Z57 Website and Marketing Support

Website Design


Website Look and FeelThe Look and Feel of Your Site

When considering the Look and Feel of your site, it is important to start by taking a good, hard look at your Target Niche or Demographic. If you don't have one- you need to pick one (5 Reasons Why).

With EVERY decision you make for your website-- from the design, the content, the way you capture their contact information, the way you follow up with them, to how/where you advertise-- you need to ask yourself: Who is your target and what do they need? Then you need to fulfill those needs.

Buyers and Sellers searching your website are there for very specific reasons and therefore already have some pretty specific expectations for what they are going to see when they land there for the first time. So when it comes to the Design of your site, we have 3 main objectives:

  1. Fulfill Your Visitors' Expectations
  2. Distinguish Your Site from Your Competition
  3. Appeal to Your Visitors' Emotions

1. Fulfill Your Visitors' Expectations

Within the first 4 seconds of arriving, visitors should know that they are in the right place. You need to have words with Your Target Area and a Real Estate Term together, prominently displayed on your homepage: i.e., Carlsbad CA Homes for Sale.

Furthermore, the pictures on the homepage need to accurately reflect your area and target demographic. If you specialize in horse properties in Bozeman Montana, we better see pictures of horse properties in Bozeman and NOT some pretty vineyard in Northern California.


2. Distinguish Your Site from Your Competition

Have you ever run a google search for "Your Area Real Estate"? If so, you should probably have a pretty good idea of how many other agents out there are competing with you for clients. Marketing Guru Seth Goodin says the key to success is to find a way to STAND OUT.

The first impression you make with the design of your homepage is the first step in distinguishing yourself from your competition.  (Check out Seth's book for more ideas:  "Purple Cow")


3. Appeal to Your Visitors' Emotions

There is no denying it, buying a house-- buying ANYTHING for that matter-- is a very emotional decision. Nobody buys a stack of wood, insulation, and drywall. They buy everything they can DO with that stack of wood, insulation, and drywall.

If you ever hope to get that bottom line signed, you need to make them feel what they are missing out on and sell them on everything they'll be able to do that they can't do now.

The pictures and colors you use can be an amazing ally in this: they help to set the mood and tone of your entire website. Choose pictures that depict all those new things they'll be able to do after they buy. What those things are will vary depending on your target demographic!



Custom DesignTools for the Look and Feel of Your Site

•Custom Design

If you have looked through our array of templated website designs but still feel there aren't any options that accurately depict your area and target market, why not have something custom designed just for you?

Our Graphic Designers can put together an affordable Custom Website Design using the background photos, colors, etc. of your choice.

•Choosing Pictures

You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to get amazing photography on your website- and you don't need to steal it either! These sites all sell semi-professional/professional photos for about $5 a piece.

•Choosing Colors

It's important to choose colors that coordinate well with your photos and are easy on the eyes. We all know our primary colors, but that doesn't mean you necessarily want to paint your website red, yellow, and blue. Some colors and shades coordinate well together, and some don't. If you're not careful, your website can turn out looking like a 6-year-old designed it!

Here are a couple tools that can help you pick colors that match your photos and form a pleasing palette:

Pay attention to things like:

  • Saturation (how vivid the color is): higher saturation is harder on the eyes and less appealing to most people over the age of about 15, especially in large areas (like a website background).
  • Contrast The text and background should be in high contrast so the text is easy to read (i.e., light text on dark background or dark text on a light background.)

•Editing Images

Some basic cropping, resizing, and touch ups are pretty standard when working with images on the web. If you don't already have a program you like using for this, try one of these free ones that are available entirely online (no download required):

For quicker edits and a broader range of functionality, try this more advanced free program that you download and install on your computer:

  • Irfanview
  • You can find all kinds of tutorials for more than you would ever want to do with Irfanview here

Once you have a solid design that sets you apart as a professional and accurately reflects your area, your target, and your brand, you are ready to take a closer look at the second part of Website Design: the Functionality of your site.


Website FunctionalityThe Functionality of Your Site

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
        -Steve Jobs

The Functionality of the site coordinates very closely with your Website Content. For you, creating a functional website is going to revolve most heavily around how you organize your content.

You'll notice that there are two sets of navigation buttons on your site. There are 3-6 links on your homepage, and once you click into the site you have a second line of buttons running down the left-hand side. These are your primary and secondary navigation buttons.

•Keep it Clean, Keep it Simple

You've probably seen your share of competitor websites who are cramming every button and bit of information they possibly can onto the homepage. Bad idea! The majority of your traffic will hit your homepage, be immediately overwhelmed, and leave. Keep the buttons/content on your homepage clean, direct, and simple.

Unfortunately, nobody is going to scroll down and read that long, beautiful introduction you crafted. Use short paragraphs with important keywords bold to make it easy to scan-- scanning is all internet users do.

•Reserve Your Home Page for the Important Stuff

A successful website is centered entirely around the client and what they are looking for, not what you want them to see. According to NAR, the number one thing visitors look for are pictures of homes for sale- therefore an effective IDX solution should be the 1st button prominently displayed, and usually a button for your listings should come next.

After a Home Search, visitors are next most interested in information about the area and information about the schools. Note: Only a very small percentage of people are actually looking for information about you, the agent.

•The 3-Click Rule

The 3-click Rule to Simple Navigation says that it should not take any more than 3 clicks for a visitor to be able to access any page on your site. Take advantage of the dual navigation built into your website: put the 5-6 most popular pages in the primary navigation, and put the other pages in your secondary navigation. That way, visitors can access every page at any time while navigating through your site.

•Have a Logical, Progressive Order to Your Buttons

Group similar buttons next to each other (i.e., Home Search and Listings, pages relating to area information, pages specifically for buyers, and pages specifically for sellers). Once grouped, these buttons should create a logical and progressive flow from one to the next. This makes it much easier for someone to scan and find what they are looking for.

•Internal Linking

Rather than putting ALL your  information up front, you can use Internal Linking (creating hyperlinks in your content from one page in your site to another) to help guide visitors to important information within your site.

For example, you could add a couple tips on your 'For Buyers' or 'For Sellers' page, then create a hyperlink for more information pointing to your Real Estate Tips page.


While Website Design is HOW people see the site, Website Content is WHAT people see, and it is the next step in creating a successful, optimized website:

Get Started on Content