Thread: My new site (review)

kirk-realtor.com

Please guid me with any comments that you might have. I created this site with joomla and open-realty cms. I have many components installed and I am thinking of incorperating a handyman forum for tips around the house.

I am working on seo right now and could use some tips.

Are you a handyman or a realtor? Personally, when I pay good money to hire a realtor, I don't want him to be busy with other things such as handyman duties. My realtor needs to be an expert and also available when I need him.

I think you are too wide in your focus on the website. I don't think I would trust a realtor that "may not be that good at real estate so he has to do handyman work on the side." You may be the greatest realtor out there, but I don't get that from your site.

The best thing you can do is focus your business and website on a niche real estate market. When people searching for thermal expansion tanks find your site, they will be confused at the realtor info. When people looking for a realtor find your site, they will be confused by the handyman info...which means low lead capture.

If you really want to pursue both, I would have 2 different websites. That way you can tailor each site to a niche market (especially your RE site...you should try to write it as specifically as you can to your niche) and capture more leads.

Good luck!!

Thanks for the input it was great advice. I am going to build a seprate site for my handyman work. Take another look at my realtor site after I took out the handyman information. kirk-realtor.com

I think that I am on track now. My alexa ranking has gone up. I need to work on my google PR. Do you have any recomendations?

Thanks,Kirk

Hey Kirk,

OK...it is great that your site is more real estate focused. However, here are some of my thoughts:

With all of my real estate experience, I still get excited about what's happening every day in the Columbus real estate market.

The above is the main headline of your homepage. As a visitor to your site, my first reaction is "So what...what's in it for me?" Everything on your site should be written with the above statement in mind. Use as much "you and your" as you can. Limit the amount of "I, me, my, etc."

I would remove the picture of yourself from the homepage (again, your visitors don't care) and maybe create a nice about me page where you can put the picture.

You site also has no uniform look to it. The headlines are in different sizes and colors depending on the page. You also have Handyman/Realtor on the bottom of at least one page (I forgot which one).

Of course, because you are a realtor and not a writer, the writing could be better and have a more sensible flow. For example, I thought your Home Builders page was targeted at the builders until I was halfway down the page.

My 2 most important suggestions would be, first, to focus your writing towards the visitor. Think about it from their point of view "What's in it for me?" Your writing should be heavy on the benefits.

My second suggestion would be to focus on a niche; then you can write your marketing materials directly to that niche. Michael Russer, RE marketing guru, says you can eliminate 98% of your competition this way. I agree because the idea of a niche is a basic marketing principal. No matter what business you are in, focusing on a niche will always earn you more business.

There are other issues with the site but that's all I have time for now. I hope you take my advice as constructive criticism and not a slam on your site.

Good luck!

Evy
www.elsvirtualsolutions.com

Your site seems to be based on openrealty package. It is probably a newer version than I've been using but it is usually full of useful features.

I would strongly advise you to clean up your URLs. Most common way of doing it is mod-rewrite and you might even find out that someone has already done it for openrealty

Also ensure that each page has unique titles. You seem to be using the same page title for all your pages.

Lastly, the indetation on some of the pages doesn't look tidy.

Good luck with your site.