TeamFisher.com to undergo significant renovations
When I moved this blog from Community Server to WordPress back in June I was convinced that it would be easier to manage. I was wrong.
Forget the fact that Pamela and I lived in a virtual hell for two months moving and organizing content, but after all was said and done, I felt like a compulsive neat freak living with a messy desk (yes, I do know exactly how that feels). Stuff just feels out of place, and some of the better bits of content are hard to find, clumsy to navigate and poorly presented. I can see that. I just don’t have the time or the skill to fix it.
Alas, I shall admit that I am not a web designer, and that’s okay. ☺
Rather than continue to tinker with what I do not know, I have engaged the services of professionals to help me sort out my mess. We’ve just signed an agreement with 1000Watt Consulting, a company that specializes in helping real estate brokerages get their web stuff together. I am particularly excited about working with Joel Burslem, Marc Davison and Brian Boero on this project. All three of these guys made Inman’s 2009 “notable individuals” list. There’s a tremendous amount of knowledge and know how going on at 1000Watt so I’m excited to see what might happen here between now and February 4, the projected completion date for the “gutting and redesign.”
I’m most excited to see what develops on our Saskatoon neighbourhood pages. Over the years, these pages have proven themselves valuable to home buyers, especially those who are unfamiliar with Saskatoon. Recently, I’ve done a whack of work with my flickr account organizing more than 1,300 images of Saskatoon and our neighbourhoods. I think that this content, properly presented, will really add a lot.
I’m hoping you might give me a little feedback on real estate listings display on these pages. I have a few options available to me through MyRealPage, my listings service provider. Would you kindly take a look at the three I selected and let me know which you prefer? You’ll find the listings displayed just below the opening text on the following three pages.
Let’s call this one a film strip display.
This page features a map based display.
This one is sort of a grid. (I ultimately see this being presented as a few rows of homes, rather than the six which currently display).
Thanks a lot for your suggestions, and thank you for continuing to visit.
On behalf of Pamela, Lyndon and myself we wish you the very best in 2010.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.
Real estate geeks can follow our daily updates on Twitter @norm_fisher.
Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate
7 comments so far. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:16 PM
I like the film strip most, followed closely by the grid (perhaps my favorite with fewer rows) then the map. The map is definitely a nice feature, but it doesn’t have pictures displaying right away which is a pretty killer feature of the other two imho.
1000Watt looks great, Norm. I’m interested to see what they come up with.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Hi Norm,
I would agree with your experience in using WordPress. I found that using WordPress.org became very time consuming and obsessive. There were simply too many things to juggle and worry about not the least of which was hosting. All the while, I always felt as though I was one click away from blowing it all up. The backup system with hosting is a bit misleading given the fact you have a database system to worry about on the back end. It’s not as simple as one would think and I have the war scars to prove it.
While I used to enjoy getting dirty in the technical trenches, I’ve since adopted a cleaner and simpler approach. I figure if it works for Google, there’s probably something to it… In that respect I’ve beem extremely happy with the Google suite of products. Simple yet robust, esp when it comes to integration.
As for the feedback above, rather than offer my single choice, I would rather direct you to the Website Optimizer tool over at Google in case you’re not aware of it. It’s a great tool to help objectively test and determine the “best” choice for something like the example above based on conversion rates.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:21 PM
Hi Norm,
I just recently found your blog, and before I read any posts, I was taking a look through the layout of your blog. I like your layout very much. I then read this article and saw that you were having some difficulties with the transition to WordPress.
I think it is a very smart idea of yours to outsource this task to professionals. This way, they can focus on what they are good at, and you can focus on what you are good at.
I myself made the switch over to WordPress from blogger. I am not a techy guy myself, so whenever I need help, I call upon my more tech savvy friends and contacts.
Once again, really liked your blog layout.
Best Regards,
Neil Uttamsingh.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:11 PM
I much prefer the film strip display – It takes an appropriate amount of space on the page, but has the ability to show any number of homes that happen to be listed in the area. The map looks too half-done (doesn’t look as professional as the rest of your blog), and the grid took up way too much of the page (might be better with smaller pictures, but if you’re trying to fit all homes in an area in, it could get very tight).
Happy New Year Norm!! Keep up the great blog!
January 1st, 2010 at 11:16 AM
Thank you all for the feedback. Really appreciate it.
I agree that the displays with images seem most appealing.
Carl and Neil,
WordPress really isn’t the cause of my problems, it just didn’t solve them as I had hoped it might. My issues are pretty much all related to design, functionality and poor merchandising, all things that can be dealt with within the WordPress software I’m using. Carl, I do relate to what you mean about being “one click away from blowing it up.” When the web was pretty much all html it was easy. Now we have CSS, php, java, flash and more. I’m personally inclined to touch far fewer things for fear of busting them. Once this restructuring is done I’m going to find a capable person who can deal with anything that requires code work. I’ll focus all of my energy on building good content and real estate analysis. These are both things that I can do reasonably well.
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:56 PM
I like the film strip. It’s concise, and you can glance at the homes quickly, rather than having to scroll down the page and back up again to compare what you’ve seen.
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:48 PM
Good points Rebecca.
Thank you all for the feedback. I’ve opted for the filmstrip for the time being unless the devs come up with something superior.
Thanks again.