Responsive Websites Are Here!

To provide the best user experience on all of our websites regardless of the browsing device, we’re excited to announce the introduction of responsive websites.

Up to this point our platform automatically redirected a user to a mobile specific version of their site—a separate entity, distinct from the full site that is viewed on a desktop.
 

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5 Reasons Why You Might Need a Site Redesign

Here at Union Street Media, our clients often ask us a common question: “When do I know that my site needs a redesign?” After consulting our team of designers, developers, and internet marketers, we came up with the following reasons for why you might need a site redesign for your real estate website.

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What Does Twitter’s New Redesign Mean for You?

Looks like Twitter is jumping on the photo-centric bandwagon. Earlier this month, Twitter presented a brand-new profile redesign that features a header photo, an overlapping profile photo, and a three-column layout. Sound familiar? You betcha. Twitter’s new redesign is remarkably similar to Google+ pages and Facebook’s timeline. The redesign is proof that images are quickly becoming the new vehicles of communication in the social media world.

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Why We Don’t Support IE6/7

Internet Explorer 6 and 7 were some of the most popular browsers in existence. So why does Union Street Media no longer support them? We get this question a lot.

There are a number of reasons we came to this decision:

  • IE6/7 use is trending downward.
  • Microsoft itself is trying to rid the world of these browsers (http://www.ie6countdown.com/).
  • Technology has advanced a lot in the last decade and we want to provide our users with fast, reliable and engaging content.

IE6/7 use has been trending downward for the better part of 3 years. In 2010 both browsers combined commanded an impressive 28% of the market place. Their use in 2013 has declined to 7% globally and a mere 1% in the USA. On our platform combined use is sitting at 1.7%. This is due to a number of factors, the most important one being Microsoft’s own involvement in eradicating these browsers.

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Natural Language: Search The Way You Speak

When a prospective homebuyer arrives at your website, they already know what they want. They have a mental image of their dream home, and they want to get started finding it. We haven’t (yet) built software that can read users’ minds, so we need to give them a way to communicate that dream home to your website so that it can show them what’s available. Traditionally, websites give the user a form to fill out, offering an overwhelming multitude of options. Nobody likes to fill out forms.

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Real Estate Website Spring Cleaning

Art Urie, owner of Lake Farm Realty in Concord, New Hampshire, has been a loyal Union Street Media client since we launched his original site in July 2005. When it launched, the Lake Farm site gave Art a great platform for showcasing his listings and offered his clients a sophisticated but easy-to-use tool for property searches.  Union Street Media’s content management system also offered Art an easy, efficient way to maintain contact with potential clients throughout their property searches and home buying experiences.

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94%

Dr. Edward B. Shapero, my grandfather and namesake, was a surgeon. After completing his time at New York University in the spring of 1932, where he excelled in ping pong and handball, his grades prevented him from attending a US medical school.  Wanting to be a doctor, he moved to Germany in May speaking English only, took German classes for the summer and enrolled in Gymnasium starting in October.  The following year he was accepted at the Heidelberg University Faculty of Medicine, where he studied medicine in German until the rise of Hitler made Heidelberg an unwelcome place for Americans.  He returned to the US with straight A’s on his transcript, enrolled and completed his studies at the New York  Medical College.  After serving overseas in the Pacific front for three years, one month and twelve days, he came back to New York, established his practice and went on to become the director of the Strang Cancer Clinic at New York Downtown Hospital.

Throughout his career, which lasted until the day he died at 86, his passion was medicine.  My grandfather cared deeply for his patients.  They entrusted their health to him.  He carried that responsibility as both a gift and an honor.  Before the days of health insurance, deductibles, HMO’s and tort lawyers, his patients would thank him in numerous ways (the closet full of Scotch bottles my mother emptied from my grandparents apartment after his death in 1997 being one of my favorites.)  He looked out for his patients, and in turn, his patients took care of him.

It is in that tradition that I keep a watchful eye over the hundreds of clients that have chosen to work with Union Street Media.  94.2%, to be precise, of the clients that were with us at the start of 2011 are with us at the start of 2012.  That’s a solid A, a grade I didn’t receive all that often at my alma mater, but a figure I’m proud to share our 2011 retention rate.

Why does this number matter?  To me, our retention rate is the barometer of whether our clients are finding good value in our services.  There are a lot of website developers out there, but the vast majority who are with us have chosen to stay.  That means we are successful in helping our clients generate more leads, promote their mission and convert more business off of the Internet.  They reward us for doing so by keeping their website with us.  It’s a virtuous cycle.

Much like my grandfather, we really care about the outcome of our work.  Since a website is never finished, our relationship with our clients extends well past site launch.  One of my themes around the office is “retention through attention.”  We proactively reach out to our clients on a regular basis to keep them informed of the trends we see and how the changes might impact their business.  Our clients can call an Account Manager at Union Street Media anytime to talk, for free, about what they can do with their website to improve their business.  We’re there for them and, in turn, they are there for us.

A big part of the value we provide our clients is education: our monthly newsletter highlights insights from our blog, gives tips on how to best leverage the tools we have developed and profiles clients who are making the most of their relationship with us.  Like medicine, no one has all the answers in the web development world, so by transparently sharing best practices we provide our clients an opportunity for the best outcome.

Having a front seat to my fiance’s pediatric residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, I can see there are big differences in a career in web development and medicine.  We are dealing with websites, not lives.  While my grandfather did say that laparoscopic surgery was boring since he couldn’t touch the organs, how he would have reacted to the Internet will remain a mystery. What I do hope is that my grandfather looks down upon me with pride in seeing that I have carried on his values of caring for those who entrust themselves with me.  I thank him for that life lesson big time.

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Unbounce My Heart – How to Tune Up Your Landing Pages

The key point to remember about a site’s bounce rate is that it’s not really about the site, it’s about each page. Often, a site’s home page bounce rate is perfectly acceptable and by that I look at anything under 30% to be healthy.

When looking at your Analytics data, it’s important to look for pages that are causing visitors to bounce i.e. leave immediately and look for ways to tune them up so they support the rest of the site.

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