MyHomeHouston.com - Looking forward to opinions...

[RESteve]

Hi Everyone!

I'd like for you (if you have some spare time) to take a look at MyHomeHouston.com. It's a real estate site that I've themed to be more toward creating a real estate community, rather than just an online agent space.

Current features are: Local and (possibly) nationwide review system for business services and locations, featured property listings, Houston MLS searches for sale and rent, forums (need more members), and articles, guides, and tools for buyers and sellers.

Let me know what you think! All constructive criticism is kindly welcomed.

[RESteve]

I'm acutally working on getting rid of the standard template today, so please excuse the mess if you by chance get to see some.

[mondine]

Nice looking site. Very professional-looking.
But what's in that panel behind your logo? It looks a bit odd. Just a field of colour would look better.

It does look like you're a bit of a one-man band at the moment, but I guess that's to be expected.
You're going to have to get creative about finding forum members, and get sections like your Reviews filled out (if you're going to have them).
Since you're in a bit aof a niche market, you might think about plumbing Usenet newsgroups for some interest.
Look for groups involving real estate, as well as your local area.
Same rules apply. Make interesting posts, and keep your advertising in your signature.

Of course, you could always try to come up with some kind of promotion. Even if the 'rewards' are something that are of no actual cost to you
(like maybe a featured 'reviewer of the month' on the main page, or the like).
Even better if you can afford to spring for an actual prize (for forum recruitment, best article, or whatever).

Try to keep a nice balance beween business and social aspects. You seem to have a good start at that, if they can be developed in tandem.

And I really like the fact that the place is not cluttered-up with ads. I think that can just makes a site look like a cheap money-grab.
Not the kind of image you want to project for affluent clients.

So, that's a few thoughts off the top of my head. Good start, and good luck to you.

[RESteve]

Thank you very much for the quick replies and the thoughts Mondine!

The actual "behind the logo" swirlies were just something I played with one day. Hehe. I thought it looked unique, but with the new template that's all going away.

At the time being, I don't have experience with Usenet, but I'll definately google it tonight and get more info.

I was contemplating the adsense route for funding of the site, but after careful consideration, I decided not to. Looks like it was a great decision!

There's another site with reviews and other forums which I try to take cues from, and I see the promotions for recruitment pretty often. It may be something I should employ - I just can't figure out how to get the 2nd member to join my....community. Kind of like a catch 22, hehe. In due time, I feel it can mature.

Thanks again for your review, and the site will be offline tonight for the update. I'll post again tomorrow once I have everything looking great again!

[mondine]

Okay, if you go the Usenet route, there's a couple of things to bear in mind.
Many are entirely unmoderated, so watch out for trolls. If you see one, ignore it.

Secondly, mind the spam-bots! Many people guard their addresses, but don't realize that theirs is being harvested from their message headers.
Preferably, use a junk email address for your 'from' address (something useless like Hotmail ), and write business addresses in a form that bots don't read, like myaddress(at)isp(dot)com, or throw in your own custom 'munge'.
"(mypants)" is always popular, as you can request "remove mypants to reply".

On second thought.... no, don't do that. But you get the idea.

[RESteve]

Cool. I'll look into that!

New site template is up, by the way! Needs some testers!

[mondine]

Nice looking template. Just one thing. It's a little 'top-heavy'.
Okay, so I've got a few toolbars. There's a large "welcome' box and the "newsflash" that doesn't change from page to page.
So the user may have to scroll down every time to tell that they're on a different page. Makes navigation a little cumbersome.

[RESteve]

Thanks for the tips! I've moved some things around, and made the site a little less top heavy. I've also added a few more bits of newsflashes so that it doesn't seem so, "static".

I've also noticed a header graphic different from IE to Firefox...a little weird. I've never seen a graphic displayed differently - perhaps it's just cause it's a .png. I'll try creating a new one with Fireworks and see how that comes out tonight.

I moved the featured properties area up to the top, as it's one of the most important features of the site. It'll normally hold three listings (but I only have two for now!). Also, I've turned the latest news to the bottom of the content so users may browse other articles once their finished. It's it's place I put the popular articles area since they seem to get the most attention.

Thanks again for the feedback and look forward to more if you or anyone else has some spare time!

[RESteve]

So now I have a new header graphic, hope you enjoy. I've also done quite a bit more of SEO and hopefully will get indexed soon.

One thing I've noticed is that I get MSN and Yahoo traffic for desired keywords just about daily. I can just imagine the traffic once I'm finally indexed by the GMan.