DenverLoft.Com – Website reDesign for Marketing Results Package…

DenverLoft.Com

Another Website reDesign for Marketing Results Package…GlennPomeroyRealtor.Ca

1.  Goal: More visitors and leads.

The reason you’re redesigning your website is to increase conversion rates, and this is achieved through content, conversion tools, etc.  The icing on the cake would then be a nice pleasing website “surround” for the viewer.  Focus on the infamous phrase ”what’s in it for me (the viewer)?” (WIIFM), not a nicely redesigned “look” but the same stagnate content.   

2.  Avoid pitfalls. 

Your existing website has a lot of assets that you have built up.  These assets help your prospects find your website and help you turn them into leads and clients.  You need to find out what these assets are (great content, keywords you rank for, inbound links to individual pages, conversion tools) and protect them carefully during a redesign.

3. Spend resources on remarkable content that attracts and converts.  Not expensive design. 

The design should be pleasing and layout user-friendly, but that does not mean expensive.  Focus on the content of the website for conversion.  Allot more of the budget for content and conversion tools and less for design.

4. Create an ongoing content building strategy.

If you have more content, on average you will have more website visitors and grow your business faster.  A 100 page website will beat a 10 page website 90% of the time.  So build a strategy to continue to add more and more content to your website over time.  Blogging makes creating content easy.

5. Enable conversion experiments.

The key to driving your conversion rate and the number of leads you get from your website over time is to constantly improve the effectiveness of your conversion tools – this usually means your landing pages.  If you build a completely static website and have to go to a consultant or IT person each and every time you want to set up a new landing page or to change an existing page, you might be limiting your ability to quickly experiment and improve.  

6. Include a blog, RSS, landing pages, SEO

Any website built today should include these basics.

Website (re)Design for Marketing Results Package…

A complete design/management package for small to medium-sized businesses - you just handle the sales and leads!

Monthly Payment Plan Available…we know times are tough and want to provide you everything you “need” and “want” in one monthly payment – design fees are averaged into the monthly fee (one year contract applies) - if you choose to continue beyond the first year, payment will be reduced as design fees will be paid in full at this time.

Monthly Services Include - Website Maintenance, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Google Analytics Report, Bounce Rate, Link Building, Link Exchange, Internet Marketing, Reputation Mgmt.

PageRank is nothing but the measure of a website’s visibility over the web. So the only way to get a higher PageRank is by getting some quality backlinks to your website. One very important factor to keep in mind is the fact that Google is against attempts made by webmasters to unnaturally increase their PageRanks.

This means Google is against link farms, link selling and any other practice which has been specifically developed to increase the PageRank of a website in an unnatural manner. Google considers such attempts as a manipulation of its ranking algorithm and can even penalize websites found guilty. Google clearly explains this on its website.

One easy way of generating links in involves searching the internet to find relevant sites that are either vertically or horizontally related and asking them for a link exchange. Links ‘brought in’ in this manner are more effective and can help successfully increase the PageRank. In addition to getting links from websites, getting links from quality directories is another way to increase your link popularity.

You can also generate inbound links through article submission and press releases among others.  You can also carry out a Link Exchange Program through your website.  We offer catered Link Exchange Programs for Point2 Agent Websites.  These can be expensive depending what the client can do vs what they need us to do.

Link Exchange Programs for Point2 Agent Websites

Visit our Facebook Fan Page Wall and Become a Fan! 

Don’t miss out on the goodies we’re compiling for real estate agents!

Some of the goodies include:

ClustrMaps for Websites (map of visitor locations)
Free IDX Solution for Realtor Websites
School Map Widget for Websites
Free Animated .gif’s for Websites
Free Chat for Websites

…and more!

Click Here to Visit Our Fan Page Wall – Become a Fan!

Bercu Homes  – upgraded Point2 Agent Website, Custom Facebook Fan Page (FBML) and Wall, Active Rain Header and Background, monthly SEO/maintenance services…

Active Rain Header and Background ($99)…

Custom Facebook Fan Page ($275)…

Customized Facebook Fan Page Wall ($100)…

Custom Twitter Background ($59)…

Next Generation Realty Group
Naples FL Real Estate
Point2 Agent Web Design
View Point2 Agent Web Design Portfolio

When the new content editor came out a while back, I noticed the “title” tags for images was replacing whatever we had in the “alt” tag section.  The alt tag is what the viewer sees when they mouseover the graphic.

Now…it seems that the alt tags aren’t even being seen anymore and you “must” fill in the title tag to be used as the alt tag.

