Well I went to look at your site and immediately backed out before your talking woke up my husband.

I hate that on websites!!! When I'm surfing the web I don't want people yapping at me unless I click a button telling them I want to hear what they have to say.

The same goes for music.  I do not like it to auto play.  But that's just me...

Most real estate sites stink because most realtors are too cheap to hire a decent designer.  Being a web designer requires not only html skill and seo knowledge, but it requires a bit of art as well. 

Haha... yes, I've actually been talking about that lately with people. Auto audio is becoming a major turn off in web design. Thanks for reminding me.

Michael:

Remember the F reading pattern of the reader.

I agree Auto audio is not a good idea. Some people go on the internet from the office and they do not want others to know that they are on the internet for personal business.

Ditto for me, I can not stand music or talking on a web site. It is annoying!

Just went over to your site while writing this, no more talking. Very nice. Other than that It looks good.

Since I am critiquing your site I invite you to do the same to mine. JRV Home Inspection Services don't want this to be one sided.

Michael, an excellent topic to write on!

I read a post yesterday which points out that you get just over two seconds to capture someone's attention when they first visit your site.  Content is important, as is SEO.  But if the design isn't organically attractive, welcoming and user-friendly, you're done.

They'll never read or benefit from great content if they are put off by the appearance or flow of your site.  If it takes tons of scrolling and searching to find that great content, you're wasting your time.

I think the problem with web page designers is that nobody is good at everything.  They may be great at writing code, or keyword selection/title tag coordinating and so forth, but lacking in design skills.  And the designer with great graphic arts skills may not be all that sharp on SEO issues.

James, I did a look see at your website - you must have written your original text in Word or something and then either published it directly from there or a similar program?  Because when viewing it in Firefox, I see a whole bunch of question marks in the text.

see here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/KarenRiceSells/UntitledAlbum/photo#5112852760217285154

Karen,

Thats very interesting. I was not aware that my site looked this way. I have used Word to write or edit text on my site. How would you clean it up? Any suggetions someone.

I so agree-- less is more!  I wish I could tone down my site a bit, but it's a 'canned' one, and I don't have much artistic control....

All I know is you have about 5 seconds to win over a visitor...

I also agree that less is more and I have built my site around that principle.  Go ahead, give me some reviews.....remember it is a work in progress.

www.mynewnchome.com

I invite you to my website as well.  It is a work in progress but I am hoping for someone else to give their thoughts on it.   It's LatoniaParks.com and I am on my way to look at yours.

Blessings in all....

Michael, clicked over to your site.  I like the less is more feel to it.  But I am curious, how do you do on capturing leads from your site.  The one thing right off the top that I don't like on a lot of agents sites is requiring someone to register to search the MLS.  With soooo many websites out there giving it away for free, I feel asking for them to register is the kiss of death.  Overall, good site though.

Michael, I much prefer simple to superdesigned. For me, it isn't just the technology gap that's worrisome; there's also an increasing overreliance on technology (hey, Mom, look what I can do!) -- sites that have so many buttons, widgets & gizmos that I get a headache just navigating the home page. That's definitely not the effect I want to have on potential clients.