I am a new agent, first month, and wrapping up my personal website. I was an internet sales manager in a past career, but never made my own website! There are a few things that need work IE IDX still isnt available, need more content that I am writing, and just some tweeks, but just wanted to get an idea how it looks through other peoples eyes. Thanks in advance!

Chris
www.gartenmannhomes.com

I'm working on polishing up my own website so I'm not very good at critiquing others yet... but I looked at it quickly and I thought it was laid out pretty clearly and easy to navigate. Maybe add a pic of yourself under the "About" section. Something isn't right when I clicked on the "Buyers" tab... maybe you already know that? Keep it up! I posted a comment!

Adam,
Thanks for the comment! I have been working on content for the buyer section. I had something there, just need to remove it. The widgets on the bottom will be replaced with my own, just waiting for the IDX ok to come through.I have been blogging from there, although I am not advertising the site yet, so it heads straight to my facebook page. As for the picture,just haven't had a chance to have a good one taken.

Anyone else with comments?

Easy to find your name and your contact information. Once you get IDX up you'll be looking good. I couldn't easily find where your market is though. Obviously not a problem for people seeking you out, but what about search engines crawling the site? Pepper in your most sought after keywords.

Thanks Mike. My IDX approval is here, but takes 24-48 hours for the link to be active!! I have all in one seo running with alot of regional info, but at a minimum should have it on the homepage!

Aloha Chris,

A couple of issues:

* I would move the 'property search' tab closer to the left, as we always read from left to right, it should be one of the most prominent/easy-to-find aspects of your site.

* SEO - The titles are non-descriptive. If I didn't already know who you are, I would have no idea what markets you service. Also, use meta description. Although some SEO's say it's not important, it's still an aspect that you can control. By writing a compelling description with command modifiers, you can increase your click-through rate.

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by your site, Chris. Good color scheme (easy on the eyes), easy to navigate, and digging the wide-screen format.

Best of luck.

Alex,

Thanks for the ideas!

Again, sorry we didnt catch up on our Maui trip. Proposed to the girlfriend there! Kaanapali beach made it real easy for me! Next time we are there, we would love to look at some condos near kam III!

Sounds like a plan, Chris. In the meantime, if you have any questions/issues with your site, let me know (my main emphasis is SEO).

I did have questions with the All in one SEO. What kinds of terms should I have? I have my areas included, but clearly you guys aren't seeing. I am going to ad my location to the home page, but seo wise......what food should I being putting out? Should it be each page with its own info, or have a theme through out?

Chris,

I think the site looks very good overall - professional and clean. The only things I would recommend to change would be:

- to make the main image on your home page a link (to property search?)
- take out the link in your Trulia widget that links to "Superior Real Estate" because it's hurting your SEO
- add a picture of you to the about page

For your SEO:
My guess is that you're targeting Superior CO and Louisville CO based on the Trulia widget.

- I would first head over to Google's Keyword Tool and do some searches to find out what kind of keywords people are searching for real estate in either of those 2 cities.

- as far as a "running theme" goes you might always have "REALTOR in Superior CO" at the end of the title tag of each page to help your "Local SEO"

- aside from the above note, you want to make sure each title tag is unique and only targeting 1 keyword (2 at most)

- the biggest item to help you SEO-wise is your blog, looks like you're posting regularly which is great

- when you blog about a specific property I would highly recommend adding the MLS # to the title because a lot of people search that and it's pretty easy to rank for individual MLS #s

Hope that helps.