Thread: Well here it is... My waterfront real estate site

I think I said in my intro to this site that I was working on a waterfront real estate site as my first attempt at a online business. I was skeptical to say what the site was but I realized that it doesn't really matter. Id much rather get the constructive criticism then worry about more people entering the space.

Ok, the site is HomeOnTheWaterfront.com

The domain is pretty long isnt it?

I havent made a cent on the site to this point. Up until yesterday I wasnt charging for ads since the traffic is nowhere near enough to charge to advertise to. I mainly was focused on getting some agents posting ads on the site just to get content on there.

Now im just trying to get the rank up with SEO. I tryed out Chris from Warrior Forum for a month. He just finished and ive already seen a jump in the 3 keywords I gave him. They were all unranked in google and now are all in the top 200 or so. Its a start.

Any feedback is appreciated.

I like it! The name is a bit long, but I think it's okay because it says exactly what your website does. Honestly, there are only two that stand out to me. One, the graphics and general layout on your site are clean, but your logo seems a little cheap to me. The other is very minor, but I like to see prices with a comma: $123,456 rather than $123456. Of course, that could be a problem I need to change Awesome job so far!

Thanks for the feedback.

The logo I just made quickly in photoshop, and im obviously no expert in graphic design. Do you think its bad enough that it needs changed immediately?

Originally Posted by Shades

Thanks for the feedback.

The logo I just made quickly in photoshop, and im obviously no expert in graphic design. Do you think its bad enough that it needs changed immediately?

I think it's more important to market your business. Change your logo as soon as you have time.

Did you build this web site from scratch, or did you use an existing template? Site looks good. Simple, clean, easy to navigate.

3 Rules.

Here is a copy I have taped to my desk.

I follow it.

Looks great! Would agree with the above, strongly recommend swapping out the logo. Other than that, very clean and a nice site.

Originally Posted by snowbank

#3 might be good for some business models, but will be flawed for many others.

For me personally, just about every business I've started, #3 would be flawed and avoided, and would cost money in the long and short run.

note: I don't necessarily think it's bad(for many it will be good to focus on this), it's just often going to be suboptimal, and sometimes literally the opposite of what a lot of business models should be doing

for the experienced yes, you could be right. but for many, they start doing SEO ect way before finding out if the KW is really going to work in thier market. and could spend 6 months climbing to the top of a SEO heap only to find out the KW is not going to make them money.

I think its important to know that you can get in front of the traffic, AND get feedback on your product/service BEFORE spending lots of time trying to drive MORE traffic.


For the experienced, it still helps to think, Can I get in front of the traffic I need, Before trying to optimize.

That is how I take it. its just a good reminder for me to make sure there is a market, a need, and a product for that market, before I blow it up and try to get all the traffic in the world. its saved my but a few times

Very nice site. Very professional. No doubt it will be a success

get a logo from 99designs.com

it will be worth the $ IMO.

otherwise good looking site!!

p.s. not sure where you aggregate the data from, but I have loked at vermont and says no listings..

there are dozens, if not hundreds of waterfront listings in VT
(Vermont Lake Champlain Real Estate: Coldwell Banker Islands Realty, the Lakefront Experts)

Originally Posted by BeachBoy

p.s. not sure where you aggregate the data from, but I have loked at vermont and says no listings..

there are dozens, if not hundreds of waterfront listings in VT
(Vermont Lake Champlain Real Estate: Coldwell Banker Islands Realty, the Lakefront Experts)

Im not getting data from anywhere. It will be only ads that the agents themselves pay to put on the site.

Originally Posted by yveskleinsky

Overall it looks like a good start. I strongly agree with the comment about adding commas to the price. Something else to consider is that under locations you have a mix of Countries and cities--that threw me off as I was scrolling down to try and find "United States" and then realized that the options were mixed. On a side note, a pet peeve of mine with websites is when they offer a category to choose from but then there is nothing in there. If you don't have listings in other Countries, I would hold off on having them be an option for people to choose as getting the message to select again can get really old really fast and people (at least I would) leave quickly.

Great job overall, and I hope you keep up posted on your lessons learned on this entrepreneurial adventure!

Yea I will have to see how to put the commas in there. As far as the drop down menu, I see your point about that. It will be more annoying now since the sit isnt that populated. I originally made it that was because when a agent lists a property there is a drop down menu like that where they select the state the listing is in.

Originally Posted by Blacktye6000

Great site. I agree with Wade, I'd like to see comma's as well. Also I see that you use the blue backdrop for the featured properties, I would just tag the listing "featured" in yellow under the image. Then I would alternate the listings with the blue and white backdrop. Other than that I think its a great site. I surf real estate site often and it very user friendly.

Since you are on other RE sites often do you think my site needs more in depth search features? I liked just the minimum simplicity of the search options but am wondering if that will bother some people used to sites with a more advanced system.