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Hey,

does anyone know a good community info (complete with school info, etc.) widget, map, or other type of website integrated tool that will give community information?

I'm running Joomla, and want to be able to have a module where a user can look up community info without leaving the site.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

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Jason Day
Coldwell Banker Rizzo Mattson, Realtors
www.CBMaine.com

From my experience, you are going to have to compile most of that stuff yourself. Which for SEO purposes, you should! I think that by writing this information you will be adding quality unique content to your site, and in the future, you may find people linking to your site quoting your information.

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

Steve,

I agree - it is important to write your own information - however I want a user to be able to access extended information (demographics, census data, etc.) without leaving my site.

Any thoughts?

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Jason Day
Coldwell Banker Rizzo Mattson, Realtors
www.CBMaine.com

Why don't you just pull that information off of the government census website and create articles explaining the information? On your page describing the community, place links to the various articles containing demographics, census data, etc. and create a tree style directory using the backend interface of Joomla accessible from the front page.

That's how I would do it, if I were at the point of where you are with community pages.

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

I think RE Steve is right... you can't cut corners... Databases are nice, but generic data is boring and over used!

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Jason Keeling
Galveston real estate
Galveston
Galveston beach house rentals

If you are looking to do it quick and dirty, just iframe the census websites pages within your own

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Want to save up to 50% off Real estate webmasters product websites & common upgrades? Check out my latest blog post regarding our end of the year sale.

Didn't even think of that one. Joomla has a nifty feature called the "wrapper". It's sole purpose is just this; just make sure you make it fit nicely within your site and I always do my best to keep away from interior scroll bars.

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

you guys are right, I need to invest the time into writing the articles - I just might use the wrapper for now until then. Thanks for the input.

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Jason Day
Coldwell Banker Rizzo Mattson, Realtors
www.CBMaine.com

If you don't have time to do the writing, you can always hire a content writer to do it. I know many who will write from $10-$25 per page depending on the number of words. If interested I can point you to where to find them.

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Waterfront Real Estate
Lakefront Homes
Riverfront Property

Trulia has a cool new widget with neighborhood housing value state. Check it out:

http://widgets.trulia.com/