Watch Out for Website Disasters 

June 27, 2007
Issue #12 

Our website disaster- we are late getting out the newsletter this month, not practicing the consistency that we preach. We moved the Next Level Solutions World Headquarters. Not a huge move, but a necessary one, that threw our schedule off. OK so we moved from the smallest bedroom to a much larger bedroom but you know how moves are.  

Last month, we promised not to make this newsletter about us so we will save the exciting details of the move for another time. This month is about you. We are going to try to save you from website disasters. 

Picture this- A prime buyer thinking about transferring decides to take a peek at listings in his proposed new area. He's at work. He comes to your site So far, so good. The Office Gossip comes to his door. No problem so far. Then, the theme from Rocky starts blaring from your website. Gossip comes around the desk and sees that it is a real estate site in another city. Busted! Disaster to avoid- music playing without the visitor initiating it- think about where (like work) people may be viewing your site. 

How about this one? Serious buyer wants to find listings Googles and finds several web sites. First one he comes to YoYolanda.com* has a giant picture of YolandaYikes!...Luckily no small children were in the room. Buyer moves on. Disasters to avoid: buyer sees no listings when opening the site and it is about the agent not the buyer. No 5 x 10 pictures of you even if you are more attractive than Yolanda. *Site name changed to save the owner from utter embarrassment. 

Another real life scenario- Buyer is thinking about selling and moving up. She decides to do her research and pulls up five web sites of local agents. Four of the sites are templates with the same icons, twirly whirlies and text. Site number 5 has easy to find listings and information that she finds helpful. This disaster is called the lazy or confused lack of customization disaster. To avoid this disaster, you have to change the standard templates and add some stuff visitors can actually use that is different from everyone else. 

Im not getting any leads scenario. You've done your homeworkYou are getting visitors to your site. You have pretty good content. You have listings readily available on your site. What's wrong? You have the no lead capture disaster. Oops! You are running a charity site. You dont have buyers giving you their information in order to see more listings or to get even more information. Making buyers register at some point will put an end to this disaster. 

This could happen to you- Three years ago you were cutting edge. Your site had great content, excellent informative links and some details about you that let buyers and sellers know that you were OK. You are getting visitors but dwindling leads. What disaster could this be? The outdated disaster looms. Broken links, outdated information, a resume that looks like you haven't sold a house since 2004. Avoid this disaster by periodically updating your site and checking the links. 

Artistic? Dark backgrounds and pictures can really add to a sites appeal. Disaster strikes when the dark background combined with the wrong color text makes the text hard to read. Pictures, you've got them, but why? Make sure they are there for a reason. Mountains in Chicago? Pictures not sized properly can really slow down a site. To avoid these artistic disasters get some different opinions on the readability and usability of your site before forging ahead. 

The biggest disasters of all? Not having a website or not promoting your site every way you can think of and every chance you get. Avoid the, if you build it they will come disaster by actively promoting your site. 

If you dont have the time or the talent to do it yourself, you can avoid all the disasters when you have us either update your current site or build you a new web using a template or from scratch. See the latest websites we have completed at NextLevelSolutionsForRealEstate.com 

Monthly Tech Tip

As someone who never learned how to type I often find the keyboard confusing.  This months tech tip touches on the use of three mystery keys, Ctrl, Home and End. If you hit the Home key it will take you to the beginning of a line. If you hold down the Ctrl (Control) key and hit the Home key it will take you to the beginning of a document, web page or email. The End key takes you to the end of a line. If you hold the Ctrl key down and hit the End key it will take you to the end of a document, web page or email.