This is only happening for images that are linked to something.

So check your websites!

I was asked for a “key component” comparison between Point2 Agent and Ultra Agent – just thought I’d share…

CUSTOMIZATION –

Point2 Agent – With Point2 you really don’t have a choice of “modern” themes, they’re all outdated and you’re “forced” to customize or hire a designer if you’re unable to customize your own site.   Limitless customization is becoming “Limited” for those who use stylesheets.  We just had a client who used another designer to create a stylesheet for her website.  They also included a customized “Featured Listing” area.  However, since Point2 made changes to their platform, she could no longer see certain functions within her website to be able to change out the featured listings.  She was stuck with 2 of the same featured listings until we got in there and broke the site down to create the customization within her content instead of a stylesheet.  Keep in mind, the stylesheet “effect” is different than a stylesheet hosted elsewhere and taking over Point2′s platform for your website.

Ultra Agent – Nice modern themes, so you’re not forced to customize and can focus on SEO and site content (text and graphics) and you can send in replacement header graphics at no charge for their team to integrate for you.

LISTING DISPLAY –

Point2 Agent – Uses their network listings to display listings and for searches. For the syndication, you have to enter your listings into both your MLS and Point2 Agent – they’re 2 separate databases.

Ultra Agent – Feeds directly from your MLS listings.

BLOGGING –

Point2 Agent – Blogging platform is not very user-friendly or viewer-friendly.  There’s no automatic way to get back to the website from the actual blog.  Bringing in a graphic for a post requires a URL of the graphic location – it doesn’t let you search your desktop for the image.  It’s still in beta. 

Ultra Agent – Blogging platform on Ultra Agent coming in October 2009 – it may or may not be more user-friendly than Point2, but we’re still suggesting clients use both Active Rain and WordPress, along with whatever comes with your website.

COST –

Point2 Agent – $49.95/month for Professional level which is what you need to activate the blog and customize it beyond the template.

Ultra Agent – $24.95/month

SYNDICATION -

Great syndication for both.

I happened to be in a Point2 Agent website tonight making some updates when I noticed that the client’s two featured listing modules were showing the same listing. 

This client had her site designed by another designer who had customized the featured listing modules. 

The 2 featured listing module settings were at the bottom of the home page in edit mode for updating, and the actual featured listings show up in the right column where they normally do. 

So to update them, all we had to do was visit the 2 features at the bottom of the page to change listings that showed and they would automatically appear in the right column in her site.

When I went to the bottom features to fix them, I noticed that the text links to “add/edit featured listings” is no longer there, along with the “edit header” and “delete” links.  So this client now has “no way” to update her featured listings on her home page.

Those of you who have custom featured listing modules and are familiar with what I’m talking about may want to check your website.  It’s Point2′s platform, and the only reason I know this is because we “were” able to change them, now we’re not.

Wanted to let you know.

I’ve had numerous inquiries from clients about the headers in the drip email campaign and wanting me to “fix them”. I was told about a year ago that Point2 Agent was working on changing the appearance of the headers in the emails generated from websites, but just tested some websites and they still look the same.

The header simply pulls in the primary, secondary, and tertiary color choices from your website options and depending on what that combination is, your drip email header may look okay, but it may not! Even if your Point2 Agent website is customized, we have no control over this feature except to change the color choices, which could then affect other areas of your website’s appearance.

I would love to see them be able to just pull in whatever custom header is within the theme – we “do” have control over this. The header within the theme is what shows up above a Point2 listing. Here’s a couple samples of the headers I just captured from drip email campaigns from a couple Point2 Agent member websites.

Now View Website

Now View Website

Now View Website

I always tell clients to “be your own prospect” – go through your Point2 agent website and request documents, fill out the calculator, request brochures for listings, etc. and see what your viewers are getting emailed to them and how it looks.

