Real Makeover
By Dave Nienberg, President/CEO
Copyright © 1998 Dave Nienberg. All rights Reserved

From average to Top 10 in less than a month…

In the not too distant past, just having a Web site was a big deal. Not many companies (or Realtors®) had sites and what was out there looked similar. It didn't matter what you did, people would find you and your sales would go up. But that was the past. Today, there are so many Web sites in existence, you now have to stand out from your competitors to get new business.
    So, how do you make your site stand out? That's what I intend to show you by walking you though a real makeover of an existing site.

Background
In July of 1997, Yvette Wampler, a Northern Virginia Realtor®, came to us with a problem. She had an existing site but it wasn't generating any increased business. Naturally she felt skeptical about the Web and had thoughts of abandoning it altogether. So, we took a look at her existing site and right away were able to tell her what the problem was - her site was unprofessional and it was scaring away customers. She agreed with our assessment and asked us to make her site as good as it could be. We came up with a few ideas and then we were off to work on the re-design. The results were startling - the site won the coveted IRED Top 10 and business soared to more than $2,000,000 in sales in less than 6 months.

The Old Site
Click the link below to take a look at the old site and discuss what works and what doesn't.

Please note: all the links to the old site have thumbnail images below the paragraph they are mentioned in and will open a screen shot of the site in a new browser window. The new site links will pop-up in a new browser so you may follow along with this story. Simply close the new browser or switch to the one with this story to continue.

The Good - Yvette's old site had only one good feature which made it into the redesigned site - the information request. It still surprises me how effective these forms can be. People seem to like structure. By guiding them with the information you need, you can dramatically increase the number of people who contact you. Unfortunately, in the nine months that Yvette's old site was up, she only received one request. The reason for this is simple. People didn't trust her because they didn't trust her site.

The Bad - There was plenty of bad in the old site so I won't cover everything in detail - just the three worst offenders.

Animation explosion - I admit I like animations on Web sites (I know the guy who figured out how to do them) but only when they're done correctly. Animation will not make a bad site better or fix any other flaws you might have. In fact, more often than not, it'll make your site worse. Yvette's old page had no less than six animated elements all fighting for your attention. This is five - and maybe six - too many. Your Web site is an extension of your image and the image projected here is one of disorganization and clutter. I wouldn't contact her to help me with the biggest financial transaction of my life - would you?

Chartjunk - This requires a little background so you can fully understand what I'm talking about. Chartjunk is a term coined by Edward R. Tufte, a Yale professor and the worlds leading expert on user interface design. As stated by Mr. Tufte, chartjunk is all the elements (scrollbars, horizontal rules, bullets, etc) which take up space but convey no information. As you can see there is plenty of chartjunk on the old design. Notice the worst offender - the scrollbar on the left which cuts the page up and draws too much attention to itself. Is it necessary? No, of course it isn't. This is simply poor design. Take a look at your site. What is taking up room and not conveying information? Eliminate it and your site will become cleaner and easier to use.

Poor graphics - Graphics are great. They made the World Wide Web what it is today. Unfortunately, graphics are like matches in the hands of children when they're not used properly. This site definitely got burned. Three deadly sins of graphics are present here.

1. First, the dreaded aliasing problem. Take a look at the multicolored balls describing services. Notice how they are all ragged around the outside instead of smoothly blending in. That is aliasing. They should be removed entirely. Try to picture what the site looks like without them. It looks a lot better doesn't it?

   

2. The second deadly sin is the cartoon graphics. Don't get me wrong. I love cartoons. But I abhor them on a professional site (unless, of course, they are of high-quality which these are not). They are simply inappropriate for the image Yvette was trying to project. What do you think of the graphics used here? How do they make you feel about Yvette?

   

3. The third and last deadly sin is the file size of the images. Quite simply this page takes too long to download. Most of the people who find her site are going to leave very quickly because they don't have time to waste. If you're courteous to your visitors by keeping your graphics small and relevant, you'll increase the chance they'll become your customers.

The New Site
Now that we've seen what was wrong with the old site, let's look at what is right with the new site. Yvette has ten major things right on her new site and they are all things you should be doing also. Let's call them the 10 Commandments of Real Estate Web Design. Here they are:

Commandment 1 - Thou shall change content on a regular basis. This is first and for good reason. You must change and update your pages regularly. It shows that you are still in business and that you care enough about your visitors to put effort into your site. Yvette's site does this with her "advice" section. Every month she writes an article of interest to her visitors. Since people know that new content is coming, odds are they'll bookmark the site and return.

