Blog design Archives - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Look Ma! It’s an all new design for Phoenix Real Estate Guy

October 17, 2011 By Jay Thompson

Welcome to the “new and improved” Phoenix Real Estate Guy!

Long time readers know I go through theme changes on a pretty regular basis. Anyone remember this one?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

That was circa 2005 / early 2006. Back when the University of Texas football team were the national champions. Since those days we’ve been through at least 5 major design changes and countless minor revisions.

Today we roll out a spiffy new design. At the core is the Genesis Framework with a custom (as in completely) AgentPress child theme.

Why Genesis and AgentPress?

Because I have mad respect for Brian Gardner (the creator of Genesis) and the Copyblogger Media team. Because I don’t have a designer’s mind, and they do. Because I want to do what I do best, create content and leave the look and feel of the site to the experts.

My last design put calls to action, and nothing but those calls to action, on the home page of the site. At the time that seemed like a good idea. It was kind of cool and different. But search results started to be impacted and it became apparent that I needed to get the content back on the home page where it could do its magic.

Enter Copyblogger Media, here’s what I wrote in my last post after the Great Blog Hacking of 2011:

If you’re not familiar with Copyblogger Media and names like Brian Clark, Sonia Simone, and Brian Gardner, well, you should be. These folks are internet studs. Their lead designer I’ve been working with, Rafal Tomal, is a freaking genius and is the man who has served up designs for a few little sites like Problogger.net, Copyblogger.com, ChrisBrogan.com, Jay Baer’s Convince & Convert, and real estate’s own Better Homes & Gardens blog Clean Slate blog (and others).

The Highlights

Four prominent calls to action (CTAs)on the Home page. These correspond, naturally, with what I want people to do when they come to this site is search for homes, get general real estate information, get specific info on short sales and learn about our brokerage. The ultimate goal of this site is to inform consumers and generate business for our agents. Prominent CTAs help in those endeavors. If you’re reading this in your reader or on the single-post page, head on over to the home page and check it out. We’ll wait…

Article titles/links and snippets on the home page – We serve at the pleasure of The Google.

Social Sharing and Social media isn’t going away. The ability for people to share content is important. It’s better now.

Revamped (and FAR less confusing/intrusive) navigation “ visitors need to be able to find what they are looking for.” That seems obvious. Yet it wasn’t really so swift in previous iterations. Of note – the nav structure isn’t where I want it yet. More on that below..

Wigitized Footer: Oddly, one of my favorite features. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and there are four sections for stuff. There will be much tweaking and playing in this area.

White space and typefont is your friend. “Cleaner” is better. And Rafal knows clean.

New Server, Copyblogger Media, who redesigned the site, stepped up big time immediately after the hack. They reached out and helped move the site to a stable, secure and highly optimized environment configured for Genesis. I can’t thank these folks enough. Not just for the redesign, but for lending a hand to someone they hardly know and really accelerating the redesign work.

Still to Come

Because of the aforementioned hack, we released the design a little early so we could get it all over to the new server. Some things (most notably navigation) isn’t quite there yet. That’s not Copyblogger Media’s fault, that’s all on me. I’ve got lots of ideas of how to get the right content in front of the right visitors. So stay tuned for that.

There could be the occasional photo or two that is missing in action. Moving a site the size of TPREG isn’t an easy thing to do, particularly when one realizes the horrific job I’ve done with file structure on my server. I’ve learned a lot since starting this thing over six years ago, but there were many remnants of the early days lying about. It’s quite likely that some links may point into the ether, some embedded charts and videos may not work. That sort of stuff.

Let Me Know What You Think!

I want to hear what you think about the design. Be honest. If you hate it, say so. If you love it, that’s great too. If you see something broken, I’d love to know. What would fill my world with awesome would be if you have suggestions and ideas. I like that kind of stuff. Can’t promise I can implement every thought, but I can promise you I’ll consider anything you have to offer. When looking for other design options consider checking, Home organization Los Angeles.

Change is hard. This is a pretty radical change. It may take getting used to. But what we have here, I think, is an amazing foundation that is in place to bring you even more goodness over time.

As always, I appreciate each and every one of you. No redesign will ever change that. YOU are what gives me this platform out there on the world wide interwebs.

Thanks for stopping by our new digs! And stay tuned, it’s going to get better and better!

Testing Hello Bar. Highlight your Calls to Action!

August 15, 2011 By Jay Thompson

Over the weekend, I installed Hello Bar on our little piece of internet real estate.

Look up at the top of the page and you’ll see a colored bar spanning the width of the page, practically begging you to click through to search for homes.

