Part 4: Is Your Internet Presence All It Should Be?

Stephanie...when I clicked on the link from my blog to your site...your webpage didn't finish loading. After waiting just over 1 minute I hit the refresh button and your page began loading right away.

3 Positive things about your site:

1. The first picture of the family on your home page
2. The primary navigation bar on the left is fairly short - 10 links - although I don't know what weight loss and recipes have to do with buying or selling real estate. Oh I know why it's there...but I don't agree this is the place for that...that could be on your blog.
3. You are using a white background with black text - this is the easiest on your visitors' eyes...anytime they have to strain it creates anxiety.

3 Things to change:

1. The ideal website has only one or two columns - your's has four
2. The layout sends your visitors all over the place...there isn't a specific direction for me to go...I have to figure that out by scanning and skimming the entire page...I won't take the time to do that.
3. You have too much movement. Anything that moves on your page does two things;
   • it attracts our attention and
   • it distracts us from something else. You have to be very careful about "motion" on your site...your Stephanie Sells...IC in the upper left is very distracting, I would recommend eliminating that and just have the phrase "Stephanie Sells" static. I would then take one set of the property pictures and have it rotate...not all three.
4. You are also wasting a lot of real estate at the top of you site - the header detracts from your site - it should make a statement to yoru visitors.
5. The Marquette Information, Marquette Minute and stephanie's Favorites clutters up your page and distracts me from the relevant information I want as a buyer or seller. Get the Favorites off your home page and onto another. The Marquette ifno I would eliminate the majority of the links and offer to provide some of the info to visitors as a lead generation trigger.
6. The Real Estate Internet Warning...that is right in the middle of your page...get that down at the bottom and in a smaller font...or better yet have a seperate page with that disclaimer.

So often I see agent sites are optimized for search engines but not buyers or sellers. Sorry I went a bit overboard. Call or email me if you want to talk more about your site.

Keith.  Of course person to person is the best...that goes without saying.  However, I have worked with agents over the years to help them generate a lot of business off the internet.  It is another tool to help prospect ancd to begin creating relationships.  If you are relying solely on person to person relationships - you are missing many more opportunities to develop more person to person realtionships by using the internet.

Colleen - Thanks for being so brave.  I'll check your site out in a few minutes while I have the time.

Rich - I'm not sure what you meant by "We just removed all our requests for info boxes."

Colleen - Nice professional looking site.

3 Things I like:

1. The audio greeting at the top - some won't like that, but studies have shown that more prefer an audio greeting.
2. Blue - again studies have shown that sites that use shades of blue - site visitors spend more time viewing the pages then any other color.  Now...that doesn't mean the background should be blue and the text white.  Blue borders with a white background and black text are good.
3. There's not a ton of information for me to sift through to figure out where to click.

3 things I would consider changing:

1. You are losing too much real estate at the top...that is wasteful space that doesn't really benefit the site visitor. 
2. There is not a headline or paragraph that states what I can do at this site. Replace the 6 picture montage with brief benefit message.
3. You do have a lot of pictures...each one attempting to grab my attention and convey a message.  I would eliminate some of the pictures (Just Listed, Financial Calcuators, Free Reports).  Replace some of the others with a picture that more represents the topic (i.e. the couple having coffee - how is that representative of them "Getting ready to buy a home"?)
4. Remove all the pictures to the right i.e. Real Estate News, What's Your Home Worth, etc.  The images aren't very good quality and don't really help to convey what the link represents.  The few images you have the more quickly your page will load anyhow.

Hope that helps.

Team DiMuria...I agree and think that it is obvious that visitors should have all the contact options available to them so they can respond in a manner that is more comfortable for them.  My point though - in my last post - was that research shows fewer people will pick up the phone and call you then fill out a short form.  AND just because they pick up the phone and call you doesn't mean they are a bettter quality lead.  BUT it does give you the opportunity to "talk" to them and begin to build rapport and trust.  That should be the objective behind a webiste...creating more oppportunites for you to build rapport and trust - gaining and converting prospects into clients.

Roxanne...make sure your webiste (company) is updated...it doesn't show that you have nearly 20 listings.

Roxanne...I guess I was looking at your Virtual Tours.  I don't see that I can view your specific listings from your webpage...in fact I don't see where I can view your companies listings...only do property searches.