Professional web designs market a “code validation” feature that means nothing for the copywriting content of the website, however is greatly impacts the graphic presentation and can enhance or hinder the search engine optimization. Web design and development for businesses evolves as the technology available advances. The web standards attempt to make life easier for marketers, business owners, software product developers and web designers by creating the set of rules everyone plays by.
These rules have far-reaching implications in solving the problem: How do you create a web design that utilizes one or a mix of computer codes (such as HTML, java script, or php) that will look the same in different web browsers (like Explorer, Safari or Firefox) to computers that range from older PCs, stripped down netbooks, or proprietary Apple notebooks?
On top of this is the web visitor layer – how fast is their Internet connections (i.e. high resolution graphics load fast or very slow) and their ability to read various print or image sizes. The latter adds a layer of accessibility to the validation layer. Extra code, that is not needed to meet basic web design standards, is available to add sound or extra text to make websites available for those with visual handicaps.
As the current text mark-up language moves towards its next standard, companies should consider the business case for keeping their web design adhering as close as possible to the latest web standard. Currently many websites are alive and well that still use HTML code for both the basic architecture and to spell out the font-styles in line with the web content. Current and future standards use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to move the font style and element positioning code off the web pages, cleaning up the code and reducing web page size and load times.
As Internet marketing competition increases, web designs using CSS will have a four-fold competitive advantage:
IMCD Web Design utilizes the latest web design standards and CSS to give your professional web design the competitive edge it needs to succeed in the online marketing arena. Call our web design pros and move your business into a higher level of sales lead generation.
May 24
When weighing real estate web design package alternatives, make sure you address all the areas of the website package and not make the mistake of measuring apples to oranges and buying on price alone.
A satisfactory web design investment will positively impact your online marketing, whereas one missing key features loses your marketing both time and potential financial return.
What are the areas to look for in a complete real estate web design package?
1. Are you clear on all the features of your package? All items in your website should be spelled out – there should be no grey areas or features verbally promised that fail to show up in the contract.
2. Know which areas are not optional in a successful real estate web design. Areas that are not optional are the graphic design, customized graphic images, search engine optimization (SEO) and complete website content. The biggest drawback inexpensive template real estate web designs have are using the SEO as a back-end profit center – an expensive option that newcomers or Realtors attempting to maximize their return on investment are apt to forego. Putting up a real estate website without search engine optimization and honing the use of the keywords is akin to selling homes in a neighborhood that lacks street signs and home addresses. SEO is the science and art of creating and placing web content that tells the search engine what you do, what your market is, and where you are located.
3. Is all the content filled in when the website goes live? With inexpensive template sites, in a well-meaning effort to allow for the addition of needed content to the website, pages are included for specific information with the “Your info goes here” as the page filler. Too often, you find these websites with no keyword-rich content on those pages months and years after the website launched. Promising information and not providing is a fast way to lose online visitors and a waste of all the print marketing, search engine marketing and optimization you have done to get them to your real estate website.
With IMCD Web Designs, your have all the features of your website spelled out in our easy to follow real estate web design checklist and contract. We create foundational real estate web designs that include all the features needed for a successful website and, when your website goes live, all your content is presented in a , presaged by years of experience creating real estate websites the bring their owners a return on their online marketing investment. Review our Realtor website portfolio and contact our real estate web design staff about your move to better sale lead generation.
May 17
A custom real estate web design is a must to successfully serve the luxury property market. Notice how an upscale neighborhood never has two houses, cars or lawns looking alike? Uniqueness and adaptability to individual tastes are drivers in the luxury market. Your real estate web design needs to match the expectations of your potential clients both in the website showing the properties as well as the range of luxury homes for sale offered.
