Bad habits of Estate Agent websites

 

Bad habits are a part of what it is to be human, but that’s no excuse to allow your Estate Agent website to repeat bad traits set by the web design industry. Together web designers and Estate Agents alike should stand up against such atrocities to improve property websites all over the World Wide Web.

• Lack of personality

There are too many Estate Agent websites out in the digital jungle that fail to give any impression of website or brand personal. Bland and forgettable, these websites won’t differentiate themselves from local competitor websites and will only succeed at gathering digital cob-webs.

• Lack of credibility

A lack of personality on your Estate Agent website is one thing, but a web designer that creates a website that looks unprofessional is a complete waste of money. Remember that Estate Agents have 3 Seconds to impress.

• Confusing Navigation

Navigation plays an important part in the way you surf the web, because in its simplest explanation, it allows you to move from one web page to another. The placement, layout and trends of navigation have become an art form for web designers. Get this wrong and your website visitors will leave quicker glory-hunter supporters at a losing football game.

• Auto-play media

This one is a simple one. Let people pick and choose whether they want to otherwise it’s just annoying and don’t force people to sit through an introduction page - they’re not interested in your marketing material, just your properties.

• So where exactly are those properties?

Most people visiting your Estate Agent website are interested in one thing and one thing only, and that’s the properties in your portfolio. Too many property websites out there make it too hard for internet users to find the properties that suit them. – Confusing navigation and working too hard to find properties. A hidden property search button means that web designers aren’t taking the Estate Agent website call to action seriously.

• Must… be... different…

Trends and traditions, although change over time, are there for a reason. Estate Agent websites that try to buck these trends end up getting the basic elements of web design wrong. Sure, make sure your website stands out, but don’t ruin it in the process.

• Self-checks

Every now and then Estate Agents should check to see if their property website is performing in search engines. This search engine DIY test is important because the search engine results page is constantly changing and it only takes a few minutes.

• No property search – only property listings

Probably the most basic of all Estate Agent website functions is the ability to filter properties to ones that are relevant to online property searchers. Remember that online behaviours favour the lazy and even putting up a small barrier such as reading every property will put people off.

• Register to download

Shockingly some Estate Agent websites force each visitor to register their details. Their bounce rate for each individual property page will be astronomically high.

James Coyne eMarketing and Social Media Consultant