Katy Texas Real Estate Site - Would Love Input

[runaustin]

Hello:

I would love input on a new site I just finished for my sister. I'm about to remove the free HAR mls feed and replace it w/ wolfnet b/c that's the only company in Houston I can use w/o paying huge fees to HAR with.... So - soon we will have a better forced registration but......

I would love to get yall's feedback on what we've done already!!!

Here it is: www.angelakhomes.com

[runaustin]

Hum.... I was hoping for a 'little more' feedback than that Does this mean that nobody likes it or that there's nothing that nobody hates on it?

Haha - anyhow - any feedback is great and very appreciated!

[Bill Tarling]

Just some very quick notes:

1) The text header is an image only (so any of the words such as "Realtor" are completely lost for ranking value) -- the search engines can't read the text when it's an image.

2) No branding. For marketing, you need a visual logo so that potential customers can quickly identify and recognize you. Since you only have text in the header, there's no branding recognition. Include a smaller version of your logo at the bottom of the page for re-branding impressions -- especially needed since you have so many very long scrolling pages.

As well, since your industry is only identified in the 2nd line (and it's in an even smaller font size), first visual impression is that the site has something to do with 'Dreams' as a first impression.

3) Page scroll length is too long compared to main content. You have a lot of sidebar material, but the main content area often end way way up the page.

4) Copyright notice should read: Copyright © [year range] [company] - All Rights Reserved

eg: Copyright © 2010-2011 Katy Real Estate - All Rights Reserved

Because your current header is just an image, even your company name isn't being seen by search engines unless it's actually in the content text.

5) Your sidebar navigation ('Search Tools', 'Neighborhoods', 'Foreclosures', etc) are all images -- so keyword values are lost.

As well, since the sidebar is the only place to click to the pages (unless you scroll way down to the bottom of the pages and search through the long list of footer URLs), you're losing a lot of user stickiness and conversion potential.

Since these are major sections you want users to look through, it's critical to include them in the top navigation as well. Consider using drop down navigation for sections/sub-sections if needed.

6) In the individual property listing pages, the only way back for potential customers to look at other properties is to start all over again or use their 'back button' on their browser.

It's imperative to make navigation as easy as possible for users (and each has their own preferred way of wandering through sites). If one property caught their attention, you don't want them looking at one listing and then getting frustrated because the have to start again way back.

Try one of the properties in your "Foreclosure" listing as a example... look at a property, then click the breadcrumb nav back one section -- it actually takes you back to the start. If a user was looking at one of the listings on page 5, they would then have to re-navigate back to that page just to see if something else catches their attention.

Users can become frustrated very quickly and likely just leave to look elsewhere (other sites). You always want to keep user stickiness in mind for marketing and conversion improvements

7) "Google optimized website..." -- okay, this one has me really confused because it definitely isn't optimized (or at least not yet).

Relevancy levels for your Title and Meta tags are low (downgrading ranking potentials in a number of ways).

Clicking your "Contact Me" page -- look at the page title at the top of the browser... it only reads "Contact Me". Even if somehow that page did get indexed or ranked, there's little chance a user would bother clicking to it in a search because they wouldn't even know what (or why) the search engine listing would even be going to (no name, company, or anything else). It also contains no company name branding.


8) Far too many bottom text nav links. It looks like there are all kinds of other pages, but you don't even see that unless you read all the links. If the pages or sections are important, include them in the top nav or drop down in the top nav.

Use the bottom footer text navigation to lead to all your main sections only. You can also use alternate versions of keyword targets. For instance, if you had "Search Properties" in the top navigation, you might put and alternate "Property Search" as the bottom footer link. That will also help gain both singular and plural versions (Property/Properties) for search engine ranking strength.

9) Again, with the branding: you have less than 8 seconds to catch a user's attention, and for them to identify what the site is about. They won't land on a page and sit there to read the header. You must make it immediately visible that your site is about houses, realty, etc.

10) A lot of your content page text is too blocky as long paragraphs. Reading articles, people will use their finger to keep their place -- but on screens/monitors, they skim read. As a rule of thumb, see where you can split long paragraphs into shorter sections. Often you can split a paragraph after each 2nd or 3rd sentence within the paragraph.

If a user just sees long paragraphs or blocks of text, they'll skip over a lot of it.



Hope some of the feedback helps. I know it's a lot to take in (and that was just from a quick look at the site), but always think in terms of making of user stickiness [encouraging them to stay and explore the site more], and conversion potential [giving them fewer reasons to leave without exploring further.]

[Nottinghamrealty]

Nice choice of colors, pages load fast, maybe add idx so visitors can search mls listings from site

[JohnWoodward]

It's a very attractive page with good colors and layout. I would emphasize the ability to search and find homes. I think that is why people come to look at sites in the first place. I don't think they care much about who we are initially so give them what they want. If you can get a few areas that are popular and set up some links to those sorts of pages with a "taste" of the current inventory, I think that would be helpful.

Good luck