So you’ve been out all day taking photos of your real estate listings. After downloading them from your camera, you see that they’re good, but they’re just not perfect. You know that with just a few tweaks they’d be perfect. You're not the most tech-savvy and you don’t have the budget to purchase super fancy photo-editing software, so what do you do?

Don’t worry!

I found some web-based photo-editing tools that are not only easy to use, but FREE. Did I say FREE? Many of these tools will give you comparable results to brand-name software, but without the steep learning curve and hefty price tag!

One of my favorites is www.picnik.com. This site has all the basics you need to modify your photos. After registering for a free account, you can upload and modify photos in a flash.

The basic tool set allows you to:

· Rotate

· Crop

· Resize

· Fix exposure

· Change colors

· Sharpen

· Convert to new file type (png, gif, tif, bmp)

Should you feel a little adventuresome and want to test out the advanced tools, you can do the following:

· Convert to black and white or sepia

· Add borders

· Add drop shadow

· Add text

· Touch up

Picnik has all the editing tools that the professionals use, just without the high price tag. Best of all, this site is available to you from any computer connected to the internet—for FREE!

Posted in Gadgets Real Estate Site Design Social Bookmarking Technology Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

If you are looking to design a new logo and you don’t have the benefit of a franchise brand, the prospect of coming up with your own identity can be challenging. Pricing for logo design varies greatly. The original “swoosh” for Nike was designed in 1971 by a college student named Carolyn Davidson for $35. The new London 2012 Olympics logo is rumored to have cost around $800,000. Setting aside these extremes, many small design studios are willing to create a custom logo for under $1,000. And if your budget is extremely tight, there are online tools that will help you get started for under $100.

Inexpensive Logo Tools & Services:
LogoMaker ($49) - http://www.logomaker.com/
LogoYes ($69) - http://www.logoyes.com/
MySiteLogo ($89) - http://www.mysitelogo.com/
Logo Loft ($99 starting) - http://www.thelogoloft.com/

Learn More About Logo Design:
Step-by-step Logo (Chuck Green)
Logo Design Basics: The Five Types of Marks

Posted in Real Estate Site Design Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

You may rewrite the body of an email two or three times before sending, but how much time do you spend on your subject lines? Here are a few suggestions:

Keep your subject lines short and sweet. Many email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Earthlink, etc.) will truncate long subject lines, so keep your subject lines under 50 characters including spaces. Be sure to indicate the most important information at the beginning.

Keep your subject lines professional. Avoid using "smileys" and punctuation marks. These will fall easily to spam filters.

Use capitalization sparingly! Typing in all caps can be construed as the equivalent of yelling at someone face-to-face. This also applies to the text in the body of your email. Using caps to draw attention to a single word is acceptable, but frequent use of all caps is likely to annoy the reader and will ultimately cause your emails to be deleted.

Do not use vague or general words alone. Using general words all alone trigger spam filters. Words like urgent, new, hi, etc are prime examples. Tip: look through your spam or junk folder for examples of what not to use. Use specific information, such as the property address and the consumer's name. "Jan here is the info for 123 Center Street". This validates the email as current, cites importance, and personalizes the message.
Always be sure to check your spelling and grammar!

Remember, the subject line is the first thing the consumer reads and in could determine whether the email is deleted or read based on those few words. Those first seconds are critical, you need to engage the consumer and let them know what you have to say is important.

Posted in Real Estate SEO Site Design Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

A friend of mine is an agent with a site that needs a little TLC. He’s currently using a template-based site from a competitor, and in my attempt to help him “see the light,” I decided to give his site a relatively simple make-over. The results are shown below along with a step-by-step listing of my thought process as I moved from “before” to “after.”

Before:


After:


And the Changes:

1. 
   Fixed the odd vertical line alignment. Apparently the “Comfort Creek” logo is too wide for this template to handle. Consequently, it is pushing the content area to the right, and the thin, black, vertical lines no longer connect. Rather than try to reduce the size of the logo, I chose to remove the vertical lines altogether.
   


2. 
   Left some items as they were. Some elements of the design seemed to be working fine. I chose to leave the main beach photo, font for “Barry Bevis…” and the Featured Listings box alone.
   


3. 
   Strengthened the branding. The logo was tweaked a little and placed in the upper left area above the photo of the country road. Moving the logo into the header also gives the brand a small boost and helps the header area emphasize Barry Bevis. I also moved the top navigation bar down underneath the header section to added emphasis to the brand.
   


4. 
   Made the navigation links look more clickable. I’m a sucker for tabs. They are so helpful for organization. Adding a tab-based menu clarified which page is currently being viewed.
   


5. 
   Consolidated the redundant left-side links. After a quick review of the top navigation and the left-side navigation, there seemed to be unnecessary redundancy. By eliminating the duplicates (Home, My Listings, and Search MLS) and by consolidating the other links into one “Resources” page, the complexity of choices on the page was greatly simplified.
   


6. 
   Cleaned-up the left side a bit more. After moving the logo up into the header and removing or consolidating the side navigation links, there wasn’t much left inside the blue-gray side bar. I moved the “Tell a Friend” link over to the right side under the Featured Listings box because it seemed more likely that I’d be telling a friend about a particular listing that I saw. I then replaced the blue-gray background color with white and moved the “Bert Bevis Realty” text up under the “Barry Bevis” text in the header.
   


7. 
   Added some additional emphasis to contact. With the left bar now empty, I moved Barry’s photo over and added his phone number and an email link.
   


8. 
   Reduced the “visual density” of the content area. By changing the font color from black to olive and by adding some line spacing, the content area began to feel less heavy. I also removed the thick black outline on the “Comfort Creek” logo and changed the coloring to from black to olive for a better tie-in.
   


9. 
   Centered the design and softened the left and right edges. The center design helps the page fill the browser window more nicely. The gradient blend on the edges help the page feel more open and less boxed in by left and right margins. The color blend added the background of the content area is mostly just for kicks. It feels optional, but I decided to leave it.
   

Posted in Advertising Real Estate Site Design Technology Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

If you're seeking inspiration for a new site design, here's a list of site galleries that might help jumpstart your thinking:

CSS-based

• Stylegala


• CSS Beauty


• CSS Vault


• Unmatched Style

Flash-based

• FWA


• DigitalThread

Awards

• 2007 Webby Awards : Real Estate Category


• AIGA Design Archives


• Communication Arts: Interactive Annual 12


• I.D. Annual Design Review 2006 - Interactive Category

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Finding effective color combinations can be both fun and challenging. The list below includes some great tools to begin exploring new color schemes for your site (or your home).

• Behr: ColorSmart - Visualize colors for the interior and exterior of your home (or website).


• Color In Motion - An interactive experience of color communication and symbolism.


• Color Scheme Generator - A tool for generating color schemes.


• Colorcombo.com - A four-panel, scrolling, side-by-side color combination viewer.


• COLOURlovers - A community of shared colour palettes -- including news articles on color trends and interviews with top creative professionals.


• DeGraeve.com: Color Palette Generator - Upload a photo and generate a custom color palette.


• Infohound: Color Schemer - A simple tool to help you experiment with various color schemes for your next web or print project.


• Kuler - A robust tool from Adobe allowing you to explore, create and share color themes.

Posted in Site Design | 3 Comments » | Share This!