IMCD Web Design has a long history of serving Realtors who have carved out a successful business selling luxury real estate. Each of their luxury real estate web designs shares similarities in the ease of navigation; highly targeted search engine optimization; and a wealth of content sell ling both the real estate services and the luxury homes. However, the similarity ends at the graphic design. Each web design enjoys a custom graphic design that reinforces the uniqueness and exclusivity of the Realtor’s personal brand and their market.
In viewing another firm’s luxury web design, several marketing mistakes popped up. The first was the use of the same template utilized to market to other markets – home page marketing was directed to foreclosure property and first-time homebuyer markets – neither one a main stay of the luxury market. Each IMCD Web Design website for the luxury market is a custom real estate web design that focuses all its marketing and graphic images to that market.
The second marketing mistake was the rampant misspellings in their real estate blog. Stanford University tested factors that affect credibility on a website and misspelled words ranked in the top 10 factors causing visitors to distrust and leave a website. For the size of the investment in luxury real estate, misspelled words translates as a lack of attention to details – the larger the deal the more costly an overlooked mistake can be. Each IMCD Web Design client receives training on the best practices use of their website, from adding and editing property listings to the addition of blog entries – and spell check is included in the real estate blog editor function.
If your online marketing presence needs a competitive upgrade, it is time to contact the custom real estate web designers at IMCD Web Design. We have the graphic design and website optimization experience to help you carve out your niche in the luxury real estate market.
May 10
“Dollar for dollar, a professional, functioning website is one of the best investments any business can make – especially at a time when the economy is tight,” reports Matthew Aaron, author of Selling In A Recession. This is especially true for real estate websites – online marketing to generate sales leads in a tight economy is more important than in boom times. IMCD Web Design’s real estate clients report that their real estate websites are accounting for a greater percentage of their sale lead generation.
Sales lead generation and capture is the targeted goal of real estate web design – the effective summation of effective graphic design, informative and keyword-rich web content and search engine optimization that captures web visitors’ attention and contact data.
IMCD Web Design utilized the expertise of professional real estate agents and mortgage industry professionals in the creation of our in-depth online library of articles. Following the principle of giving clients what they need, each article tackles common questions and solves common problems home buyers and sellers face. Without a rich content, a web design is lacking in one of the key areas used by the search engines to index, categorize and rank your real estate websites against the other websites vying for your market’s attention.
Every IMCD Web Design real estate website template design meets the marketing and budgeting needs of single agent websites marketing their persona brand to expanded brokerage and agency versions with agent directories and multi-editor blogs.
The semi-custom template real estate web designs are utilized by many agents effectively expanding their online presence beyond their bio on the brokerage website to a personal brand-creating online presence. These real estate web designs have all the major real estate marketing capabilities from integration of article managers and blogs for ease of content addition and management, feature property search capabilities, and full integration with local MLS or IDX systems – all in an affordable range.
Investment in our professional real estate web designs is a solid business move to make the best of your real estate market opportunities. With multiple real estate web design options and pricing levels, agents can target the best website for their market entry and line-up a strategic path expanding their online marketing presence. Contact IMCD Web Design for your customized real estate web design and improve your online sales lead generation. A successful real estate website is your booming real estate micro-economy!
May 03
Real estate websites owned by brokerages or agencies that utilize blogs have a potential key asset: the potential for a team of real estate agents creating blog content. With this asset comes the need for the agency to adopt a content strategy. How can a content strategy add to the professionalism of your real estate website?
First, the strategy provides an overall plan that all writers use to promote your online real estate marketing objectives. This can include the keywords you are targeting, how you present the business, potentially a quality control system for how articles are added to the website, and target areas to cover or promote to fulfill the sale lead generation goals.
In order to make your real estate website blog‘s strategy a reality, next implement an achievable plan. By “achievable”, this takes into account the real estate agents’ time constraints, priority articles needed and adaptability of the staff to the web content creation technology. A simple schedule and list of article topics helps to both insure the timeliness of articles as well as getting the creative juices flowing. Of course, time and capital are both assets to invest wisely and some real estate agencies conserve their Realtors for selling and contract with professional copywriters to fill their real estate website content creation needs. With external writers, a defined content criteria becomes all the more critical.
