Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I am new to StartupNation specifically and am extremely new to the web startup world (as of Monday 4/19) in general. My site is off to a pretty good start, but I'm always looking for ways to improve. If you have a few minutes I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts.Website is http://www.yourentwesplit.com

Here's a brief rundown of what we do.

Background

It's fairly commonplace in Texas to use an apartment locator and in exchange they offer you a free move or $100. We're a bit unique in that we're extremely lean and therefore can afford to operate on margins our competitors cannot by advertise what our commission will be and agreeing to split it in half with the client (fees can range from $400 - $10,000)

Goal

- Longterm goal is to become Dallas - Ft. Worth's Premiere Apartment Locator.

- Shorterm goal is to appear on Page 1 of google for searches involving "Dallas Apartment Locator" or "Dallas apartments". - IF YOU HAVE ANY FIRSTHAND ADVICE ON THIS PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

- Design --> This is where I'd appreciate the majority of the focus for any critique. I am working with a web designer to customize the site so that it is extremely intuitive to the user and that our value is immediately clear.

Questions:

1. Did we achieve our design goal?

2. If you were looking for an apartment would you use this site? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think your website looks very clean and professional - simple and easy to use.  I like the look of it.

I would  put your main location on your homepage somewhere and also in your tagline - this will help with your SEO and also make sure that anyone visiting your site knows where you're located.

If I were looking for an apartment in Texas I think I would use this website if I wanted to spend the money - however with websites like Craigslist you'll have to promote yourself even more to get the kind of traffic you're looking for.  But it is very easy to use and I really like the pictures - they help most people decide if they are interested in looking into an apartment.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the comments Rubi. We definitely need to update our meta tag description so it's readily apparent what and where we are on google.

The service is free for our clients and we split our commission, which makes us a much better deal than Craigslist. But you're right, we're currently looking to put together some marketing material to post to Craigslist.

Thanks again!

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Looks good.  In terms of usability, I would just make a ne small adjustment to the search bar.  Just put a little arrow beside each of "City", "Bedroom", "Bathroom", and "Price", to show that they are drop-down lists.  Also, I would probably change the text from "or browse by" to "Filter By", which I believe is more descriptive of the feature.  Other than that, it looks great, and I know that I would definitely use it if it worked for up here in Toronto (if I would remember the name...)

Tom

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. We're still making some tweaks and looking to expand, so I appreciate the input.