I have a team website that has been created thru a Century 21 web template. I am still working on it, but could use some input.

http://thec21newhorizonsrealtyteam.com

Well, it seems kind of plain. Nothing really stands out on the page. The team pictures are pretty large compared to the font and the rest of the site. It seems as if the left side menu can be larger or stand out more.

Glad your getting a website up. Have you thought about Advanced Access or some of the other vendors? Century 21 probably has a list of approved developers or you can have access to one for free just to start out.

Thanks. It is template set up and the font I can use is limited as is the layout. The first page the type is bigger, and the later pages are all small type. The only way I can sometimes get around it is to cut and paste, but even then it sometimes reconfigures it to the smaller font.

I guess we chose this one because of the low cost for now, so I am thinking of this as a starter website and when we can afford more I will contact other vendors.
I appreciate your comments and I will see what I can do to jazz it up.

Your page layout is all over the place. The last several pages are attractive and I would carry that layout throughout the site. Actually, those last page layouts are set in CSS. I can see in your first pages that you are trying to change those by overriding. Don't do that. If you want to change the layout, change your Stylesheet and it will flow throughout your site.

Your keywords realing need to be reviewed.

The first and the second pages are also preformated. The first page we add what we want to say but again can not change the font, the second is taken directly from our brokers homepage. All the following pages are the smaller font.
Thanks for the advice I will look over my keywords and change whatever I can to be more uniform.

Where's the MLS search???

99% of the people coming to your website want to search the MLS. Without a MLS search, people will come, and go without doing anything... we have tracked this over and over and over. Maybe 1% will stop to read the articles, but our stats show very few will do this.

[opinion]
Without a MLS search, why bother having a website?
[/opinion]

She has one, Greg, but it goes to some other website. This site will take a lot of work. Not to be negative, but it would be easier to get a template site.

Am I blind? I just don't see it... Here's the menu:

Home
Office Profile
About Us
On YOUR side
Prepare to Sell
Buying tips
Local Info
Financing
Free Links
Contact Us

I just don't see a MLS search, so it must be buried on an internal page, which visitors will not take the time to try an find. There are 1,000's of websites out there they can use, you have about 5 seconds to capture their attention.

Do a search on her page for "MLS" or "search MLS". It's not a menu, it's a link in the middle.

the MLS link basically says here, try another Realtor.

Yikes... like anyone is going to "search" for the MLS link.

Here are a couple of points to ponder.

- Consistancy is key -
You want to keep a consistant font, including size and font family. Also you want to keep the layout of your pages consistant throughout. This will help your users feel comfortable on your site, as well as asisting them to find the information they are looking for with minimal effort

- Keep No More than 3 Points of Interest -

You never want to have more than 3 areas on each page that draw your users eye. Users do not want to be overwhelmed with information, or visual distractions. I mention this as I feel that the images that you have on your first page should be made consistant in size, so your users eye is not forced to scan multiple places.

- Image quality -

It is my opinion that if you are going to post an image on your site, it should be of the highest quality. Lets face it, users like to view images that look nice. If you have an image and it is a bit fuzzy, then it will detract from the overall look and feel of the page. For example the picture on the first page of your site for Eileen Scheiner, is fuzzy. It throws the entire page off. Its like when you are presenting a home to a potential buyer, the first thing they see is the outside of the home. If the lawn is nice and green, but uncut, or if there are piles of garbage on the front step it will detract from the overall appearance of the home and a potential buyer might not even walk into the home. I would re-shoot the image of Eileen to get a higher quality image, and also resize all the images of the agents to be consistant.

Barbara:

Is this a ready-made site where you use your existing company's back-end (admin area) to input your content? Or is this a template where you own the image and you are working in say a FrontPage-type program?

If it's a ready-made site where you're using their admin... I'd suggest contacting them to see if they could advise you how to get control over the fonts. Maybe there's something that you can do and simply haven't seen the answer.

As for the site itself. The header is nice and it's good to have your photos. I agree that you should be able to link directly from your homepage to your own MLS link that doesn't leave your site - you'll lose your visitors.

Also, the text spacing on the homepage kills a lot of your 'web real estate' (pun, not necessarily intended ). When a browser opens to your site the visitor mostly sees That's nice, however it would be nicer if the spacing was closer and you had a 'eye-grabbing' statement that invites your visitors to learn more about your agency and discover why *you* are the agents for them.

As for costs...Maybe one of us web geeks can offer to help you to give you the look that you need at a reasonable, budget-friendly cost.

Any of us could save you time and give you the image you choose to project. I'm not sure what your budget is, but I would be willing to look at your current template back-end to see what can be done to make it work for you. My email is info@realtysites2go.com.

Hope this helps!

check out point2agent - its free, and if you want to upgrade you can at any time from $40 a month. Drop me a email if you want an invite.

The first thing that struck me is the redundancy of the "Key" logo on the home page. It's just a minor visual flaw. But, this is especially noticable when one graphic is just above the other.

Why try to recreate the wheel? Point2 has ton's of things going for it, including the ability to use whichever IDX feed(s) your board supports.

Best of all, the Standard version of Point2 is FREE ... always FREE - no setup, no monthly fee(s). By modifying the basic free version (completely editing / modifying each page, adding new content) have achieved page one Google SERPs for dozens of keyword phrases in my market.

Check out the features:

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Aside from the comments above, there were a few things that jumped out at me on the home page.

Why is the site set up to redirect from the root domain to "home.html"? Your main (home page) should be "index.html". Search engines don't like meta redirects.

Having the centered text on the left side looks odd.

I must be blind - I don't see any listings or the MLS.

Clean, to the point, who needs Flash-y stuff?

Just get rid of double key image and big improvement.

_______________________
http://registryline.com

Barbara, you can change your font sizes/styles by editing this file:

http://thec21newhorizonsrealtyteam.com/main.css

Contact me off-list if you need help.
Suzanne

RealtorBarbaraT:

Tdothosting has a easy to use sitebuilder software create professional looking website in just 1 2 3 steps email info[@]tdothosting.com for more information.

the techs are great and so is the customer service team

I am always amazed at what agents believe
to be the benefit of a site like this that is obviously lackluster.

What is your objective with this site?

Take the time to invest 5k in a site that
will bring leads and business.

I'm sure you've heard enough by now. It needs work. Plain. To Wordy. Not friendly enough to the consumer. It's better than not having one. Have you thought about having someone do it for you. You are after all a real estate agent. What tracking features does your site offer? I know someone offered you a free point2 site already. Take it. Play with it and get a little more serious. by the way not enough function for the consumer to search more listings and where are your listings.

Free point2 site

http://agent.point2.com/selfreg/ColdwellBankerJohnstonSelfReg.asp

It's easy as pie!

Just out of curiousity there Thomas, how does the 'Tominator' monikor perform in light of Arnold's lacklustre performance on the political front?

Since I have been really busy with other aspects of RE ( making money), I have had no time to put into the site, so until the contract runs out, I am most likely not making any changes. Plus one of the team may drop out, so we have to make a considerable amount of change when and if that does happen.

So thanks for the advice, when I get around to either changing hosting companies or updating it, I will take your suggestions into consideration.


I do not mean to sound like I am ungrateful, I really do appreciate your suggestions.