Have you ever wondered what makes for an excellent website? Most people think that the look of the website is the essential element of a great site. Yes, the visual presentation is important, but there are so many other things that you need to create a winning website. When it comes to web design for Montreal real estate agents, these are the seven web design features you must have.
1. A Responsive Web Design
More than half of your visitors can come in via mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. If you avoid optimizing your website for these devices, you can expect your visitors to abandon your site. You need a responsive design that’s going to adapt your site according to the device used, or your prospects may have a difficult time interacting with your website. Some of the issues you’ll face include skewed layouts, compressed text, messy navigation, and more.
Responsive website design for realtors is especially crucial for local SEO. A vast number of location-based searches originates from mobile devices. Since real estate agents operate on a location basis, you need to appeal to the way that people do local searches. There are many responsive templates you can use. However, don’t assume that’s all you need.
It would be best practice to do the following:
- Creating a mobile-friendly navigation menu
- Improving content formatting
- Adding click to call buttons and more
2. A Website That’s Designed to Convert
Web design for real estate agents should be designed to generate real estate leads. Your design should have the goal of converting visitors into leads. Many people think that it’s your web copy that has the sole job of converting visitors. While it’s true that web copy has a stronger impact on conversions, you cannot ignore web design.
Everything from the typography of your headline, layout, engagement cues, to the call to action button has an impact on the lead generation conversion rates. For instance, changing the color and button size of your call to action button can result in a conversion lift. The lift will be smaller than the kind of impact that changing a headline can make. However, the goal here is to make small lifts from design changes add up to a significant conversion improvement.
3. A Site Optimized for SEO
Whether you plan on investing in SEO or not, it’s a good idea to build an SEO optimized website. Doing this from the beginning is better than changing your mind and having to redo your web design for search engine optimization later on. Optimizing your site for the search engines isn’t as hard as it seems. It can get technical, but by breaking down the process step by step, you should be able to come up with an SEO friendly site and design.
4. An Effective UI and UX Design
You’re likely going to be listing properties on your site. One of the common problems with real estate websites is that they are hard to use. It would help if you had a robust UI and UX design for your site. UI stands for user interface and deals with the elements the visitors interact with (navigation menu, search bar, filters, web buttons, etc.) while UX stands for the overall user experience.You want to make it easy for visitors to navigate between your property listings and quickly find the information that they need. If your listings are hard to navigate, confusing to sort through, or disorganized, you can bet that you’ll lose potential clients. Figure out what other search based real estate listing sites are doing right and incorporate those elements for your UI and UX design.
5. A Unique Design that Helps You Stand Out
The real estate industry can be very competitive. You can expect all of your competitors to have a professional-looking website. That’s why you need a creative design that helps you stand out. Try to avoid going with cliche designs that everyone else is using. At the same time, you need to avoid graphic designs that are too creative and distract visitors from their goals.
6. High-Quality Photos and Images to Sell, Impress and Engage Prospects
The real estate business is about professionalism. That’s why you need high-quality photos to impress your visitors. It’s a good idea to work with a professional photographer and web designer to come up with the best looking photos and images for your site. Also, if you’re using content in your digital marketing strategy, you want to be incorporating high-quality images as well. It helps sell your content and gets your prospects engaged to the very end.
7. A Website That’s Optimized for Site Speed
When it comes to web design for Montreal real estate agents, site speed overlooked detail. Ignoring your website load times is a big mistake as site speed is an SEO ranking factor, impacts site conversions, and contributes to the overall user experience. You want to do everything possible to decrease your site’s loading speed. This factor is especially critical for real estate websites as they usually have many property listings, photos, videos, and graphics that can slow down the site.
If you need help with your website or online marketing strategy, Pearl White Media can help. We are a web design firm in Montreal that specializes in website design for real estate agents. We can create responsive custom real estate website designs that help you stand out from your competition and positions you as the industry leader in your area.
To get a better idea of what to expect with our real estate web design services, get started by requesting a quote here.
You’re likely going to be listing properties on your site. One of the common problems with real estate websites is that they are hard to use. It would help if you had a robust UI and UX design for your site. UI stands for user interface and deals with the elements the visitors interact with (navigation menu, search bar, filters, web buttons, etc.) while UX stands for the overall user experience.
