New LEC2 Live Review Me!

[Ryan Ward]

First, I want to thank Morgan, Jamie, Michael, Irene and everyone else at REW. You guys have been amazing to work with.

So here is the site: www.ryanwardrealestate.com

It's the new LEC 2 with different colors and streetview.

I expanded the number of pages on my site so be sure to click the "Local Area Index" and "Contact Us" to see how they operate.

I've added a zip code search in the navigation bar with popular zips on the page and will continue to add, but, want the site fully indexed before I add more pages.

I'm going to add a "Popular Searches" to the Nav bar also; this will work for two things, internal linking and directing people to areas that we specialize in a little bit more. Thoughts on this?

I'm elliminating my WordPress blog and will be using the REW blogging platform. I'm pretty finicky so I may have quite a few customizations here. In the future.

The site is live for about 30 minutes so I need to get in the back end and work the Control Panel, set up an autoresponder about the control panel and so on...

I would love to hear some feedback on the layout of the homepage. specifically what I did with the 2 columns directly under the featured listings. These are two columns that I can pretty much do what I want with and with so much search capability around the site, I though I would go after sellers with a couple of homemade buttons as attention grabbers and some basic market stats.

I'm also curious of what anyone might think about having snippets on the homepage and don't forget to make sure that you check the thumbnail and classic view.

The site has a lot if "stuff" and return users will find something new on several subsequent visits. For example, click the "Sign up for your free account" button. Stuff moves. It feels interactive.

OK, I could go on, but, I'll stop...for now.

[MikeNY]

As Paris Hilton would say "That's Hot".

I think it looks great, the Local Area Index and Contact Us are they "spiderable" the links that show up when we click it? Also when you scroll over the menu that is called suckerfish drop downs? if so those are also able to be reached by the search engine spiders? I really like how I do not have to click much and just mouse over the various menu items and the drop downs appear and I am curious if it would be wise to also add that feature to the Local Area Index and Contact Us links as many people may not even hit those but an accidental mouse over pops up some nice surprises for them.

Your other site is gone, or your still have the other blue REW site you used to have?

The 2 columns look fine, do you have the option to make it 1 wide column or it must always be 2?

Snippets on the main page is fine but I would limit it do 5 listings when they click the classic view so it does not make the page go one forever. I would also add the "next page" and/or page 2,3,4,5 etc like it does on the top, it is missing from the bottom of the last listing and I think it would be important to have it there where the web visitors are looking when they are looking to go to the next page. Same goes for adding those under the thumbnail view. The thumbnail view with 8 listings is perfect and takes up minimal space.

When you click the Sign up for Free Account, that is awesome.

I like the fact that you can hide the slide show but since I am a fan of pushing the 'good stuff" to the top of the page at the immediate eye level when a visitor hits your page I would eliminate it completely but that is just my preference. Maybe replace it with a 2-3 sentence introduction.

Does the control panel come standard on LEC2's or is that an upgrade?

Looks good and looking forward to any update you give us on its performance over the next few weeks and months.

Lastly do you get the option to remove the REW logo? if so what about removing any reference to REW on the bottom of the view detail listings page? I see it there still.

[Ryan Ward]

Thanks Michael,

Area Index is spiderable, dropdowns as well (view the source code)...

Blue site is gone! So is the #1 ranking Atlanta real estate blog!

So, too many listings...I get that. I may need to adjust it some...

Control Panel is Standard - Streetview was an add on.

[webmaster]

Well the LEC 2.0 design / architecture is my baby, so I really don't have to many bad things to say about it So I guess I will just review some of the implementation on it in terms of content etc.

H1 - H2 heigh redundancy

You have the following:

Atlanta Real Estate & Atlanta Homes For Sale (heading)
Featured Listings (Featured listngs heading)

You can edit the H2 of the featured listings, so I would recommend combining these 2 into just one line for the featured listings OR remove the H2 from the featured listings snippet (You probably want to take the second option to keep the H1 - so basically you probably would just get rid of the featured listings H2 from the snippet altogether.

