Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 9th January 2008
Top 10 web design tips
A good website will inspire your audience and position you as an authority in your chosen niche. It will save you thousands on Google Adwords because users will convert at higher rates and besides, you’ll have done your SEO right at the design phase so you’ll be getting lots of free natural traffic. Well, that’s the theory. Here are some practical tips and examples:
- A picture tells a thousand words. Overseas buyers are buying a dream so use images to inspire your audience. Alghero Estates and Taylor Woodrow are good examples of how it should be done.
- Be single-minded. What is the most important thing you want to tell the visitor about on each page? If you try and communicate too much your website ends up looking like this www.property-abroad.com.
- Visually promote important calls to action such as your telephone number and email address. Consider using icons, for example the green “email newsletter” button on this page.
- First impressions count. When people land on your site, you have about five seconds to convince them to stay. On your homepage, try to communicate your positioning and what makes you different. Kyero do this very well.
- Be personal. Use photographs of people and testimonials from happy clients to build trust. Also, make sure you include your postal address on your contact page. People like dealing with real businesses and this helps to reassure people.
- Use maps. Overseas buyers may not be familiar with the area where they are looking. If they can visualise the property location, they will be likely to enquire. Give the map plenty of room on the page like Foxtons do.
- Undertake keyword research BEFORE you start to build your site. You should decide on 6 to 10 phrases you want to rank for and try to incorporate them naturally into your headlines and page titles. This was the subject of my OPP Live presentation
- Put your navigation categories into logical groups. For example, you might want to put your locations into one navigation bar and property types into another. You should separate your utility navigation options (register, contact us etc). Clear and logical navigation will help users navigate your site and help them to understand what you do and how you can meet their needs.
- Use web conventions. For example, use blue text when linking and make your logo link back to your homepage. People have certain expectations driven by their experiences of other websites. You need to understand what these are and make sure you accommodate them in your design.
- Don’t use too many colours. Professional looking websites tend to use 2-4 colours. This site uses grey, green, blue and black. If you have a garish colour like our green, use it sparingly to highlight important areas of your site.
Do you have any comments and ideas? Do you have any examples of sites you like? Please share your thoughts by making a
comment.