Ricardo Bueno

January 25, 2012 By Ricardo Bueno 2 Comments

The One Second Website

1 second

In about one second, your website visitors are going to decide whether they like you or not.

Like it or not, people do judge a book by it’s cover. This is especially the case when people come to your website. They’re asking themselves:

Does this site look trustworthy?
Is the information here up-to-date and reliable?
Who’s the person behind this website (the author)? Does he/she look reliable?
(If I have a question) can I easily contact someone? Is there a phone number/email/address somewhere?

If they don’t like the color, they’re gone.

Can’t quickly find something? Gone.

Think about it a slightly different way…

Ever go bar hopping and judge a place by it’s atmosphere?

The look, the feel, the sound, et cetera. If you don’t like the place, you walk out and go somewhere else. But if you do like the place, you stick around and have a few drinks.

People are judging your website in much the same way. So doesn’t it make sense to design your site with this in mind? How can you create an atmosphere that makes people want to stick around?

Filed Under: Design

January 24, 2012 By Ricardo Bueno Leave a Comment

12 Warning Signs It’s Time To Invest In A Professional Website Design

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How do you know when it’s time to call in the pros and hire someone to design a professional looking custom website for you?

Most people just purchase a website template from somewhere like StudioPress, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, there comes a point where sooner or later, you outgrow your website and it’s time to step up your game.

There’s something to be said about building your own website. For one, it feels damn good. You get that sense of accomplishment for having done it on your own.

But how do you know when you’ve outgrown your website? How do you know when it’s time to bring in the professionals?

Here are some warning signs it’s time to invest in a professional website design…

Looking at your website makes you uncomfortable.
It’s difficult to navigate your website (even for you).
You have to pay someone to make changes to your website (Note: minor changes, like moving a widget around, should be easy for you to do).
Your website looks just like every other website out there. There’s no differentiating traits about it.
Site visitors can’t tell what your website is about when they land on your home page. What areas do you service? What type of clients do you work with?
You’re getting decent traffic, but your not converting any of that traffic.
People are landing on your website, but quickly clicking away (in other words, you have a high bounce rate).
It’s difficult to read your content and you can’t easily do anything about it (think white text on a black background).
You’re using a glamour shot that’s 10 years old and you haven’t updated your bio in just as long.
You hesitate to share your website URL when people ask you for your website address.
There’s no consistency between the color palette of your website and all of your other print marketing (business cards, fliers, et cetera).
When you want to add a new post or page, you have to custom code it.

What’s your biggest challenge right now? What are you currently struggling with to figure out?

P.S. Need a recommendation for an excellent WordPress designer? Let me know, I know more than a few.

Filed Under: Design

January 23, 2012 By Ricardo Bueno 4 Comments

20 Innovative Real Estate Website Footer Designs

TweetPin itWebsite footers have evolved from a simple place where you host your copyright information to a section where you can host an extended set of navigation items, links, sources of contact information and more. Basically, it’s a place where you can create an extended navigation menu for all of the links and things that [...]

Filed Under: Design

January 21, 2012 By Ricardo Bueno Leave a Comment

Weekly Marketing News, Technology & Resources (N. 01) – Website Makeover Edition

TweetPin itWe’re gonna try something new around here… Once a week (on Saturday’s), I’m going to share what I think are some of the best articles I’ve read from around the web. I won’t just share a link, I’ll expand on the title and give you some input on why I think it’s useful. Basically, [...]

Filed Under: Media Weekly

January 20, 2012 By Ricardo Bueno 4 Comments

How To Shoot Higher Quality Real Estate Videos (and Why It Matters for Your Business)

TweetPin itYou know they say that shoppers who view video at onlineshoes.com are 45% more likely to purchase something (source: Internet Retailer). Press Releases that include video have a 500% increase in views (source: Eloqua). And lastly, you are 53% more likely to appear on Page 1 of Google if you have video on your [...]

Filed Under: Video

January 19, 2012 By Ricardo Bueno 1 Comment

WordPress, Why You Gotta Be So Confusing?

TweetPin itI love WordPress. It’s a great solution for almost any web project, especially real estate websites. But as much as I think it’s a great solution, when you’re setting up WordPress and installing a theme from scratch for the first time, it can be more than a little confusing. What’s a hosting account and how [...]

Filed Under: WordPress Tips