sender designed the logo before I joined the campaign.

How did I find out SimpleScott was involved? Just check out Obama’s main style sheet. SimpleScott uses CSSEdit, a great program for Mac CSS web design.

The CSS code gives it away:

CSS Version 2: – View the stylesheet

/* CSS
Author: Scott Thomas
Client: Obama for America
Created: 12-15-07
Modified: 12-22-07
*/

CSS Version 3: – View the stylesheet

/* CSS
Author: Scott Thomas
Created: 12-15-07
Author: Walker Hamilton
Modified: 08-10-07
*/

Did you notice there are two authors for Version 3? If you’re like me, you want to know who this Walker Hamilton fella is that is referenced in Version 3 of the CSS.

This is from Walker’s resume at walkerhamilton.com:

I architected and implemented the deployment mechanisms and technologies for the campaign’s various web properties. I implemented various applications to improve some processes, automate others, and facilitate instate/headquarters communications for departments within the campaign. Other duties included general maintenance, day to day content administration, and feature planning and development for the social network tied into the site.

Update: I’ve learned a couple of more people who were involved in the BarackObama.com website:

• Matt Ipcar (from frog design)
• Kyle Crouse (from frog design)

The Barack Obama logo design is by Sender, LLC

Sender, LLC developed the Obama ’08 logo.

From Brian Drum, of Sender LLC

Sender designed the original mark, but the site is developed and maintained in-house by the campaign’s web team.

Sender was involved *only* with the development of the “sunrise” mark, and had no role whatsoever in the design, development, or maintenance of barackobama.com.

Leave your reactions here

Do you like the design, or not? What aspects work best for you? Drop a line below.

Which design do you like?  I prefer the lighter, more optimistic “Primary Obama” website, not the Obama/Biden serious, solumn “General Election Obama” site. What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Found: Hillary Clinton's web designer
2. What is a web designer, and who are these people?
3. Obama White House Website Design — the President's Web Site

The new logo (draft)

The future website (draft)

Click on image for a higher-resolution screenshot.

What do you think?

Post a comment below.

Related posts:

1. Westside Business Builders chooses Katz Web Design
2. Obama White House Website Design — the President's Web Site
3. Web Design Coupon — Up to $300 off a new website!

When we set out to design a landing page for my Denver client, we had our eyes set on a minimum 2% conversion rate for their pay-per-click campaign. Currently, we’re achieving a 15.94% overall conversion rate. I made some tweaks to the form design last week, and for the past 6 days, the landing page is getting a 30% conversion rate (that’s pretty good )

Focusing on the front door.

The reason we’ve been able to get such good results is because we’re focusing on one thing: having people sign up for a form. No longer is the internet about websites. The internet is now about front doors. Showing people exactly what they want to see — and sometimes only what they want to see — is how to improve your conversion rate.

Don’t lock users in and throw away the key.

Amazon cages me in. If you go to Amazon, place something in your cart, then begin the checkout process, they make it impossible (without clicking the Back button a lot) to return to their store. They throw away any chance of revising your order, adding a product, or just browsing around — they sacrifice user experience for the sake of conversion rates.

Guide users through a funnel, don’t force them

Amazon.com no longer shows you how much shipping will be until you’re at the final checkout page. They used to show you right up front, but now you have to get to the final checkout page to find out shipping costs. Very annoying. Always give users the information they want, even if it means some will choose an option you don’t want them to. Give users a way out.

Related posts:

1. Landing page design – Dish Network
2. Amazon Marketplace to the rescue
3. Landing page design — Activating emotions generates leads