New Website

[tlpadil10]

Hello all. This is tomas. I have put together a new website for my business. Please check it out and let me have your feedback. Feel free to link to it. If you like send me a link to your website and I will build a link as well. We can help each other out.

http://we-buyandsell-homes.com/

tomas

It has been a while since I posted. Just thought I would let you know that a second seller gave me repeat business. I guess I'm doing something right.

[fadi]

tipadil,

The layout is hard on the eye. I would suggest you find a nice website layout, save it, and modify the content.

For example, the flexible width and short content makes it hard to read on the larger yet common width monitors. From my logs on my websites, I get an average of 1.9% users with 800x600 monitors. I tend to target 1024 monitors by making the width 960. This doesn' mean you should never use flexibile width, just make sure it is easy on the eye.

The text is centered. This makes it difficult to rack the beginning of the next line and reduce the readability and comprehension.

The Free Report is an excellent addition. However...
1. You're not capturing their information before they download it to be able to follow up with them. very low percentage would call. You've lost your leverage there

2. The Free report includes a mail-in form to fill out. Part of it because the report was written pre-spread of the internet. How many people would be willing to print, fillout a form, and mail it? how about a link in the pdf to your form to fill out?

3. Don't tell them what sub2 is. They don't need to know till you work out the deal with them. This tactic is used by the big players to avoid getting huge volume of calls on their masive advertising budget.

The report aside, I would work on the layout and design. Now, how are you directing traffic to your website?

[RayE]

I agree...the website is very hard on the eyes!

Here are my suggestions - other then going out and finding another website you like and then altering/modifying it...

* Move the navigation links from the top of the page to the bottom

* Remove the scrolling marquee...reminds me of something I'd see on a GEO-CITIES page.

* Keep the width of the website to no more then 850 pixels. As it stands now, the borders around your pictures touch the sides of my 21 inch monitor.

* Your home page should 'SELL THE BENEFITS' that either a homeowner or home seller will obtain when dealing with your company...Start off by introducing your business and a little background/history about why it is you do what you do and go from there into how your service will help others!

* Set up an opt-in form so you can capture your perspective customer's information, such as name, email address, what type of property are they looking at (Selling or buying), etc., etc., and then use one or both of the current 'free reports' as a GIFT to them in exchange for providing the needed information.

* Remove the 'stat counter' from the bottom of the website. If you want to track visitors, set up an account with Google and use their 'Google Analytics' to track where your visitors come from.

Are you looking for perspective customers to find your website in the search engines....if so, then good luck using the keywords you're using now, because every other real estate company and/or investor who knows anything about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is going to own the first 2 pages of the search results in the major search engines. (Google, Yahoo, MSN)

On the other hand, if your website is there just to have clients refered to from other marketing streams, then the keywords aren't really an issue then.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Hope that helps?


RayE

[RealEstateConsultant]

When i created my first site, it looked like this too. Its very hard to follow. It seems like you have the basics down with this site, however buyers and sellers will realize that this site was put together by a non professional and this will hurt your credibility in their eyes. If I were you, I would shop around and find someone overseas from guru.com, or from another site out there and have them create a web page for you for a couple hundred dollars. You already have the content. They could design it and host it. Good luck. Thanks for sharing with us.

[shortsaleguru81]

You might wanna change the background color. It is hard on the eyes. Just an advice 

[John909]

I found your website really good and also informative. It help out people those who are looking to buy  and sell their house.

I like to suggest this to all y friends as I found it as very interesting.

meet U Again.......................
John
 

[ryanpal]

don't take this the wrong way but that site looks very basic.  i would say similar to websites i created 10+ years ago.

i would suggest using rentacoder.com or elance.com

you can get a page for a few bucks.  i spent $20 to revamp one of mine really quick. i could design it better but i didnt have the time...but for $20 it really was a good deal.

i guess you could copy a web site and change the contents but it seems there might be copyright issues involved. just a caution.

ryan

[ClevelandSlim]

I will offer you some quick assistance with your website, if you are interested.  I won't even charge you for it!  I'm not the best, but I do know some basics about web design and can get your site looking much better rather quickly. PM me if you are interested.

I'm new here, and I want to contribute to the board users, as I am learning a lot from this community!

Hopefully, someone will see my effort and input, and reciprocate.

All the best,
~Slim~

[francophile]

For SEO

Create pages that are targetting keyword phrases (probably min 3 word phrases) with good search volumes and low competition.

You will have a good chance of ranking well with few inbound links.

[JaneK]

All this site needs is better design because the buy and sell home idea is clear but the way the eye flows through the whole thing might not be that good for gathering leads

[andresh]

I would definitely invest a little money in having someone (or DIY if you have the time and knowledge) create a better looking site. Your current website is very 90's in terms of design. You want to def spice it up and give it an updated look. Like others have mentioned, a bad looking website can hurt your credibility.

Once you have a website that looks decent, you can begin to market it using many different methods including SEO or PPC.

[here2learn]

I like wordpress. It may cost a little more money (hosting plus domain) and require some getting used to but they are definitely worth it. There are free themes, free plugins, and the content management systems make it easy to change your site. you can have all static pages and one blog/article page to drive traffic to your site. There is also a real estate plugin.

[Cindy Wilson]

The color scheme of your website is very rough of the eyes.  You want something to draw in the customers attention but also bring them back.  There are many different tools on the internet you can add to your site or edit it with for free.  With just a little change you could have a strong site design.  Good luck!

Cindy Wilson