Why usability is essential for estate agent web design

Is your website easy to navigate? Is it generally easy to use by your audience? The usability of your site is not only crucial for your audience but will also have a huge benefit on your SEO.

It is important to incorporate usability into your estate agent web design. Improvements to usability will make it easier for your users to navigate your website and find the information they are looking for. Poor usability usually leads to frustrated users as they are unable to find what they are searching for.

Usability isn’t just about the placing of your primary navigation but everything about your website. It is about the structure of your website, making it easy to flow from one page to the next and back again if need. Other usability factors include using cutting edge technology, the latest functionality and the speed of your site.

Producing a user-friendly website isn’t an easy task; it requires a web designer not only to design but to understand your audience’s mentality, which is different from business to business.

Importance of usability

Over 80% of online users will leave a website for the following reasons:

• The website is difficult to use
• The user can’t find what they are looking for quickly
• The homepage doesn’t provide the user with essential details such as what they do
• The homepage is too overwhelming, confusing the user
• Too many clicks are required for the user to find what they want
• Unclear and hard to understand content

Your online success depends on the usability of your site, if it is confusing, unclear or unusable it can destroy your online efforts.

Improve the usability of your website

Usability should be considered within every aspect of your website. Follow these tips to ensure your website is as user-friendly as possible:

• Analyse your website, note down the important features from it that are favoured by the users. Ensure that these features are easy to find and use.
• Check out what your competition is doing, what makes users stay on their website?
• Find out how users behave when they use your website. Where do they click? How long do they spend on each page? Etc…
• Follow the usability guidelines to make your website design completely user-friendly.
• Focus on the readability of your content, make sure it is well written and clearly laid out.
• Analyse every single page on your website, not just the homepage. Make sure it is clear what you do and what services you offer.
• Once you have finished and finalised the design, continue to test. Continually monitor your analytics to ensure the usability of your website stays great.

If you are unsure if your website is user-friendly then why not request a FREE web review!