Hey there
Dachia here.
Welcome back to Focus On Your Small Business.
I wanted to share some good content with you… so you didn’t think I disliked everything out there.
Not at all.
And I stuck with real estate because the previous critique was also real estate so I want to compare apples and apples.
If I do a search for real estate on google, google will give me results based on my location. If I’m doing a critique of a site outside my area, I’ll open a private, or incognito’ window before I do the search. But as a regular person doing a search, this is what I’m going to find. These are the sites that come up on top.
First is realtor.com
Next is zillow and then the local criagslist.
Then realestate.com
Then Real Estate the Band… which apparently is an actual band… Their site loads slowly, probably because it is heavy in animation. So, I can’t tell you if they are any good… but they do look interesting.
Then a Wikipedia article, and then a local downtown site.
Then, finally… we have an actual company site, and it happens to be ReMax.
Now, landing page is clean. A big but not hero image of an agent. The header image is very branded. ReMax balloons. The information provided on that content block with his image is the office address and his office number and his cell number. And there is a very simple search tool over the top of that contact block.
Clean. Streamlined. I would suggest that even on the larger device, to make those phone numbers clickable.
They are clickable on the mobile device.
I’m not crazy about how this site looks or feels on my mobile. In vertical, it just sucks, but even in horizontal… it’s a bit awkward. Now… that is somewhat the norm for real estate sites on mobiles… but something to always be trying to improve.
Back to my Mac.
Under the header is a slider gallery of properties. You can see 3 and then you click a slider arrow to get more. This works. Usually I dislike having to scroll to the side, but these buttons are very recognizable and the surrounding area is clean.
Also, as I scroll down, there is a static bar at the top with his pic and a blue bar that says Ask Me Anything.
Of course my 13 year old self wants to ask him how old the sun is… but really that is inviting. He is open to discussing whatever you want to discuss.
Also at the top is that static bar is a search tool, where you can put in a city and state. Right there…all the time.
Scroll down a bit further and it says HONEST-THOROUGH-SERVICE, All in caps. This I would change… I would capitalize the first letter. All in caps is hard to read. Doesn’t flow. Also, each word has a hyphen between them…
It doesn’t look right.
Then a brief clean paragraph about the agent professionally.
Then 2 sections that look like 2 of 3 columns… because they are not centered. You know how I dislike things that are not centered when they look like they were intended to be. It throws off the balance of the page.
Then a “ask a question“ button, then a ‘get connected’ button with a Facebook logo. Followed by a handful of recent facebook posts. This looks clean. Not too many posts. Each block has a white background to it does not stand out from the main white background, but does have a mild border so it is delineated from the rest.
This is a simple plug in you can use if you have a wordpress site or Joomla… this plug in will automatically bring in the most recent posts from Facebook or you can set it up for Twitter or whatever.
Then there is another ‘connect with me’ button. Now, when I click that, I get a drop down popup… it has a few fields to fill out and has the agent’s pic there. However… the pic is cut off. So while there is space above his head, it is cut off at his chin. This is an easy fix… but likely he is unaware of it.
Then, we have a video. I would say this video could and should be bigger, however, it looks nice with the clean background and only a simple button next to it. The button says “ready to get started?”
However… the video is a youtube video. So, at the end, you get all the other videos that youtube wants to show off… and draw the viewer to youtube. Unless you have an affiliate relationship with youtube, don’t advertise for them.
Host your video yourself or on Vimeo, $7 a month and get rid of the ads and embed it on your site. (ETD, for commercial videos, you’ll need the $20/month level)
So, overall, nice site. A few things I would change, but I would bet it has a low bounce rate. People who are doing a search for real estate, in this area, after offered the other topic sites, have this one.
I hope you got some ideas from this. Just a heads up: you are never actually done with your site. Content changes… trends change… but a habit of self auditing will help you stay current and clean with no broken links or formatting.
Keep in mind that if you are spending hours and hours in research mode online, learning what you need to do to build your business and then hours more figuring out how… you might want to check out the membership site. It can save you many hours every month in research and determining which resources are accurate and worth your attention.
You can find more information and a webinar that will walk you through whether or not this is the right path for you, on dachia.com/membership
Until next week. Make it a good one. It’s all up you… with a little bit of me.