A website is an important staple for any property. It not only sets the tone of your community, but is your primary marketing tool. Considering its importance, you want to ensure it’s done right. Here are the top web design mistakes many make when creating their first website and how to avoid them.
Slow Loading Times
In today’s fast paced society, when we want something, we want it now! This notion extends to your website too. In an ever growing impatient society, sites that take longer than three to four seconds to load will not fare well with visitors and will probably result in higher bounce rates. Some of the factors that contribute to slower loading times include unopitmized graphics, shared hosting, excessive widgets, lack of caches, uncompressed sites, and unnecessary plugins.
Poor Readability
What’s the point of investing in a website if it’s not readable? You want your web visitors to be able to read and digest your content seamlessly. And oftentimes, this may not be the focus throughout the design process. Remember to pay special attention to font styles, as certain fonts tend to view better on screen than others, like Arial, Verdana and Helvetica. Try to keep sentences brief, place images strategically and structure long content with bullet points and lists whenever possible. You can actually test your content’s readability through Microsoft Word’s ‘readability statistics’ function.
Inconsistency
Consistency is another biggie when it comes to designing your site. You’ll want to make sure you color schemes are similar and graphics follow the content. Ensure your headers, sub-headers, content and individual pages share the same design elements. And, most importantly, keep it simple!
Content
Content is always key when it comes to your website. It sets your site apart from the competition and can persuade visitors to give your property a chance. When drafting content for your site, you should provide unit details, up-to-date pricing, amenities, and community and contact information. Added touches would include property videos, high quality images and floorplans.
Poor SEO
Search Engine Optimization makes your website easy to find for both users and search engines. Not incorporating this into the site can result in less traffic, revenue and engagement. There are simple things that can be done to improve your SEO, including claiming your community on Google and Bing, creating an XML sitemap, submitting this map to Google and increasing your content. Next, beef up your content with keywords, including meta descriptions on all pages, make sure you’re using your title and header tags correctly, and follow the tactics above to boost your loading times.
Be Sure its Done Right.
A good website can be a large investment and can ultimately make or break a property. There’s no need to put your community’s reputation on the line. Rentbot offers professionally designed webpages and photos customized to your property, strategically placed content, and search optimization so that your prospects will see you first.
And with a dedicated account manager by your side, any issues will be resolved in little to no time. Make your first impression matter. Go with a web solution that you can trust, avoid those common website mistakes and get more leads in the process, guaranteed.
About the Author
Jonsette Calloway joined the Rentbot team in 2015. With a background in public relations, advertising and copywriting, she has helped a multitude of clients achieve their marketing and communications goals within various fields, but she particularly enjoys working with the apartment industry.