Commandment 2 - Thou shall provide valuable information. This was accomplished in two ways. First the "tour" of Northern Virginia and second the "advice" section again. Both of these sections provide information not available on any other site in the area. Help yourself by helping others. Most people will call the Realtor® who has helped them rather than someone who has not.

Commandment 3 - Thou shall look professional. You wouldn't dream of meeting a client wearing Bermuda shorts and a tank top would you? Of course not! Yet most Realtor's® sites do just that. Don't fall into the trap of making your site "cool." Cool sites are not necessarily good or effective. What you need is a site which conveys your professionalism and encourages people to call you. Do you think Yvette is professional now?

Commandment 4 - Thou shall make your site easy to navigate. If your visitors get lost within your site, they'll leave. It's that simple. Notice on the sub-pages of Yvette's site how you can always tell where you are in two ways. First, the upper left hand corner shows you visually how deep you're into the site and provides a way back home. Secondly, the bottom of every page again shows where you're at by having a "sharp" picture representing which section you're in and "blurred" pictures representing the other sections of the site. Can you figure out where you're at on her site?

Commandment 5 - Thou shall use professional quality graphics. Too often stock clipart pictures are used to "spruce up" a site. The result is just the opposite. The site's quality goes down. Professional graphics are not cheap but they're worth every penny. If you're not artistically inclined don't do them yourself. The money you save will be peanuts compared to the money you'll lose in the form of customers.

Commandment 6 - Thou shall use high quality fonts. The written word is powerful. The written word with a high quality font is even more powerful. Take a look at any well designed site and at its' heart will be great typography. The fonts used on your site help convey who you are and what you're about. If your site is filled with Arial, Times and Helvetica you look like everyone else. Is that the image you want?

Commandment 7 - Thou page shall download quickly. Great graphics, fonts and content are super, but if they take forever to download nobody will appreciate them. Most images can easily be reduced in size thereby increasing the speed which they load. So why isn't this done more often? Two reasons. Laziness or lack of knowledge. Yvette's main page utilizes an interesting trick called the "low res - high res swap." This trick uses a very small, fast loading picture which initially takes the place of a higher resolution picture which is downloaded later. Check it out yourself and see if your site can take advantage of this trick.

Commandment 8 - Thou forms shall look nice. Forms are ugly. Professional designers hate designing them. Why? Because it's hard to layout an effective form. The trick is to use a table (with the border off - remember chartjunk?) to layout the form elements. Take a look at the before and after. Which one would you be more willing to fill out?

Commandment 9 - Thou site shall be designed for the masses. By this, I mean your site should be designed so that most people can view it normally. There are actually hundreds of sub-commandments here to follow. Unfortunately, I can't list them all at this time. There is one classic problem which bears mentioning. The "best viewed with 800 x 600 resolution" suggestion. I agree that the site looks better if you follow this suggestion, but nobody will change their browser to fit your needs. In fact, most people won't even know what you're talking about. Notice how Yvette's new site works no matter what screen resolution you have. Isn't that a much better solution?

Commandment 10 - Thou shall have a memorable site. Will people who visit your site remember what it looked like? If it's done correctly they will. The question is, "How do you do that?" Actually it's easy. Just follow all these commandments your site will stand out from the rest and people will remember it. There are, of course, other techniques to help the memorability of your site, but I'll save them for my next article.

Epilogue
Now for the part you really want to know - how much does it cost to have your site designed correctly? The answer: probably more than you want it to. Sites can vary in cost from free (we've seen those results) to millions of dollars. Obviously, you don't want either extreme. As a rule of thumb plan on spending between four to ten thousand dollars for a well designed, effective and memorable site. While that may seem expensive on the outset, the incremental sales you'll enjoy will quickly pay for the site many times over.
    Just one final note. Make sure you pick the right designer to create your site (and as you've seen, your image.) Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done, since good designers are a relative rarity. You'll know when you've found one though. The sites they've designed will follow the commandments and rise above the noise. If so, you're half-way there. The final half is checking their references. Find out what their other clients thought about working with them. You'll often be surprised with what you hear. If everything checks out you should feel confident that you have made a correct decision. Then the Web will work for you and you'll enjoy increased sales as a benefit.

For more information contact us at: info@4guys.com