website dev: Rapid Response: Do Early Birds Get More Worms? - 12/01/09 12:28 AM
I'm always trying to learn about what works in my own industry. Because I have connections to this industry, I try to combine my research so I have something to write about here.
Response time.  How quickly do you get back to potential customers/clients?  Do you have a published target? e.g,. When someone calls/emails someone will respond in x minutes.
Some think quick follow-up is pestering. I don't agree. My feeling is that there are few things more important.
Quick follow-up is a sincere form of "what you want matters to me"
How all of this came to me...  I'm currently … (5 comments)

website dev: Managing Rentals: Low Cost, Simple and Web-Based - 04/29/09 11:15 PM
Dingo and Joomla, two open source products that are extremely low cost, would be an excellent start to help automate a property management operation.  While Dingo and Joomla would be a good start, it’s likely that eventually more ingredients would be needed to make this a fully effective system.  At first glance, you would need the following functions to build a low-cost, easy-entry, online property management system.
Broadcast/Publish News (Joomla)
Broadcasting/publishing of public information, both to renters and to property owers/managers.  A way to attract both renters and potentianlly building owners.  This is the basic function of the Joomla portion of … (0 comments)

website dev: Finding New Techies: Spend 45 Minutes, Save Lots - 08/05/08 09:23 AM
When you decide you want some new technology, hopefully you already have a relationship with a person who knows what you want. But every so often, you'll need to find someone new. People move on, sometimes they just fade away, sometimes what you want isn't what they do.
When you go shopping for a new tech company to support you, do a little homework first by documenting what you have and what you need.   This is a 45 minute exercise and it will help you avoid having to tell the same story more than once. This is a one, two … (0 comments)

website dev: Growing Some Organic Traffic with Images - 07/16/08 01:09 PM

Here's a simple, reasonably quick, inexpensive way to add to your traffic.  Pick some aspect of your community, get your camera and start snapping.  Collect basic info about each of the images and upload all to a gallery where it can serve as a image directory for that area.  Not only is it quick and easy, it's also low maintenance, another form of inexpensive.
We built one for the city of Dexter, Michigan. It took about 20 hours of labor between snapping pics and then finding/entering data about each. Something like this could be started and finished in a week … (4 comments)

website dev: Online Home Tours Made Simple, Kinda - 07/16/08 12:51 AM
Years ago I toiled as a computer programmer.  Maybe you don't know this, but one of the bad traits of "my people" is that we often discount or trivialize the effort it takes to create software.
Because it had been a few years since I had written any code, I wanted to try an experiment to see if I could still do it -- and to remind myself of how terrible we are at estimating time.  I succeeded at both. I could still write code and I could still not estimate time accurately.
The challenge: build a simple image gallery. I … (5 comments)

website dev: Make your Contact Us Drop Dead Simple to Find/Use - 01/27/08 10:28 PM
A few posts ago I wrote something about a thing called DEEF box from cqSight which is some technology that allows websites to improve how they can connect with visitors.   Below is a story from a real person who was moving to a new city.   We asked her to tell us what it was like trying to make contact, in this case with an agent, with only help from Google.  Here's her story:After weeks of long-distance interviews and dialogue, I get the call: You're hired.  Ann Arbor, Michigan, location of incredible resources: the University of Michigan. The original Border's book store. … (2 comments)

website dev: Don't Scold Your Visitors With Ugly 404 Pages - 11/20/07 04:48 AM
404, that's geek-speak for "page not found"Popele don't always type thigsn as they intend.   When this happens on your website, don't punish them with some ugly default 404 error message or even worse, some big bold, "You are an error!"I did a search for "real estate agents michigan" and intentionally did a typo into the first site on the list.  This was my greeting.  This was my first impression of their site...
That was it.  No search box, no, "hey, as long as you're here, how about this?"
Visitors do not always get to your pages via a click.  In fact, … (2 comments)

website dev: Exactly what is a CMS? - 09/20/07 02:54 AM
We techies have a bad habit of using jargon that means nothing to normal people.   I'm certain I've already been
guilty of that in the few posts I've made here. 
Much of what I've written has been about this technology called CMS -- which stands for Content Management System.   But knowing what the acronym means does nothing to explain what it is... so here's what a CMS is:
A CMS is a website that uses a database to hold your information.
If you can log into your current website, click "Add new content" type some stuff into an editor and click SAVE, then you're … (5 comments)

website dev: A Darn Nice Agent Website - In 90 minutes - 09/15/07 06:02 AM
As everyone knows, website design and construction has become a commodity business.   It wasn't too long ago that if you knew a handful of HTML tags you could make a comfy living building websites.   Those days are over.   Web hosting is cheap and most of the hosting services come with features like Fantasico, a software installer that configures things with a few clicks.   
So what can you do in 90 minutes?  Lots!What I'm going to do is list the steps, then estimate the amount of time it would take to accomplish each .   And then to make it interesting, I will … (7 comments)

website dev: Boosting Your Website Search Engine Ranking - 09/15/07 03:10 AM
When you're doing searches for buyers you spend all sorts of time in MLX/S clicking and emailing. That's part of the job. The downside is that sending lots of email to buyers is not always positive. Perhaps some blog technology can help. What's wrong with the current method?
 
First, we live in a world of too much email as it is.  I don't know anyone that wishes they could spend more time deleting/purging/forwarding email.  So if you're sending one message for each property, at some point, you will exceed the comfort level of the recipient.
Second, sending email all over … (7 comments)