My name is John Stegner and I have been an agent for the past 7 years, and expect I will be an agent until I get carried feet first out of my brokerage. I find the work very rewarding, more so than my prior tenure in the I.T. industry. Although I worked in a number of different verticals within I.T., the job that I enjoyed the most was as a consultant focused on information architecture and usability for ecommerce sites.

When I left the tech industry, I was very fortunate to get a fast start in real estate by joining a team. I did not have to spend money on marketing, but rather was able to focus on perfecting my lead conversion skills. After about a year in this role as a buyer’s agent, I wanted take what I had learned and begin building my own company and team. I joined up with a close friend from the tech world who was also an agent and we founded New Era Realty (www.mynewera.com). Our firm has grown over time and we now have 15 agents and expect to be over 20 halfway through this year.

In the early days of our company, we tried many different marketing tactics with varied success. The most successful endeavor did turn out to be a WordPress based blog that we started about 3 years ago. The site focuses on the specific niche of lofts and condos in Downtown Denver (www.denverloftsandcondosforsale.com). We have climbed to the top four results on Google for key search terms such as “Denver condos” and we have approximately 3,000 visitors per month. The most recent statistics show that 76% of the visits are coming from organic Google traffic and that the average visitor views just over 3 pages and spends about 2 minutes on the site.

For Geek Build 2012, I would like to redesign my parent’s web site, www.tophomesforsaleco.com, which is focused on the Northern Colorado market. This site has enough history and content to make it a fast riser on the rankings front. Further, since the Northern Colorado market is less competitive from an SEO perspective than Denver, the site should make for a great testing ground for this project.

Quick back story as to why I want to work on this site. I grew up a dairy farmer and my folks always employed me on the farm. Of course, they also fed me, clothed me, put me through college and have continued to help me and be generous with their time always. Making my parents site world class and generating a significant number of leads for them would be a small thank you for all that they have done for me.

Summary:

  • New or Redesign: Redesign
  • Geographic Focus: Northern Colorado

Note from the Editor: Not sure what Geek Build 2012 is? It’s building a few real estate websites from scratch publicly with the help of the Geek Estate Community and overseen by an experienced steering committee. Read more about Geek Build 2012 here, or view all posts related to Geek Build 2012 here..

**Geek Build logo designed by Dominic Morrocco at M Squared Real Estate.