Early days as apparently more and more properties are being uploaded and as the Rat and Mouse point out it is very much in Beta. But is it just another portal or does it offer something more?
We will have a play around and see what we think, but in the meantime I am sure I am not alone in thinking that the images really need work?
Rat and Mouse have also identified a pretender or an online remora fish ('a remora site') as we like to call them. Such sites along with link baiting are becoming more and more popular, but this particular fish has no advertising or immediate links so not sure what they are up to?
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6 comments:
You are certainly not alone in thinking the images need work, that headline image is all wrong in my opinion. It says "estate agents" rather than "find my dream home", which is not a good start for a consumer orientated site.
I do think though that the overall design effort should be commended, I like the colour scheme and the overall typography work is much better than expected. Perhaps a little too much negative space, but it looks well for a beta.
I think the most pressing problem is with the actual search, has anyone else tried searching for "Manchester" from the homepage? It doesn't quite produce the expected results! It appears they also forgot to read the SEO handbook before going live.
Overall, its a good start, though I do think they will need to work a little harder over the coming months to suppress the other new portals.
I have just read the 1000watt report recently published entitled top ten real estate brokerage websites in America and one point it touches on is what you term 'negative space'.
I will be summarising the report in a blog, but what they say about 'white space' is that it is your friend and the urge to fill every space should be avoided.
I completely agree that the urge to fill negative space should be avoided, but in the case of PropertyLive, in my opinion some of the negative space they are using unbalances the site.
At a guess, I would imagine that they are saving some of the odd negative space for future ad slots, at which point the site will look better in my opinion. I can't believe I'm actually saying that the introduction of ads on a site will improve its appearance! What next!
Cheers. Absolutely valid points.
Perhaps some nice popups would also improve :)
I have tried to conduct numerous searches on the site and it has returned nothing, zilch.
What I do love is the image of the 'older' people staring at me as I conduct a search.
Um...who are they? Why is the lady at the forefront folding her arms at me? That's not inviting anyone. And please, don't tell me that these people work for the NAEA - it's just stock imagery right?
As a property hunter, this site scares me. My Gran might like it though if she knew how to find the site.
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