Open Sites and select your website. If it is not built in Berchtold yet, select Build it in Berchtold. Your website gets a Home page and a free address like yourname.berchtoldhosted.com.
Pages, posts and menus
- Pages hold your main content, like About or Sell. A page can sit inside another page. Its address comes from its slug, like
/about. - Posts are your blog. They go to the address your permalink setting gives them, like
/blog/your-post. Add categories and tags to sort them. - Menus link your pages, posts and categories. Put a menu in a location: the header, the footer or the phone menu.
A page or post starts as a draft. Select Publish to show it on your website, now or at a later date. When you change a published address, the old address sends visitors to the new one.
Import from WordPress
A workspace admin can import a WordPress website that has the Berchtold Abilities plugin. The import brings posts, pages, FAQs and team members, with their categories, tags, images and search titles. Images go into your media library. Run it again to bring in what changed.
The import report lists what it did not bring in, such as shortcodes and reusable blocks. Other code blocks come in as Custom HTML blocks. Property search widgets from another IDX provider, such as iHomefinder, are left out: Berchtold's own property search replaces them. A page that held only such a widget comes in as a draft.
Show MLS listings (property search)
Your website can show listings from each MLS your workspace has a data license for. You get:
- a property search page at
/homes-for-sale; - a page for each listing;
- three blocks you can add to any page, in the Listings group: Property search, Listings and Market numbers.
Each MLS must approve each website address before its listings show. On the Overview, under Property search, a workspace admin selects Ask the MLS to approve. Berchtold sends the request to the MLS. Approval usually takes a few business days. Until then, listing blocks show nothing on your public website, and the editor shows where they will go.
Listing pages show the notices the MLS requires. These include the data source, the time of the last update and the listing brokerage. You cannot turn these notices off. AI crawlers cannot read your listing pages.
If your workspace has no MLS data license yet, a workspace admin can request one in Settings > Integrations.
Leads from your website
Visitors can create an account on your website. They can save homes, save searches and ask about a listing. Each one goes to your CRM:
- A new account or a listing question adds the person as a contact, or updates the contact with that email. The contact's owner gets a notice.
- A listing question can ask for more information or for a tour.
- A saved search can email the visitor new listings: instantly, daily or weekly. Each email has a link to stop them.
- Saved homes and searches show on the contact, in the Website section. There you can add, change or delete a saved search for a client.
- Automations can start when a visitor signs up, saves a home or a search, or asks about a listing.
Make your website public
Until you make it public, visitors see a "coming soon" page. On the Overview, select Make the website public. In Settings, turn off Discourage search engines when you want search engines to show your website.
Change your Berchtold address
On the Overview, select Rename and enter a new name. The old address sends visitors to the new one.
Connect your own domain
- On the Overview, under Your domains, enter the address visitors use, like
www.yourwebsite.com. Select Add domain. - The DNS records show within a minute. Select Copy next to each name and value.
- Add the records at the company that manages your domain's DNS. If you use Cloudflare, turn off the proxy (grey cloud) for these records.
- Select Check now, or wait. When the domain shows Connected, it becomes your main address. Your Berchtold address and the address without
wwwsend visitors to it.
Do not change your DNS records until your website is ready. While you build, your current website keeps working.
Custom code
A workspace admin can add code to every page, like a Google Analytics tag, in Settings under Custom code. Code runs on your public website as you wrote it. It does not run in previews or in the editor.