Web design flaws: What to avoid

 

Most of the time your estate agency website will be the store front of your business, the first point of connection between you and your potential customers so it is vital your website makes an impression. Gimmicks, flashy graphics and fancy fonts will not impress your audience and instead is actually likely to deter them from your website.

Your website isn’t supposed to be what you find attractive as it isn’t for you; your website is built for your audience. It also isn’t about being the most innovative and creative website around, it is about creating a website that attracts your audience, is easy to use and keeps them coming back again and again.

When designing a website you should completely focus on the user so here are 4 mistakes many estate agents make when creating their website:

1. No clear message or direction

When your user lands on your website they are looking for somewhere to go, this may be to search for properties, find contact information or learn more about your business. Whatever it is you need to be sure your visitor can find it almost instantly. Your audience needs to be able to figure out your page within a few seconds of the site opening in order to keep them viewing your website.

2.  Unorganised, messy and confusing

3 words you want to avoid when creating a website. To deliver a clear message your webpage needs to be organised, clear and simple. Too much content and/or imagery will only confuse and frustrate the user.

Simplicity is key, a clear, easy to navigate layout with effective images and clear words to allow your user to take the information in.

Content is of course an important component in web design; however you need to ensure it doesn’t have any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. What you write reflects who you are as a business so make sure it is right.

You also have to make the content easy to read to encourage people to read it. Large blocks of content are very overwhelming and many users will avoid it, instead try to spread the content with images and it will help make the content look less daunting.

3. Bad colour scheme

The colours of your website will have an impact on your audience, of course you need the colour of your website to compliment your branding but too much of something can have a negative effect. Choosing the right colours for your website is essential, complementary colours if used in moderation can improve a websites visual appeal.

There is a psychology behind colours, find out what the colour of your website says about you.

4. Slow loading speeds

Speed is important, not only for the user but also to Google. If your website is particularly slow it will have a negative effect on your SEO.

Slow loading will also cause your visitors to lose interest and back up. Your visitors are likely to have a short attention span and web studies have shown that the average person only spends 15 seconds reading a web page and rarely scrolls to the bottom of the page so imagine how much time you are wasting with slow loading speed.