Here are a few important website design elements that estate agents should consider when designing their business’ website.
A picture says a thousand words
While estate agents won’t likely scrimp on photos of the houses they are selling, it is important to remember that the data that lies behind the image file is incredibly important, too. Name your images and add a relevant ‘ALT tag’ to explain what the image is. This will help search engines like Google to see the image as relevant content, as well as making your website and its images more accessible to users that cannot see well.
Furthermore, don’t forget to make sure that your images are well-sized and compressed so your website isn’t slowed down.
The importance of colours in estate agency branding
As estate agency websites are highly visual with hundreds of photos of properties, whether commercial or private homes, the accompanying branding needs to stand out and convey an appropriate message about the service you offer.
As noted in this blog post, colours can convey a lot to a potential client. The branding of your estate agency has the power to attract customers through creating the impression that you offer a friendly (orange or yellow), trustworthy (blue, dark red), or sophisticated and mature (purple, black) service to a specific demographic.
Aim for two or three colours in your branding to avoid going overboard and wisely use the colours in textual headings and a logo-branded heading.
Engaging and informative content for property clients
As you know, estate agents do more than help clients looking for a cosy home or a smart, professional office to settle into. The information, legal and practical advice, is often overwhelming to customers who don’t have any experience in property buying or renting, nor for those who do! Including advice about these issues will be hugely beneficial to your potential clients and equally beneficial to you at the same time – not only will potential clients see you as experts in a certain matter, including website content on separate issues will help your website to show up in search engine searches for specific topics, too.
Using search engine optimised content such as well optimised advice articles or helpful A-Zs on difficult property terminology will increase the chance of relevant search engine searches being directed to your website.
Don’t forget website headings and subheadings
In addition to good, informative content, it is really important that your website is laid out clearly and logically. For search engine optimisation purposes, using headings and subheadings with words relevant to what people will be searching for is not only useful for breaking up a page’s structure to make it easier to read, it also makes the subject and contents of the page clearer to search engines like Google.
Mobile friendly property searching
In this smartphone age, big property search websites such as Rightmove have apps that make property searching really convenient for property hunters. This means that estate agents need to keep up a high standard with their website design, including an optimised mobile phone version. Not only are mobile friendly websites brilliant for customer experience, Google has recently announced that if your business website isn’t mobile friendly, it will be ranked lower on a Google search result than other estate agents who have optimised their website design.
Advice for website design
If you’re interested in improving your website’s design to meet your business goals, contact one of our team members today to see how we can help. Contact us on 01858 374 170 or email info@idealmarketingcompany.com
