Hey Everyone,

I have had my website for 5 years now and have really put a lot of work into it the last 6-7 months. It is still "in the works" and I'm fully aware of that, but I'm interested to know how you feel about the layout and site navigation. The building "amenities" and "pictures" tabs will eventually all be removed. I will be adding pics of each building to the history tab in the spring. Airye Condos is sort of the prototype.

Here is my site: Adam's Website

I look forward to your feedback.

Thanks in advance!

My question would be does it generate any business? How many closed transactions a year?

I think you have too much wasted space above the fold (the page that displays without scrolling), too much header and blue space and not enough content. My attention was brought immediately to the map search and your buttons at the top barely are noticeable. Too much of your specific information is lost in your drop down navigation buttons. I couldn't find the Airye condo page that you said was your prototype until the second trip to the website. I didn't see your history tabs until the third visit. Before that I saw a search page on the home page, and later when I realized you had navigation buttons, I thought they lead to just search pages for the condos as well. The history button is not readily visible. I think you should have some history and pictures first and a link that takes you to the listing search next.

As I understand it Google does not index the pages that are lost in your drop down menus. So you won't rank for the individual condo complexes you feature. You would be better served with text links on your home page.

I think that on your home page, you should have some description of your areas and approach and perhaps have a bright "search for listings" button that takes you to a page with the search tool after they have gotten to know a little bit about who you are and what the website is about. Opening on a search map leads the visitor to believe that is all the site is about.

Listen to this advice. You only have a few seconds before they hit the back button and if they have to scroll down to find the meat of your site you are losing valuable time.

Another thing about the drop down menus is they are totally annoying and usually chase me away from a site. Your site has to be user friendly or the back button gets used.

Thanks for the feedback! Deepsea - I have gotten 2 leads in the last 2 months and they have not closed yet. I will take your advice and make some changes, thank you.

I am however ranking first and second pages for most of the buildings already.

Keep it coming, I love the tips! Thank you so much!

I agree there is not much engaging there. You should have a paragraph at the top - not a lot of words, but something. And you need to inject your personality into the site.

EVERY OTHER REAL ESTATE SITE IS THE SAME. What will make customers stay on yours and become clients?

I strongly suggest having some kind of engaging welcome message on the front page, with a Call to Action as well as a picture of yourself. Does not have to be the standard typical headshot. Do something to make your site different and appealing.

Link up a Facebook "Like" box from your Facebook page to your site to give you higher credibility. If you don't have one yet, make one specific to your niche and get as many fans of the page as possible. You can place that on the sidebar when visitors land on your page.

I agree with what's been said already so I'll try not to repeat.

I would say that the page is very busy. Too busy. There's nothing for my eyes to focus on. I read nothing at the beginning because I had no idea what to look at. I scrolled down hoping to anchor to something and I saw the map.

I then looked up, but the search area was so small and cramped because it had so many options that it turned me off immediately. As a customer, I would have left right away. I would have left even before scrolling because you made me work.

I would attempt to get rid of as many things that aren't important to a visitor who is coming for the first time. You are trying to convince them that you're site is worth their time. They will literally spend 5 seconds before moving on.

The first thing I would do is shrink your header image. Most users are on 1024x768 screen resolution. At that resolution, your header and menu take up almost half my screen. I would shrink that and give more screen real estate to the rest of the content which is the important part.

I would remove the next thing which is the request to add you to my RSS feed. If I just got here, why would that be the first thing I would do? I don't even know what your site is about.

Next is the title of Map of Saint Paul... Again, is this what you want people to see right away? I can see a map on Google. You should probably keep the h2 though since it's the title of your page. But I would change it to something catch like Find your perfect home in Saint Paul. Or something like that ;)

The next toolbar is again useless on my first visit. I would put these somewhere else.

Finally, we get to the search form and the map! I believe this is probably what you want most people to see and use on their first visit. And most of the form is below the fold, meaning I don't see it when I first load your page. I don't even see the map! If this is what you think will attract people, this area should be front and center at the top.

I also find the search form overly complicated. It also has so little room to work with that it needs scrolling. Scrolling on the window is fine, but anything internal will drive people away. Is there any way to make the search form very simple with an advanced option?

Take a look at Google. Why do people love Google? It's a blank page with their logo and a search box. That's it. (Oh, and they search results are great). They do search. They do a lot more, but that's what the majority of visitors want to do. Plus, it's also just one search box, not a bunch. They have advanced search. Most people don't even know they have advanced search. I've only used it once or twice. They concentrate on what's important. Try to do the same ;)

Hope that helps :D

I really appreciate the feedback! Thank you very much!

Nice site , good job.

I think you have a great site being put together. I've done a lot of work on websites (especially of the real estate variety) in the past 2 years so I wanted to give you some quick thoughts

What's great:
- home search on the home page
- St. Paul skyline
- blog content, local approach, images

What's not so hot:
- on the home page, their isn't much info "above the fold"
- twitter & FB buttons seem out of place at the top, I see you're using Wordpress, you should check out some of the solutions that create a bar on the side of the content area that scrolls with the user
- your contact info is hard to see on the side, I would consider increasing the font size a bit, and make your phone number more prominent

Otherwise it looks like your site is coming along great - and good choice on Wordpress as the foundation.

Hi Adam. I just checked out your website and I think it's okay. For me, it's organized and easy to navigate. Moreover, it provides relevant information for would-be clients. I've been to many websites that sell condos, but they don't really give much information so I end up not contacting them anyway. Good job on your site!

Thanks RTChris, I totally agree with this. I just added the buttons over the weekend and I'm not sure how to move them quite yet. Working on that. Thanks for the additional feedback as well, much appreciated!

So you're saying that you liked the information provided about the buildings?

Adam, I remembered the "scrolling bar" I was talking about. It's a free plugin from Wordpress called the Sharebar. I wanted it on my site but it messed with some of the Javascript and CSS so I discontinued it.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar/