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Jay Thompson today is on the free blog review stage with his blog Phoenix Real Estate Guy. As usual I’ll be reviewing three basic things: Design, Content, and Web Presence.
Design
The design of Jay’s Phoenix Real Estate Blog is one of my favorite WordPress themes – Chris Pearson’s Thesis theme. It’s professional, clean and easy to navigate. Jay’s got three places that are noticeable to click to search for homes, which makes it nice and easy for anyone to find. One of these ways is a creative blinking corner that says “Look Here” and when you hover over it shows where to start to search for homes. While I like the 125 ad blocks he has for his information, I would probably make them horizontal banners (for example 468×60) instead to make them look more like integrated pages of the blog instead of advertisements. It is possible though that’s probably just the neurotic designer in me! Another thing I might consider is a header with a little more “punch” to it – a darker background color for example, though it is already a fairly good header.
One interesting thing I noticed about the Phoenix Real Estate Guy’s blog is that it is also tastefully monetized with advertisements from related services – a junk removal company and a mortgage site for example. This not only potentially helps readers, but can help him cover some of the expenses of having a blog.
Content
The best thing about Jay’s blog is the content, hands down. Posts are written in an informal yet informative tone and cover frequently asked real estate issues and current events. Even his “statistical” posts aren’t boring – they’re written in regular language for someone who might not understand all of the usual real estate and mortgage jargon and are full of nicely sized graphics to keep your attention. I especially liked his post on open houses and lazy agents.
Web Presence
One of the things I also take a look at on my free blog reviews is the web presence of a blog – how well it competes in Google, and what other bloggers in the area are looking at. He’s at the bottom of the first page on Google for the term “Phoenix Real Estate” – which is really good considering there are 2,000,000 competing listings, but sneaking up a few notches would probably help. The Phoenix real estate market seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to web-savvy agents, so there’s a lot more sites to compete and compare to. Overall though, I think the Phoenix Real Estate Guy’s blog does nicely.
Thanks to Jay again for letting me nitpick your real estate blog – if you’re looking for a good site to read, I highly recommend his site on Phoenix Real Estate. If you have a blog you’d like reviewed, feel free to use my contact page to let me know!
9 Comments
Thanks so much for the great review Chelle! I just switched to Pearson’s Thesis theme and I *love* it. He is (IMHO) one of the best theme designers out there.
I’ve struggled with the ad-like search and “Ask the Broker” buttons, and like your idea. There will be changes in that area soon.
The monetization is also new, but is doing great! It won’t let me quit my day job, but it’s nice little supplemental income. I avoided ads for a long time but am happy with how these turned out and the local advertisers seem to like it to.
It’s extremely competitive in this area for real estate terms, but we’re doing pretty well. There is ALWAYS room for improvement there!
Really appreciate you taking the time and offering such a great “fair and balanced” review!
Thanks for writing such a great blog to review Jay
Glad you enjoyed being in the limelight 
Thanks
If you search the term real estate blog, Joy’s blog also hits the first page. That is an amazing accomplishment.
To build on what Sam said, I have also been extremely impressed with the search engine results I’ve seen with my Thesis theme blogs. The SEO feature was one reason I bought Thesis, but seeing is believing. Whatever it is that Thesis is doing is getting a very positive response from Google. Of course, you still need good content, and Jay has done a nice job with that.
I agree with the review, I also read and comment on the Phoenix Real estate Guy blog and its one of the best in the business. Being in Tucson AZ I would second that fact that Phoenix and Tucson are pretty competitive place to try to rank, Phoenix is super tough and I think Tucson is above average. With that being said the Phoenix Real estate Guy blog stands above most blogs in our industry great work Jay!
This blog is to die for!! I came across it on the net the other day. Its beautiful and informative. It inspired me to upgrade my own blog.
I have been looking into the Revolution themes but I will check out Thesis.
Upstart, Sam, Patrick, Michael, Dena – thank you all for your kind words. It means a lot when other RE pros have nice things to say.
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy blog rocks! It is one of the blogs I regularly visit. Jay always has great topics and lively conversations.