Costly Web Design Mistakes

| Web design

Costly Web Design Mistakes

 

Are you struggling to turn your visitors into customers? Avoid making these following web design mistakes and start turning those visitors into leads:

1) Your estate agency website isn’t user-friendly

To you your website may seem very user-friendly, however you have had access to your website for a long time, in fact you probably helped to build it and revisit it all the time so of course to you the user-interface is very easy to use but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy for your audience. 

A website needs to be easy to navigate, people generally have a fixed idea of how a website should work and where certain things should be but when they aren’t where the user thinks they will be it can be very annoying.

Your website should be straight forward and follow the unwritten guidelines for web design. The primary navigation should feature only the most important parts of your website and be clearly labelled. Use simple words within the navigation tab like “About Us” and “Contact”, I know it may seem a little boring and uncreative but these tabs need to be clear and simple as to not confuse the user.

2) Lack of trust

You need to give the visitor a reason to trust you and have confidence in your services. You need the visitor to believe that you are a professional business that will offer a fantastic and reliable service.

If your website is outdated and unmaintained then it isn’t going to fill your potential customers with confidence.

How can you create trust?

  • Testimonials – one of the best ways to do this is by adding real customer testimonials to your website.
  • Blogging – a blog is the perfect place to prove to your visitors that you know what you are talking about, share your knowledge and expertise.
  • Explain your services – help the visitor understand the services you provide, the process you go through and what makes you different from the competition.
  • Engaging through social media – if you are engaging with real local people, helping and informing them then it will help to increase trust.

3) A weak proposition

Very few estate agency websites have a strong proposition. A good value proposition will tell your visitors immediately what makes your business unique and desirable.

Your main headline on the page should tell the visitor exactly what to expect, why you are unique and how you will benefit the visitor.

The headline will clearly tell the visitors where they are and why they need to stay. People searching on the internet don’t want to have to figure out this information on their own. This information needs to be right in front of them when they land on your website.

4) Too many call-to-actions

We know that you want your audience to like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, sign up for your email alerts, read your blog, look at all of your property listings and use your services but your website needs to be clean and simple to attract business.

If you are asking people to do too much at once then nothing will get done. You need to lay your content out in a hierarchy, leading them from one page to the next in a simple process.

Don’t make the user have to think about what they need to click on. The decision should have already been made for them. 

Luke Stanley