The housing market is particularly competitive when it comes to online environments. And that’s whether you’re buying, selling, renting, or just managing properties. And because of the day and age that we live in, one of the things that is going to set you apart as a company is how well you present yourself via your website.
So some tips that you can follow that are both general to websites, and specific to housing sites, include keeping clean organization, targeting local audiences, making your services crystal clear, using fonts that make sense, and following market leaders. The better your stick to that list, the more leads your online presence will generate.
Keep Clean Organization
On successful housing websites, one of the common themes is that the pages are very clean and clear in terms of organization. The layout makes sense from top to bottom in terms of the priority of the company and the person browsing for its services. That may seem like common sense, but the first time you run into a housing and development website that starts with a historical paragraph, you’ll understand why that’s a big turn-off to people looking for data quickly.
Target Local Audiences
Housing is location-specific. Keeping that in mind will help you design your housing website. If your company deals with the southwest region of the U.S., then you need to target that demographic in your text itself. Finding a housing site that doesn’t remark specifically about where their services are located will tell you that web development team got lost in the forest by looking too closely at the digital trees.
Make Your Services Clear
Another problem that many housing websites in particular have is that the services that they offer aren’t immediately clear. Does this company rent out houses? Are they selling them? Are they offering 3rd party maintenance on established properties? Again, if you run across sites that don’t make their point clear within seconds of getting to their main pages, you can find examples of what not to do on your own site.
Use Fonts That Make Sense
Font use is important. You don’t want to use funny fonts, or Halloween fonts, when you’re trying to get attention to your housing website. Because not everyone is a designer, you’ll occasionally run into sites where just the font choice is enough for you to question the motives of the site’s designer. Don’t let something as basic as font choice ruin your otherwise perfectly good web page.
Follow Market Leaders
If you search for the most popular housing sites, you’ll find that there are a few common themes when it comes to things like layout and color choice. You never want to rip off content itself, but stylistically, following market leaders is never a bad idea.