What do you offer your visitors on your real estate website? Do you offer easy navigation? Plenty of good easy-to-access content? Simple design with graphics only when needed? Or are you a technology lover that has built a souped-up hot rod version with too many bells & whistles?
Your real estate website should be designed for the purpose of serving your visitors and clientele. A website that detracts, annoys, or otherwise confused a visitor does not serve a beneficial purpose.
Here are some great technology ideas that you should avoid on your real estate website:
Pop-Ups
Pop-up windows have become one of the most annoying features of any web technology. So much, in fact, that most web browsers are designed with an express feature to block pop ups. Don’t frustrate your audience by trying to be clever with pop-up winder information.
Flash
No, not the superhero or one related to a trench coat. Flash technology is neat and clever and offers some really interesting options for animation designers and graphical web sites. But is your real estate about graphic animation? No. You are a service provider who’s main goal should be to provide information, not animation.
Keep your real estate website design simple. Flash technology not only requires the most recent and upgraded web browsers, thus a portion of your audience will be unable to view the site, but it also requires high-speed internet for those who view it. Your website should be easily accessible for all users.
Too many / Not enough Pictures & Graphics
A real estate website should have a nice balance of textual as well as graphical information. A website with too much text can be more difficult to read and navigate, whereas a site stuffed with too many photos or graphics can be even harder.
Provide small resolution photos that are relevant to an article. Use simple graphics for your logo or navigation menu. And the place to use plenty of photos is in your real estate listings. Make sure they are clear (not too bright or dark) with good composition of exterior and interior views.
Tags: Technology
I think real estate websites are too often stuffed with information, graphics, and links. Sites need to be clean and easily readable. I can’t stand sites that have no focus point. I always remind myself to keep it simple.
I think Dylan has a point that form should follow function. However, this applies to more than just real estate websites, but to all advertising and messaging. In a down economy such as ours, the strong-arm sales tactics and beating of the chest become commodity communications and unconvincing to the consumer/prospective client. Other industries have learned that when it comes to a ‘value proposition’, the emotional benefit is as important as the functional benefit. “Selling the most” may not be the answer when it comes to a public distrustful of the realty sector. Instead, elements such as trust and credibility can act as points of differentiation for a firm.
In the end, whether it’s the offline or online realm, “keeping it simple” may be the key and building a strong relationship between the brand and the consumer may be more important than assertions of superiority and websites with razzle and dazzle.
I was really glad to hear that. So often, it’s the opposite message — add this, add that, here’s how to do this. People go off the deep end and make sites that are distracting and overdone. It’s always good to remind people that too many bells and whistles will actually turn the reader off. There’s definitely a fine balance between having a site that is too simple and one that has too many bells and whistles.
I also agree with Dylan, many websites are over produced and don’t really deliver what the consumer is looking for.
This is great info. I am a Realtor that also did web development for many years. It is best to make it as easy as possible for the user to get the info they need.
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