Your headline for the search options - They aren't really "quick searches" (this confused me) really they are different search types available at a glance - might want to take advantage of this from an SEO standpoint and perhaps rewrite it to say something like "Atlanta home search options - detailed property searches by:" this way you get atlanta in there with home and search as well as property without it sounding to spammy (I am not a writer so feel free to rework) but you get the idea, it is a natural keyword opportunity.

Use of the 2 column snippet on the homepage - great concept, poor implementation (sorry) - there is nothing worse (personal opinion) in implementing graphics on a custom site and having them create the perception that they were an afterthought, or just taken from somewhere on the web (clipart) and stuck on the page. I know you created these buttons yourself, but I am talking about how it makes me as a user feel. For the market stats, that actually doesn't look to bad at all but the centered disclaimer underneither could probably be formatted in a better way. Also the buttons underneath, both are linked - but only one goes anywhere (they both should) and the "learn more" and "monthly snapshot" calls to action could probably be worded differently to entice better clickthrough - "Want your home sold fast - click here" or something that would fit and maybe "How these stats effect YOU" I don't know once again just writing out loud here.

The rest of the content "meh" it's long (not always a bad thing), and probably mostly for SEO so I won't get into it to much. One resource I think ALL REW customers should bookmark is www.copyblogger.com - there is a nice comment about long pages here: http://www.copyblogger.com/seal-the-...-landing-page/

"You can write long copy as long as it’s tight. I always err on writing a little long on the first drafts because it’s easier to edit down than to pad up skimpy copy. Your reader will read long copy as long as you keep building a strong, motivating case for him/her to act."

Anyways, there is my 2 cents this evening Looking good kid (You've come a LONG way)

[webmaster]

To answer your branding question Mike - no LEC's cannot remove the credit for work link to REW - that's only something fully custom websites may request.

[Ryan Ward]

Yeah, I need to work on the two column section and I have some ideas for the page I will create for the market stats but I needed to have the site live for a while before I figured out how I wanted to format a "Statistics page". I've been working with some really really cool flash/interactive graphs for a few months, but, I haven't yet implemented it.

I'm not crazy about the "Better Marketing" and "Better Results" graphics, but, I need something visual to draw a sellers eye to that side of the page. They would probably look better if they were just like the "Search" button in the quick search. I'll play with it a few different ways.

Good call on the featured callout box - language changed.

Content is really just carried over. I've never been able to right this homepage.

One other thing is that all pages will eventually be built with "read more" named links like on the Alpharetta page.

[loudog]

Love the new site Ryan, you must be psyched! Always been a fan of the LECs so not much criticism to offer. I would like to mention one quickie about the blog. On your blog homepage (and many others that I have come across) there is no button or link that gives direction to the user about how to "read the full blog" or to "leave a comment". Most of us know that this is easily done by clicking on the title but when the title doesn't look like a traditional link, I think it can sometimes confuse the less savvy user.

I would add a link or button under the shortened version of the post (it is the user's natural eye track will end up anyway)

Other than that . . . sweet site. Hope it does well for you.

[Ryan Ward]

Yep I need to get a lot of work done to the blog. It needs a subscribe to comments if it doesn't have that. Needs to have a "read more" or an option for me to choose the full post instead of an excerpt (I prefer to see the whole post) and several other features. I'll be working over the blog. Coming from WP, I'm used to being able to have it do whatever I want. I'm definitely going to have some control issues, but, I intentionally went away from it, becasue I want it to be about blogging, not changing the thing. I just need a few customized options on it.

[OCTeam]

Very nice, Ryan. You always come up with some fantastic looking sites. Like the "read more" thing.

Congratulations!

[Ryan Ward]

You always come up with some fantastic looking sites.

Thank you, but, this should read "REW comes up with some fantastic looking sites....