New Site under construction

[AmistadRealEstate]

Hi all,

I posted my current site a few weeks ago kind of expecting you to agree with my views about the site already, that it is too clunky, too slow, and not that easy to navigate.

I have been working on my new site that I am hoping will resolve these issues.

There is still lots of work to complete on the website but I wanted to get your views on the homepage in its current format.

The search buttons don't actually do anything right now and the MLS is just loaded to a selection I made, it will most likely be a selection of new properties on the market or those which I feel my clients will be most interested in.

Also the site will be hosted on http://www.amistadrealtors.com, hence some links going there, even though the site is currently just hosted on a spare domain of mine.

The site works in ie, firefox and on iphone as I have tested it, and is currently XHTML valid which I intend to keep and loads in about 4 seconds according to http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com/wso although I haven't minimized much yet as I am still clearly working on the site, so I think I can get this down even quicker. This compares to about 12 or more second for my current sites on wordpress, so I am much happier.

I would greatly appreciate your views and any recommendations at this early stage. I am too tight to pay for a nicer looking IDX however this one works perfectly fine for me and gives me all the options my clients and I need.

Thanks all,

The link is - http://www.lapazbajarealestate.com

[tommytx]

Some really pretty pictures but the blank bright white screen between pix changes is very distractiing.. if you could have the new photo flow in smoothly or even slide in it would be much better... if you are in a dark room its really hard on the eyes...
But I love your pictures.....very nice.

[AmistadRealEstate]

Did you even look at the site? What pix changes? It is a static banner at the top.

[tommytx]

OOPS! Sorry I looked at hxxp://www.amistadrealtors.com/ by mistake..

[AmistadRealEstate]

Haha! Yah that site is the one I am escaping

[ChasRE]

If you click on the "Meet the Team" or "Contact Us", it says it's a broken link. Other than that, I think everything looks fine.

[sam@bcre.com]

I would add more content. The main part of the site is in an I-frame which is not the best for SEO.

[sffisher]

I 2nd the content. Need lots more on there.

[ChasRE]

I 2nd the content. Need lots more on there.

whoops, forgot about that one, you definitely need more content on there! Graphically everything is ok but 100-200 words for the main page of a website is not enough, at least through Google's eyes, and especially after the Panda update. If you are going to use your site to rank, you'll need more than that. If you just plan on giving it to clients to look at, then I think it's fine (with the exception of the broken links).

[AmistadRealEstate]

I agree on the content too, just haven't written it all yet. How many words do you feel is appropriate though, I don't want to overload it.

I see sites with next to no content on their homepage, are they really being penalized that much?

And the links aren't broken, I just haven't made pages behind them yet As I say, under construction in its early stages.

Also on the IDX point, does Google see inside the box and count that content or not. I am thinking that they do not as it is an iframe, but happy to be corrected as I am just guessing.