Which color bar you get is randomly assigned because at the moment, I am A/B testing various colors and text to see which is most effective. That’s just one of the slick features Hello Bar offers.

Real estate bloggers and those with more traditional sites know well (or should know well) the power of the “Call to Action” (CTA). I want, nay I need, visitors to this blog to do certain things ”“ primarily search for homes. That is what puts the food on the table, the shoes on the children — for myself and many of our agents. I also want people to request a short sale consultation, and read the blog. All of those calls to action help drive our business in one way or the other.

Getting people to click on those calls to action isn’t always easy. Countless studies have shown that website visitors spend precious few seconds on a web page. You’ve got to grab their attention quickly, but you can’t be obnoxious about it.

Enter Hello Bar.

It is super easy to set up and use, and they have a vey capable and hands-free way to A/B test different aspects ”“ color, text, time displayed on site ”“ of the bar. Statistics are included. Mmmmm, statistics”¦

I have no idea if a 0.26% click-through rate is good. But it is very interesting to see the differences that colors and text can make in click-through rates. This test has been running for less than two days, and over the weekend to boot (our lowest traffic period). I’ll let it run through the week before tweaking and re-testing.

Things I like about Hello Bar

It is far less intrusive than a pop-up.

A/B testing rocks.

Lots of variations available ”“ user definable colors, CTA text, link text and time displayed on-site.

Easy to interpret statistics. Know which variation works best!

Some very smart and internet marketing savvy people are already using it ”“ Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Seth Godin to name a few. If it’s good enough for that crew, it’s good enough for me.

Things I don’t like about Hello Bar

. . . Hmmm”¦ Well, you have to wait for an invite code if you’re interested in testing out the free version. Mine took five days to get. But wait! I have some invite codes. More on that at the bottom of the post.

What does Hello Bar Cost?

Funny you should ask. Hello Bar just changed their pricing model. Today. There is a free version that allows unlimited Hello Bars, A/B testing, stats and customization options. The free version is limited to 25 click-throughs a month. Three levels of the Pro (pay) version include all the free version has to offer plus the Hello Bar logo is removed, you can save customizations as “themes”, and you can insert an RSS feed into the Hello Bar (a great way to highlight your most recent post. Or pull in a recent blog post into a web site). Pro levels are based on monthly click-throughs (CTs): 100 CTs for $4.95, 500 CTs for $12.95 and 2500 CTs for $29.95.

What could a real estate type do with the Hello Bar?

What do you want to do? What is the goal for your blog? (You DO have a goal, don’t you?)

The obvious use is what I’ve done here ”“ direct people to a home search page. Some less obvious uses might be: highlighting a recent, or specific, article; newsletter signups; download an eBook/whitepaper (you can open a form with Hello Bar), ask people to Like a Facebook page, follow you on Twitter, or circle you on Google+; entice people to subscribe to your blogs RSS feed, and more. If you ponder the possibilities, virtually any action you want people to take on your website/blog can be highlighted with the Hello Bar. Highlighting actions = clicks on actions = good.

I want a Hello Bar invite code! How do I get one?

The guys at Hello Bar have been nice enough to give me 50 invites to give to Phoenix Real Estate Guy readers. All you have to do is leave a comment below saying that you want one. Be sure to include a valid email address when you leave your comment as that is how you’ll get your invite code. If you use the Facebook commenting, you’ll have to put your email address in the comment itself. If you use the WordPress comments (below the Facebook comments), just put your email address where prompted for in the comment form. I’ll send you an invite as soon as I can get to it (but it’ll be much faster than asking for an invite code though the Hello Bar site). Invite codes will be sent first come/first served. No whining if you snooze and miss it!

UPDATE! Even easier, use this Beta key: phoenixreg Just go to http://Hellobar.com. Click the “Sign Up Now” button. Enter your email address and click “Get Free” button. Enter phoenixreg in the “Have a Beta Key?” box. Click Submit. You’ll get a password in your email!

Disclosure: I get nothing, zero, zilch, nada for handing out invite codes (other than helping people try out a cool new thing). No free Pro account, no form of monetary compensation. Just a little hit of good karma ”“ and I’ll take all the karma I can get”¦

Revamping the About Page on Phoenix Real Estate Guy

July 16, 2011 By Jay Thompson

Think no one ever reads your about page?

Think again. Year-to-date 4,631 people have visited the various about pages on this site. That’s almost 24 per day, every day.

People read “About” pages. They want to know who you are, what your site is about. What your business is. They want to know, what is in it for them and what can you do to help them.

And to be honest, the about pages here haven’t been the best they could be. They were also horribly unorganized, lying scattered about here and there. Despite the difficulty in finding the pages, people still did. I think though, with a little more organization and forethought, more people may find them. With a little more engaging content, people may actually find use in them. Those are good things.

