Estate Agent website Navigation

 

Navigation can be similar to a car GPS on your Estate Agent website. It tells people where to go, and if properly implemented, the best way to get there. Get it wrong and you’ll end up losing more and more visitors to your website.

Now we’ve all visited a website with confusing navigation that’ll make a property searcher or vendor leave your website within 10 seconds. It can be one of the most frustrating experiences that leaves the user with a feeling of resentment from something that should provide them with an information service.

To combat this horrific malpractice, Resource Techniques has a few tips so your navigation is more signposted than a health and safety obstacle course.

• Property search – No surprises here, we believe that not only there should be a prominent property search button on the homepage, but one of the first buttons on the navigation should also link to the property search page. This is so potential buyers can immediately find their way to the properties on your portfolio.
• Plan your route – Before any website is constructed, the Estate Agent website designer needs to consider all possible pages, the order and the route in which the website visitor will reach those pages. Organisation is key.
• Be consistent – Luckily many Estate Agent websites have now moved away from this inconsistency, but older websites didn’t use the same navigation throughout their website. Imagine trying to drive to the other side of the country with constantly changing signposts.
• Keep clicks to a minimum – this should be the main focus when considering your website navigation. Adding extra navigation is needless and simply adds to the impatience of your website visitor.
• Homepage ease of access – At any time, for any reason and wherever a visitor is on your website they can decide that they need to start all over again. Not only should the logo have a homepage link on it, but the first link of the navigation should also point to the homepage.
• Labelling – Unbelievably there are quite a few Estate Agent websites that do not properly label their navigation. I can only think that this is either not thought through or the Estate Agent wanted their website to somehow be quirky.

James Coyne eMarketing and Social Media Consultant