A couple of days ago I asked if anyone wanted me to review their site. Here's the first one...
The website being reviewed here is http://www.passaiccountyhomes.org
The first and most obvious issue is the font on this site. It is defaulting to Times New Roman which is not a good font for a website, it doesn't look good at all. Stick to the standard fonts such as Arial or Verdana as these are much better to read on a screen. This site has the font set in the CSS file so it's easy to change quite quckly. Changing the font will make the site easier to read. Maybe even make the font slightly larger.
The next and a common mistake is to put "Home" as the title of the home page. There is no need for this. The title of the home page should tell someone straight away what the website is about. In this case it should read "Passaic and Bergen County Homes". This text should also be an H1 heading tag for SEO reasons (you can use H1 and in the CSS file make is smaller). This tells the search engines that this page is all about this topic and it's very important, hence the H1 tag.
Looking at your meta tags, you only have the word "Realtor" as the description of your website. Search engines do read the meta description tag and often use it in search results as the description text for your listing. It's therefore very important that you actually put a description of your business in this tag and include your most important keywords.
Through our testing over the years we have always found that prominently placing your contact details (i.e. phone and email address) at the top of every page results in an increase in the number of people actually phoning through. You may want to consider doing this too.
On your home page I think you need to make your name more prominent under your photo and where you talk about being on ActiveRain you should actually link to your AR blog so that people can get to know you better through your blog. Isn't that what it's all about at the end of the day?
In terms of the content of the home page there are two major issues here. Firstly, images are VERY important. You have no images of the area. A nice, strong image of the area you're selling in should be on the home page. Secondly, the text needs changing. Let me explain....
It is well known that visitors to a website scan, they don't read. If you have too much text, not enough images and not enough points highlighted, then they'll leave. If you have stats on your website check your bounce rate, if it's high it will confirm what I'm saying.
You need to restrict to the home page to ONLY the points that are important to a new visitor to your site. You need to capture a visitor within seconds. You need to get across straight away the BENEFITS of someone using your services to buy a house in that area. Put the stuff about career opporunities and Century 21 somewhere else. That's of no interest to a new visitor.
Maybe consider making it more personal, for example:
"Hi,
I'm Dennis Sanchez and as part of Century 21 I'm here to make your house buying experience a stress-free and pleasurable one.
With my years of experience selling real estate in the area I can offer you:
No hard-sell
My insider knowledge of each of the local areas
Our expert advice on the best finance terms for you
Our huge database of exceptional homes
etc
etc..
Get in touch and I'll be more than happy to help you in your search for a new home.
All the best.
Dennis"
I just threw this together quickly but hope you get the gist. You have to sell the benefits, and always use the word "you" in your copy, it shows you're considering the visitors needs.
Moving on....
In the "About me" you really need to make yourself more real. Yes, we know you're a realtor, but who are you really? Do you have a family? What are your interests? Show a picture of yourself playing golf for example. Show people that you're a real person, don't push it down their throats that you're just there to sell them something, you want to become their friend too. Also, the link to "Active Rain Blogs" at the bottom of that page is actually a broken link so you need to fix it.
Moving on...
Why does "Schools info" (which should really read "Local schools") come before featured properties in the menu? And why are there only 3 properties listed? There is no search facility either. This area needs a lot of work. Your site isn't offering enough interaction with the visitor. This would really put me off as I would be searching for houses but you're not giving me enough to look at and get excited about.
And the schools page, well, you need some more text on there. What about your own opinions of the schools? Are they in good areas? Are they expensive? Are they popular? Etc. Also, what about an area guide? I can't find out anything about the area on the site. Are there any good restaurants? What's the weather throughout the year and what's the weather now?
"My office" and "Contact me" should really be on the same page and the photo of your office is too small and grainy. It needs to be bigger, perhaps showing you outside.
In terms of search engines, well neither Google nor Yahoo have indexed your site at all. You desperately need to get some links to your site. Start by linking to your site from your AR blog (put it in the links section) and make sure you use the link text as "Passaic and Bergen County Homes".
Anyway, I hope I've given you a few points to think about. It's all easy to do and if you make the changes and get some links to your site then you'll start to get some traffic to your site.
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