With the ability of blogs to track web visitors reading habits, your real estate website blog can provide the invaluable feedback of what topics and market niches are hot in your neighborhoods. By adapting content to customer driven demand, your website becomes a greater asset to your potential customers and a more profitable sales lead generation center.
With the benefits of high level of search engine optimization, ease of adding content – both graphic and text, and the notification of search engines and subscribers when new content is posted, real estate website blogs has proven their worth in driving traffic. If your agency is ready to make a greater impact in your area’s online property market scene, contact IMCD Web Design for a professional real estate website with integrated blog. We have the custom or semi-custom web design that can meet your business needs.
Apr 26
Is your real estate websites design targeting one of real estate’s growing niche markets? Builders, interior designers, home stagers and real estate agents detecting this growing real estate market have begun tracking women’s buying habits and criteria. Real estate website designs that are tailored their website or a category in their real estate website blog are positioning themselves to serve an affluent buying market.
How large is just the single woman real estate market? According to the National Association of Realtors, single women are purchasing 25% of the homes sold. That is not including married couples where the lady of the house has a major go/no go power in the buying decision. In short, it is a sizeable market you want your real estate website to serve and attract.
Several immediate ways to adopt your Realtor website to the female buyer is to add a category to your real estate blog that picks neighborhoods and housing styles that are favored by women. Similarly is to know what features of the home are of importance when creating your featured homes for sale listing entries. A few pluses are laundry rooms on the first floor, windows over the kitchen sink to keep an eye on the neighborhood, walk-in closets, lots of natural light, and any security feature enhancements. In close-knit neighborhoods, front porches are finding a resurgence in popularity as a place for neighbors to gather informally and a place for the children to meet.
Another factor supporting using your real estate website to cater to the women market is that the working woman financially survived the market downturn better than men. In 2009, women surpassed men for the first time in percentage of the working labor market. Men lost their blue collar jobs 3 to 1 to women and white collar workers in a 2 to 1 ratio.
IMCD Web Design offers an array of real estate website templates that offer marketing benefits to real estate agents targeting niche markets including the single woman market. From color themes, market targeting integrated blog or article manager options to custom Flash sideshows, IMCD Web Design templates provide a professional web design foundation for your online marketing campaigns. Contact our web design experts today or view our array of successful real estate website templates.
Apr 19
Business owners looking for a web design that meets their company’s needs face a tumultuous Internet marketplace. In a market populated with one-man shops to Madison Avenue marketers with a web design division, business owners quickly find out, there is no standard pricing.
The best way to define what a good web design is worth is to first list what you want your web design to do for your business. The most common attributes of a web design is to get traffic from the search engines, provide your contact information, serve up captivating web content about your goods or services, and draw potential clients to your store or contact information for your services.
Though ready template websites may be attractive for their low price, they do have a few downsides as a professional web design: business owners untrained in creating websites are left to fill in all the web content, search engine optimize the content and add in any optional graphics. A quick review of template sites will show you that most business people understand very little about search engine optimization and don’t have the time to fill in all the various pages. Unfortunately for the marketing investment, most template websites do not rank high on the search engine results.
In reality, you should consider a professional web design company. In contemplating the cost, simply review what would be a good return on your investment – how many customers buying your basic product or service would cover the cost of the website. Basic business web designs in the neighborhood of $2000 to $5000 are the ballpark pricing for web designs that are customized to your business and meet all the SEO, graphic design and web content needs that businesses have.
IMCD Web Design has the experience of producing custom web designs for many types of businesses – designs that are providing their owners with a steady stream of online clients. If you have tried the paths that lead to Internet marketing invisibility, it is time you contacted our web design exerts and see how quickly you can improve your online marketing. A good web design is worth a lot…of new business.
Apr 12