Be brutal.......

[ericbramlett]

Alright, I'm ready to do some work to my site. In particular, I'm thinking of doing something different w/ the huge flash banner on page 1. Let me know what guys think of the structure, the nav, etc... & I'll love you forever. I have thick skin, BTW...
www.ericbramlett.com

Thanks!

[Saodavi]

I think the flash banner is kind of busy. I was trying to appreciate one of the photos and it changed so I tried looking at the next ... and it changed.

On my site, I randomly fill the spot with one of several pictures. You might like that approach. Other than that, I don't have any complaints. The structure and navagation work fine. All the stylistic elements are complete and consistant. All the rest (colors, layout, etc.) is just personal preference.

I think it looks fine.

[ericbramlett]

cool - on the internal pages (that aren't thematic - like the areas) - I actually have a random picture appear. I am definitely considering making the flash banner more of a slide show that moves a LOT slower.

[Boston Condo Guy]

Eric, I'm with you on the flash banner needing a change. Something that our boston condo guy site and yours have in common is that an image near the top of the page pushes valuable content lower down, making visitors scroll a bit before they get to the "meat" of the site. It would be interesting to see whether decreasing the height on a photo (I definitely like having a catchy photo on the homepage, don't get rid of it all together) and removing the flash entirely would serve you well?

From a coding perspective, throw that bit of javascript into an external file. As well, I think you are losing out by not leveraging CSS in your navigation design/coding - having the images change color is great, but you can accomplish the same with CSS, and do it in a search engine friendly way. Finally, something small that I would do would be to link to your domain, rather than /index.php, when clicking on the header image - you are losing out on a valuable internal link by not building links to the domain name itself (i.e. without the /index.php).

[Cherie]

Hi Eric,

Your flash is to fast, and I would like to see a different font in the flash where you have "Austin Real Estate." Btw, just came back from Austin, the people were fantastic - took the 3 hour Segway tour, a must do!

Clean up the text from a visual standpoint. You have too many sizes - keep it consistent, and stay away from italics. The double navigation on the top is confusing. Try to arrange your primary navigation with sub-nav underneath.

What's My Home Worth should really be a sub-nav underneath "Sellers" tab.

Align your paragraphs so they are all consistent.

I prefer to see the agent not "sell" themselves on the homepage, keep that for your bio.

Streamline your target market, looks like you are trying to work with everyone. Brand yourself as the expert in a particular niche for Austin. Since the real estate is kicking butt there right now, this should be an easy idea to work into your marketing strategy.

Just ideas, hope I'm not being too brutal. Looks like you are doing a great job!

[Saodavi]

Okay, I'm on board with the Boston Condo Guy and the comments about "images pushing valuable content down the page". But I like the pretty pictures so I'm not sure what a good solution is. They do contribute to the site but the content is more important. I'm not sure how I would resolve that.

Maybe you should just get rid of the blue box at the very top that says "Eric Bramlett.com - Search - Custom Search". It looks cool but doesn't contribute at all to your site. It pushes your content even farther down the page. Plus, every image already says "Eric Bramlett.com" and the "Search" and "Custom Search" buttons, while very important are visually very far away from the rest of the content. I didn't even notice them at first. I'd see what you can do about consolidating all that into the navigation/image section.

I also agree with the comment about the double navigation menus at the top. I think what was bugging me is that they look different than the top menu. The ones on top are obviously more prominent and therefore seem to be the "main" sections of your site. The lower menus seem like they should be subcategories of whatever section you're in ... but they're not. It's like you have a very broad menu system that has no depth. 12 top-level menu's and no sub menu.

Do you really need the text links at the bottom of your page? Since you're using linked .gif's in your navigation, can't you use the "alt" tag and get the same SEO/ADA navigation benefits?

I'll 2nd the comment on the fonts too. And make your "link" and "vlink" colors be colors that are already in your palette (light blue and dark blue) not the browser defaults (bright blue and purple) ... which really don't go with your site.

I mean, I'm really picking the nits here. These aren't big issues. It's just that when a site is done as well as yours, there's just not much to do except extremely fine revisions.

Okay ... I think that's it.

[Wheatworks]

Eric,

First, the site is consistently good. The layout is clean. Text is well-written.

As I do with most sites, I visited with Flash disabled. The static graphic on your home page with the diagonal slices seems a bit too chaotic. (A great plugin for Firefox is the NoScript plugin at http://www.noscript.net)

With Flash enabled, I agree that the graphic wipes occur too quickly. Also, once I've seen the graphic gizmo, I don't need to see it on other pages (on the Market News page, for example).

One thing you might try, Eric, is use the static images you use on the site's interior pages to populate your Flash graphic. For example, the image on your Downtown page isn't in the Flash banner.

If I were a home buyer, one thing I'd like to see (and I haven't seen this on any web site I've reviewed) is that instead of stock photos, the graphics displayed in the Flash banner or on the interior pages would be of properties I could actually buy. Of course, the photos would need to be of a professional quality. An example on your site is the Central page. I'd love to click on the graphic and see a page of information about the home with the large windows and blue couch.

Another thing I've not noticed a web site doing seamlessly is integrating the MLS search results into the graphic scheme of the site. Yours is well-done, Eric, but the width of everything below your navigation bar is wider than the nav bar. You've got a nice rounded corner effect that is interrupted by the wider square corners of the MLS data's border. (I know that's really picky.)

On your Invest page, you end with, "Please visit the Contact page to begin a dialogue with Eric regarding Austin Real Estate Investment." I'd put a button right there, too, to take visitors directly to the contact page instead of requiring them to scroll upward for the navbar.

Oops, now that I've scrolled up to find the contact page link, I see you probably mean the 'contact me' area in the left hand column. So, if by 'Contact page' you mean the area to the left, I'd mention that area instead of calling it a contact page.

At the bottom of the Southwest page, "Circle C :: Village at Western Oaks :: Travis Country :: Legend Oaks" should be clickable links as on other pages.

Again, nice site, Eric!

[ericbramlett]

You guys are awesome. This is all great feedback, and I really appreciate it. I'm putting together a punch-list to take care of all the little details that need tweaking. Obviously, the flash needs an overhaul, and I knew that the nav needed some work from looking @ the content optimization on analytics. So...what do you guys think about this:

Get rid of the top "ericbramlett.com" nav, or at least shrink it down a ton. Move the area profiles & search buttons to the left side of the flash animation. I think this would shrink the page down well, & would consolidate the nav but with good enough separation that people realize the 2 types of nav.

[ericbramlett]

Oh - Wheatworks - with the navigation & the MLS search...that really bugs me, too, but until I go with a hosted solution, I don't think I'll be able to fix it. I absolutely hate when things are iframed in & you end up with an internal scroll bar. The width of mlsfinder.com is wider than my nav header - the only real solution would be to go back & change the table width on every other page, & I'm not married to mlsfinder, so I think it would be a bit too much work for something that will likely change in the future.

[ericbramlett]

Let me know what you guys think of the flash now... Still contemplating the navigation. I think the biggest problem was the "hidden" search button...

www.ericbramlett.com