G Dewald | Union Street Media

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Re: Analytics I think you could do better than Webstat. Google Analytics is what I usually recommend because it's pretty easy to use, includes a lot of great reports and it's free. It also ties directly into your Adwords account if you do search engine marketing with Google. http://analytics.google.com/ If you're getting all the information you need out of Webstat then no need to install something else. But I think you could get a much more complete picture of how your visitors are finding your site, what pages they see first, the bounce rate on a per-page basis, what pages they see immediately before contacting you via a web conversion tool etc. These sorts of insights are important to look at as you consider a redesign. Especially given that you are currently happy with your search engine placement, knowing a little more in depth information on how people are finding you and what they're finding when they get to you will be helpful. Multiple inter-linked pages with content can often perform as well or better than one giant page of content. But again, I'd tread very very lightly here without knowing more about your site traffic. Hope that helps, G. Dewald | Union Street Media | Real Estate Internet Marketing Blog

Looks like everyone is all wound up in debating hard/soft registration so I'll give you a quick review. First off... if it aint broken then don't fix it. Before doing anything you should start using some web analytics (you don't appear to have any of the better ones installed on your site). If you install some site analytics you can figure out which pages are bringing people to your site (and which ones are causing people to leave), which pages get people to convert, etc. This is really important to know about before a redesign. The design is, as you note, boring. Also, the underlying code is outdated and might be hurting you a small bit in the search engines. But overall if it's working don't jump into anything too crazy. Start by reviewing your site traffic and then move from there. I hope that helps G. Dewald | Union Street Media | Real Estate Internet Marketing Blog

We end up discussing registration issues internally a lot as well. Keep in mind that some MLS rules may prevent showing address and other data without having the visitor signed up. Some won't even let you search. So there's always that hurdle first. Ultimately, your experience is going to be the reality. If you're requiring signups and it's working for you then you know what works. I don't think that requiring signups is going to be the right approach in every market and in every situation. If you are in fierce competition with aggregate sites (sites that make money on advertising that surrounds real estate and not on real estate itself) then you may want to consider opening your search/detail view due to competitive pressure. Same thing if someone in your market created a site with open search and detail view and out-promoted you with it. I think your test-based process is sound. You tried it without, you tried the closed search model and you tried the closed detail view. Your results (people willing to register with real information once they have seen the effectiveness of your search tool) is consistent with what I have observed on more than one site. As much as I personally prefer the completely open site, I would encourage people to A/B test both ways of handling registration. And also to re-run that test every so often (market conditions change, your competition may change tactics etc). ==== Now for some site review: It would be great to put even more focus on the home-buying process. The logo etc at the top made me wonder if I was at a TV site or not. Maybe that's intentional. But the amount of advertising does clutter it up a bit and distract the workflow. Consider more prominent benefit/call to action around registering. You offer more than the ability to see full detail views. The listing alert feature is very successful on the sites my firm makes, I expect it would be for you as well. Make this on the home page. The benefits you do list on the home page might require more trust than you have yet established. Those are just some quick thoughts. And yeah, A/B test all that and if it works great and if not then that's great too. G. Dewald | Union Street Media | Real Estate Internet Marketing Blog