Enter Step One: The “About Landing Page” (that’s a crappy name, but I don’t know what else to call it”¦)

This puts our various flavors of About pages in one place, accessible from the “About” tab in the top navigation bar (and likely I’ll tuck it somewhere on the blog sidebar as well. That I’ll need to test. I’m no longer slamming stuff into the sidebar without testing it first”¦).

The point?

Accessibility. People want to read about pages. Especially people who have no idea who you are or what you’re about. People like, you know, prospective future clients that might be passing by. If they want to read your About page and they can’t find it, you have a problem.

Some of the content on the individual pages is still a little weak, particularly the Thompson’s Realty Agents page. That will be changing very soon.

Baby steps. And something that should have been done forever ago”¦

What do you put in your About page?

Some additional resources on making good about pages:
How to Write a Killer About Page
6 Cornerstones For A Killer About Page On Your Blog
Guidelines for Writing a Good About Page

UberMenu, Scroll Checkpoint and a Facebook Send button. New stuff on TPREG!

April 26, 2011 By Jay Thompson

Those that follow along may have noticed me whining here and there about some issues with my menu structure after the recent blog meltdown.

I finally gave up trying to make the theme specific menus function like I wanted them too. Thanks to a tip from Joe Manausa, I found UberMenu.

What’s a UberMenu? The easiest way to describe it is for you to try it. Head on up to the navigation menu at the tippy-top of this page (assuming you’re viewing the site in a browser and not reading this in your email or feed reader of course) and hover over some of the options. The dropdowns are all set up through the WordPress menu system, which is (greatly) enhanced with the UberMenu plugin.

Pretty cool stuff, and easy to use!

Here are some screen shots:

The menu below utilizes a text widget to include a disclaimer.

And this one utilizes two widgets ”“ one for the contact info, one for the contact form, and native UberMenu settings to include social media icons/links.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think being able to put widgets (like a contact form. Or the new Google Custom Search you see in the right of the nav bar) right in the navigation is pretty damn slick. You can also put photos, videos and more in the nav menus. I’ve barely explored it and can see a lot of uses for this plugin. It’s not free, but at a one-time cost of $14, it’s a fantastic deal.

From the same author, SevenSpark, also comes “Scroll Checkpoint”. ~~To see this one in action, just scroll down to the bottom of this post~~. (Update: I’ve removed Scroll Checkpoint, for now. It was a little irritating. But I think a “related posts” usage — which can be done with this, would be valuable.) You’ll see a window pop up on your right, inviting you to subscribe to this blog by email. Like UberMenu, Scroll Checkpoint is very customizable ”“ you can put different widgets in different boxes and set them to enter the page in various places with various styles. Check out the demo site for some examples of the power of this plugin. This one costs $15, one-time.

You can get either of these plugins here. Save four bucks by creating a CodeCanyon account and depositing money there. Be careful in CodeCanyon, you may find a whole lot of stuff you can’t live without”¦

What’s the deal with the Facebook Send button?

Yesterday, Facebook announced that it was adding a “Send” button to its repertoire of functionality you can add to a website. Think of it like an “email this article” button except the Facebook Send button sends a link to the article to another Facebook user (or group. Or even an email address ”“ though in testing that’s proved a little goofy).

This is potentially pretty powerful stuff. Yes, Facebook seems to be attempting to take over at least the Internet, if not the planet. And not everyone has a Facebook account. But nearly 700 million people do, and should the Send button get the traction the Facebook Like button has seen, then you probably want to install it on your site.

An interesting feature of the Send button is that a use of it also adds to the pages “Like tally”, which means it impacts Edge Rank .

As this was just implemented by Facebook yesterday, most of the existing Like Button plugins haven’t added Send button capability (yet). I suspect they will very soon. After hacking my Facebook Like Button plugin yesterday (thanks Jimmy Mackin) to add the send button, I decided to yank the plugin altogether and just use the Facebook code generator for both the Like and Send buttons. Now I don’t have to wait for a plugin author to update something, I’m tied directly into Facebook to power the Like and Send buttons.

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

This particular approach may not be for the feint of heart, as it requires adding this URL reference into the Facebook code:

href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>;” ”“ to get it to pick up post/page URLs

and depending on your theme, may be tricky to get the buttons placed exactly where you want them. I built functions using my theme’s hooks. CSS would also work. And right now someone is saying, “Functions, hooks and CSS? Oh my!”. Just wait for the inevitable plugin upgrades/releases.

Well, that’s about it for today’s changes, who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I get a small pittance if you deposit money into a CodeCanyon account. If you don’t want that to happen, go here.

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