AgentGenius.com has recently undergone a major facelift and network update to better serve the readers of AG.
Readers will now have a better user experience with added benefits and features and as with our previous redesigns, we’ve lead the real estate community and never waited for what others do to dictate our direction, and today is no exception.
Agent Genius’ site and logo redesign were aimed at keeping the site structure streamlined and focused on aesthetics and flow of information.
Ribbon cutting:
So what has changed on Agent Genius?
- You can now visit pages of our authors (e.g. Jim Duncan) where you can read their bio, check out their local blogs and as a bonus, when you read any of their articles in full, their social networks are listed under their names (and we invite you to connect with them). You can also see a full list of all Agent Genius authors.
- You can now leave threaded replies to comments by clicking “reply” in a specific comment.
- You can rate articles on AG (above the comments area of each post), share articles directly to your own social networks and see who else liked each article.
- The sidebar features tabs for easy access to articles and comments and if you scroll down, you’ll see the social media starter guide, highlighted columnists, the Agent Genius Facebook Fans, keywords and the top rated articles. This is a great area for beginners to play around with!
- Organization of the site header has changed- you may now read content according to their category, and the navigation at the top is more streamlined with expanded options.
- With our new layout, we’re able to virtually double the amount of content on our front page. Properly categorized articles will remain on the main page much longer before being filed into their respective category archive.
- Site speed is vastly improved, although traffic increases have countered our advances during peak hours. We’ll be porting to our new servers within the next seven days which should alleviate bottlenecks.
- Above are simply the highlights and there is more coming. This is the end of phase two, and we’ll be discussing more over the coming days on where AG is heading, so stay tuned.
It’s all about YOU:
As part of our vision for the long term, commenters have always been valued as highly as writers and if you haven’t noticed, commenters may join AG which unlocks dofollow backlinks and makes your chosen social networks show up next to your name on every single comment you leave on AG (full details here). This feature is still in beta, so click “Reach Out” at the top of the page and it will notify us of any feedback you might have.
New to blogging, social media or heck, even email? Check out the Agent Genius Learning Center where you will find articles categorized by topic ranging from tech tools to Twitter. We have long term plans to make this section much more robust!
The nitty gritty (the design)
There are some finer details on the site that may go unnoticed to some, but for those of you who geek out on webdev trends or graphic design, here are some brief notes:
- The color palette is in line with the Spring 2010 trends, using a vibrant blue as a pop with calmer greys and whites. Elementary blues, forest greens, muted crimsons are out and bright pops in blues and corals are in.
- Out-of-the-box fonts (such as Times New Roman or fonts with extravagant serifs) were avoided and AG’s logo and site font were meticulously chosen..
- Image thumbnails have been a part of the AG design for some time, but the scrolling feature HEADLINES as well as content-rich thumbnails below the feature will be the highlight of many new themes for 2010.
We have much more in the works for AG so stay tuned!