1. Will the SEO service provider share its optimization techniques with you?
   Ask them for an overview of how they achieve results. If the firm won’t give you an explanation, chances are the company is trying to hide unethical techniques.
2. Is the SEO firm putting “in-house created contact forms” in your website that are hosted on their servers?
   If so, why?  Think about it.  Those are “your” leads and you hate spam as much as your viewers do – you can never guarantee that your SEO firm feels the same way.  Even if you’re participating in any “Guaranteed Lead Capture” Program with any SEO firm, it’s always best to use the forms provided by your online website platform if you’re using one.  If you need more than one recipient so your SEO firm can track leads on their end, we highly recommend www.wufoo.com  (have been using their forms since 2005) or any other online company that specializes in custom form creation – this way you’re still in complete control of your leads and prospect information – and know that names in your database are not being sold to a third party.  If you choose “anything” other than your online website platform’s form choices, you “will” have the responsibility of exporting / importing any database contacts from your form host into your online website platform database or whatever lead management database you’re using.
3. Is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) part of the SEO firm’s strategy?
   Optimization results should not rely on PPC. Performance results for organic optimization and PPC should be evaluated separately.
4. Can the SEO firm guarantee your site will not be penalized and/or removed from the search engines and directory indexes?
   By using unethical techniques, many SEO firms may produce short term results, but in the long run will end up getting a client’s website penalized or even banned from being indexed by the major search engines.
5. Does the SEO firm optimize more than your homepage – if so, how many pages?
   A good SEO firm will maximize the number of active pages on your website. It’s more work for the SEO firm, but it will produce the greatest results for YOU.
6. Does the SEO firm provide an unrealistic guarantee?
   Any SEO company that guarantees a specific position (like number one or two) on Google or Yahoo are being dishonest. It is impossible to guarantee specific positions on search engines.
7. Are automated submission tools used or are all submissions processed manually?
   Automated tools can often lead to penalization and result in your site being excluded from the search engines.
8. If the plan includes link building, is the firm using a link farm?  Or is it contracting sites individually and concentrating on link reputation more than link popularity?
   Soon websites linked to and from link farms will be penalized and banned from the major search engines.
9. Does the firm’s technique involve showing one page to the visitor and a different page to the search engines?
   If the answer is yes, then you are probably dealing with a search engine optimization provider that uses “cloaking” techniques. Many search engines specifically warn against this practice in the organizations’ terms of service. Google is particularly harsh on sites that use cloaking, and is known to remove them entirely when it finds them.  This falls under “Black Hat SEO Practices”

I’m noticing it’s referencing “Woodstock Georgia” on these 2 pages, so make sure you make it your city and state.

Just wanted to let you know to be aware of it.

If you’re new to Point2 and just generated your website, you’ll want to know that some of the images that are old stock images have been removed from Point2’s servers, so if you go to your home page or the Home Styling page, for example, and just click on edit content, the minute you get into the content boxes, the images disappear. 

Wanted to let you all know and be aware.  I can only imagine what’s going through new members’ minds when they get into the site and images just disappear!  Don’t fret…they’re old images anyway and you can choose from the Point2 image gallery or insert your own. 

If you’re a Standard member, you may not notice this after the home page.  Professional/Premium members will notice this more since there’s more pages in the site.

I’ve noticed over the last couple of months that when the stylesheet effect is in a Point2 Agent website, listings in “detailed” view, which used to be expandable to fit the page or retractable, are no longer expandable…if you have a lot of details included in the view, it just goes on and on.

I’m not noticing it happening in any Point2 Agent websites that do not have the stylesheet effect, so I’ve been able to narrow it down to the stylesheet effect.

Other things I’ve noticed…

1. Things are skewed in edit mode – meaning the content boxes seem to fall outside of the stylesheet, but in view mode, it’s fine.
2. You will probably see the logo falling way outside the stylesheet margins in edit mode, but it’s fine in view mode.

Any of you been in your Point2 Agent website and tried to change the font face or size only to find it’s just not taking?  You’ll either see it’s just not changing or it seems to change and seems fine in edit mode, but doesn’t look the same in view mode (even after the hour it takes to show up “live” in Point2)?????

I originally posted an article in A/R discusssing the new content editor and some were finding a problem back then as well.  Click here for the A/R article.

When speaking with Point2, they advised it had to do with the “stylesheet effect” snippet of code that’s in a lot of Point2 Agent websites to give it that “centered” look. 

This is the code I’m talking about:

<STYLE type=text/css>
<!–
form {
margin-top: 5px;
background-color : #ffffff;
}

.DesktopDefaultPage { background-color : #c9e4ff; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 820px; padding-left: expression(document.body.clientWidth > 820 ? (document.body.clientWidth-820)/2 + “px”:0); padding-right: expression(document.body.clientWidth > 820 ? (document.body.clientWidth-820)/2 + “px”:0); } 
 

.DesktopPortalFooterPanel {
background-color : #FFFFFF;
} –>
</STYLE>

However, it’s not just in these sites that I’m seeing the problem.  I’ve also noticed it in newly generated sites.

If any of you are noticing the same thing, please comment or contact Point2 directly via email through your website.  Let them know which page you’re working on so they can check it out.