Launching a web-site is tough work.......

Easymailmaker.com

We've been hard at work and the release of our new direct marketing web-site is fast approaching.  Our official release date is next week but I wanted to write and share some interesting points that I've learnt of the last few months.

Keep it Simple.

There is so much clutter out there that when your customer do make it your webpage they can breathe again.  Make sure they can find what they want and that it doesn't take too much work to find.

Video Tracking

I'll be monitoring my new sight and the traffic by installing a free service called www.clicktale.com 

What they do is you install html code at the top and bottom of each page you want to track and it records a video of the users that go on your web-site.  You see their mouse movement and it can really help you understand the way your clients think and what areas are "hot spots" Another neat tool about that is they do heat maps where people click and hover their cursor....another great way to measure where the hot zones on your page are.

Outsourcing

I've used an outsourcing agency to design and develop our web-site.  I used www.elance.com which I highly recommend.  Especially for real estate agents.  What they are is a governed web-site which acts as a auction for your projects that you post.  You review the professionals that bid, pick one, make a deposit to elance and then when you are satisfied and the project is complete you release the funds.  A great way to not get ripped off.  Long story short, keep it legit and by elance governing everything it is the best solution.  My developers are in India, highly skilled, great communication and the best thing is that I give them the tasks to do in the evening and they work all night as it's their daytime.  Amazing concept.

Web 2.0

There is lots of talk of web 2.0 which is basically going to be the next wave of internet search.  There is so much junk that the web 2.0 will be lean mean searching machine.  If your website isn't 2.0 worthy you will no longer be part of the new search.

We took this in mind and have integrated our blog, podcasts, news releases, articles, and video tutorials to really promote this.

Mark it in your dayplanner to check out www.easymailmaker.com to take advantage of all these great new resources dedicated to helping realtors build their business