Estate Agent web design - Annoying website designs

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Estate Agent web design - Annoying website designs

Annoying website designsEstate Agents can we get a little hallelujah for the Web 2.0. Internet veterans will remember Geocities and the fact that some bespoke website designs were so offensive to the eyes that Estate Agents would grind their teeth. Fun for the designer, but not so much fun for the user.

For those that are unsure, Web 2.0 was coined in 1999 in an article by Darcy DiNucci on ‘Fragmented Future’ but the term was made popular by O’Reilly and MediaLive in 2004 when they hosted the first Web 2.0 conference.

History lesson aside, Web 2.0 refers to a new generation of web services and applications to ease the progress of creativity, information sharing, and collaboration with the people that use it. A clear example of web 2.0 is Facebook and Twitter – Something that many of us now take for granted.

Although the internet has made outstanding developments when it comes to website designs, and Estate Agent websites, there are still too many websites that still adhere to the old standards and can be compared to dragging a rusty nail across a blackboard.

The Estate Agent website review team has now had enough of seeing so many bad designs. Estate Agents, it’s time to stop living in the past and start using the web standards that your business deserves.

So here goes, below is a list of the top 5 most annoying website designs that continue to plague Estate Agent websites:

  • DJ Website – Shockingly this still exists. With most people searching for property within work hours, having music on a website is not only annoying but gives people away that have a sneaky little look at local properties.
  • Pop-ups – Why oh why do designers for websites decide that people want to have more than one window for each feature? Some Estate Agent websites even go as far as not even hosting their own properties and having a jump off to a property portal. Insane.
  • You little Gif – Gif animations were in fashion in the 90s and now a more professional ‘flash’ has overtaken. Again shockingly these still exist on some web reviews which have been carried out. Estate Agents, if you want to stay in the digital equivalent of the Stone Age, please continue to use Gif animations.
  • Introducing... an Estate Agent – Internet users are now more impatient than ever. There will be many Estate Agents who have not even read the content within this article, but glossed over the details and only taken in the bullet points, which is fair enough, Estate Agents are busy people. Do not expect that property searchers have more time though, they do not want to see an introduction page that has a little ‘Skip’ link at the bottom. Guaranteed that every property searcher will click on that little link.
  • Broken – As a customer, there’s nothing more annoying that trying to use a website and the property search is broken. Our advice here is for Estate agents to use an established bespoke website designer that can provide you the functionality that every Estate Agent website should have.

Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques comments, ‘There are many more mistakes than just the top 5 website mistakes named here. Do you feel that your website is out of date, it probably is’