Link: http://www.albany-ny-homes.com/

Please take a few moments to check out the site and let me know what you think works and doesn't work for you. Looking for tips to make this site more appealing and to turn visitors into contacts.

Hi Jon:

Wanted to help you by answering your post about checking out your site.

Fist off-- excellent choice in products!! There is not a more powerful set of tools on the planet than those. I hope you donated? :-) Did you pick that combination or do you have a consultant? I'll talk about the versions of those products towards the end.

Over all, it looks good. Great colors, easy on the eyes. Has a professional look.

For the things that could be improved:

* I was a little lost just trying to create an account. It wasn't clear to me as to how to do it on the front page (you're missing the register link next to the login). The "Sign Up is Easy" was way too far away from the login and doesn't mention "favorites." I finally found it after a second visit and scrolling way down towards the bottom left.

* When I got logged in, it was tough for me to find my favorites after I saved a home as favorite. I did not expect to find it under the "Buy" menu. Also concerning the favorites, I would have enabled it for folks who were searching but didn't have accounts, so if they were to click on the option, it would have asked them to log in. You should advertise that as a feature and make it easy to accomplish.

* It seems you have an IDX frame that points to your MLS (FNISMLS) with the search MLS at the top, and then you have your brokerage listings (21 of them) in a different database with the search on the right hand side. Since I'm familiar with all of those products you are using, I can tell you that most folks are going to be confused when they figure out that the the IDX home favorites are a different group of favorites than the CMSR favorites. This will be very confusing and will lead them to believe their favorites have been lost. Have you considered a custom IDX? Your MLS should offer an IDX push. That push can be pulled in to OR and you can save *all* homes as a favorite that way. The downside to doing it that way is *hardware resources* and the IDX import costs about $400 plus maybe a few hundred for the setup. Then it must be maintained. But maybe you know all of this, so I'll stop there unless you want more information.

* it seemed kind of slow. I would guess your account is with a host that is saturated with other accounts. You have at least 2 SQL databases on your account - your CMS counts as one, OR counts as two. Your setup may be a little too intense for your host. When you have tons of visitors hitting your site at once, you will see a huge bog down of your site...almost to a point where they won't stay to keep looking.

* the frame within a frame from the FNISMLS IDX is *extremely* difficult to navigate. I have to scroll down with the scroll on the immediate right, then I've got to scroll down on the far right so that I can scroll down some more on the IDX scroll. Maybe I'm impatient but, I'd never deal with that layout.

* you need to add captcha or mathguard to your contact form on your frontpage (just like the one integrated with your email agent form addon inside OR). Spambots and spammers will find it and send you lots of junk.

* there were many dead links but...maybe you haven't finished the site yet.

* time to market that thing, right? You're not on the first few pages of Google for "Albany NY real estate", although your site has been spidered. Don't forget about that part. A nice site is next to nothing if no one can find it.

* most bad news yet --- that version of CMS you are using is coming to the end of its life cycle on July 22, 2009. No more support, development, or security updates - DEAD. Did your consultant tell you that? Also, CMSR for that version of CMS will be dead soon as well (I'm involved with the newer version is how I know this).

Hope that helped. PM me for specific details.

Cheers.

I personally would be worried about having the site wide "sponsor" links hidden in the meta tags being a barrier to ranking. They are picked up by Google and would be seen as paid links and as hidden links - which Google does not like.

This is just a general observation:

For agents who’s domain name includes the name of their city it might be a good idea to put couple of large photos of their city on their homepage, in a way it is the city that you are trying to sell, especially to buyers who are from out of town. IMO


(not meant as professional or legal advice)

^^^^^^^^ Agreed. I didn't do an SEO analysis on Jon's site. However, I'm not too sure Jon even knows about this. It's actually something that's base64 coded in Artio SEF. *That* product was a bad choice. I'd never use it.

FIRST, thank you all for taking some time to look it over, very much appreciated!

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"* there were many dead links but...maybe you haven't finished the site yet."

Where are you finding the bad links???
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I know the versions of products are getting old, just need some time to update them both, not fun doing that part
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I think I might remove the whole login idea until I get a complete IDX solution hooked up. The OR login is kinda pointless since there are less than 30 listings. And IDX solutions are expensive. Think I might go with the top producer idx to hook it into my contacts solution.
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The webhost is very slow, I assume they have lots of people on this server. Can I demand a level of service from them or can they simply say it's because of my website and the applications if uses?
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Keyword I'm going for is Albany NY Homes. Looks pretty good on Yahoo, I think on page one or 2 in Google. Albany County NY real Estate is top in Yahoo.
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The SEF component used was free, in turn they put links in the html, crap, I know. I should just buy the commercial version.
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Good idea, should put some Albany pics on home page.
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Thanks again!

Hi Jon: -- You're welcome. On to answering your questions:

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Deadlinks: It appears your Rok Content Rotator is either 1. cranking out the wrong URL (href="#"), or 2. you didn't put a correct link in the setup, or 3. something else is trampling it but the following just show http://www.albany-ny-homes.com/# as their reference in both Firefox 2.0.0.15 and IE 7.0.6
FREE Book
Your Home Value
Buy with ZERO Down
Preferred Buyers
Sell for Top $$$

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Versions getting old:
I would be most concerned with security. That site can be quite easily hacked. You may want to download a top notch backup utility, and run backups daily (both site and databases) just in case it happens to you.

EDIT: Important note: If you use a CMS based backup, it does not know about your OR SQL database and so it will not back it up. You'll have to do that one manually (whichever method you use to access your databases). Don't wait until something bad happens before you start doing backups. Do it now.

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I would *keep* the whole login idea, and add to its functionality. This is what separates you from every other Joe Real Estate site out there. Keep up the good work. Top Producer IDX can't touch the power you have with the software you are using. The downside is - you will need expertise to harness it. You can do so much more than what Top Producer IDX can offer. Whatever you decide, I wish you the best.

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Your web host: I didn't dig deep enough to figure out who your host is. But if it's an over saturated one (and those companies do serve a purpose...thing is they are not equipped for what you are trying to accomplish) then you would have nothing to show for any demands...not even upgrading your account. You'd need a host that specializes in handling multiple SQL databases for real estate use. They aren't cheap.

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Keywords: I'd challenge you to do a little more research on your choice of keywords.

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SEF component: You can easily uninstall the one you have (go in to your directories and make sure the component and all of its parts are deleted) and simply install sh404. It's "free" too. Sh404 doesn't do any of that sneaky ad spam mess that your current choice does. Then buy the commercial version of sh404 (or just donate).

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Go easy on the pics. They don't increase your ranking. If you do add a pic or two, make sure you strategically edit the ALT tags.

I wouldn't do activerain. Every Realtor and his brother is doing that. Don't bounce your users around from site to site. You can easily do your own with your setup, and have the benefit of it being on *your* site.

There are a *lot* of good ideas on your site: social boookmarking, latest news, RSS, favorites, user accounts, sitemap. And again, it looks very professional to me. You just need to work out the stuff already mentioned. It won't be easy but...you are welcome to tap me on the shoulder if you need help.

Kind regards.

Hi Jon, I think it is nice. One suggestion would be adding your photo to the site. I think it can add some personal touch and trust.

Site not working? Parked at GoDaddy?

I don't see anything on that link except ads. ???