We are going to redo our website, it needs additional features, a fresher look, better navigation and alot of SEO. Our web guy can make the changes no problem. Our biggest concerns is our users.

We have the standard group of buyers and sellers that visit the site while they are in the market. We also have a large group of hard core users that repeatedly visit the site. The last group is the real estate agents that advertise on the site. Eash group is important. In the past, the hard core user and some agents have resisted change. Past changes have resulted in emails complaining about the change and asking us to keep the old look.

We can make the changes two way: 1)all at once, 2)a series of small changes the end with the new site. I am interested in hear the opinions of the REW member on the best way to manage the change. So what do you think?

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Neal M
Jackson MO Real Estate, Festus MO Real Estate, Cape Girardeau Real Estate
HouseViewOnline™ is southeast Missouri’s leading site for touring real estate online. See 100’s of properties from Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Perryville & Sikeston Missouri. Properties are displayed in photos taken by our professional photographer. We are proud to work with Realtors and real estate agents through out SE Missouri.

When I converted my website from Point2 to REW, I retained my same IDX plug-in. The consumers didn't miss a beat.

Converting to a totally different IDX (in my case, to REW custom IDX) would be a lot harder for long time consumer users to swallow. So my plan is to support both for a time, with a search page for legacy users that is my old IDX plug-in, that they can still use if they wish, while I gradually get the active users converted and used to the new custom IDX features.

My 2c worth:

If it were me, I would bring up a new domain and develop the new site as a secondary/additional site (for the time being) while you get the new look and feel how you and your customers are most comfortable.

While bringing it up, place links to the new site with some of the new features that are not on the orginal site. Ask your visitors for input, and develop it with them.

As the new site develops and you get feedback from your loyalty base, you can judge (without losing customers and support) what their likes and dislikes are and adjust the new site accordingly. Eventually, you can either keep both sites live, or move the new site to the original domain.

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I'm not Jennifer... I'm Jessie : Panama City Beach Real Estate, Panama City Real Estate and Panama City Beach Condos