Build a website like you’d build a house

During this recession / economic mishap or whatever you want to call it, I wondered if it might become quite rare to see housebuilders commission new website builds, but that’s not the case at all. With cost savings, flexibility and the ability to accurately target that online brings, many are using this opportunity to hasten their move to digital, and it makes sense. Apart from these benefits, it’s worth considering that when the market does pick up (and there’s been some promising initial signs in activity so far this year), your online strategy better be polished and ready to fire on all cylinders, as your competitors will be.

With that in mind, this month we’ll take a look at practical ways to improve the design, usability and functionality of your website – whether starting from scratch or giving it a lick of paint.

Firstly a real basic, but so important it’s worth stating, ensure when making changes to your website that a structured project management process is followed. Specifically, have a key requirements specification spelling out each aspect of the site to be included. The project manager should be familiar with this process and it helps to ensure that the web designer knows exactly what you want, and how it will work. Ambiguity is a very unpleasant discovery 12 weeks into a web build!

The aim of a website is for it to operate intuitively for the visitor, and this can vary depending on factors including their age, level of internet understanding, and any disabilities they may have. With this in mind, if your target market is more likely to be affected by any of these factors, such as if you are a retirement homebuilder, then consider running design or usability testing during the website build phase.

Design testing can be undertaken on the current site by building a working prototype of the new design, then gathering a small number of potential customers and video them (and the screen) to watch how they complete a number of website tasks, such as searching for a new property in Bournemouth, or making an enquiry. Get the subject to talk through their thought process as they complete these tasks as it can throw up some very useful insights into their actions, and monitor how many clicks it takes to achieve each action – this is a key factor in whether your website usability is strong enough to work with or against the visitor.

Once the recording has been completed and analysed, some worthwhile changes will no doubt become apparent such as changing the position of certain links, amending the navigation structure to reduce the number of clicks, or reducing the length of a form. The aim is to get the website 90%+ right before launch, but for ongoing testing there are tools which can monitor how website visitors are getting on with the site and will show you where they click, their path through and exit point from the site, and even reconstruct a video of their entire session for you to play back and review. These tools can really help to understand what is going right and wrong on your site, so you can test improvements and implement the most successful version, which improves your enquiry conversion rate. Contact me if you’d like to know more about this, and I may do a more detailed article on “conversion consultancy” in a future month.

In terms of the content on the website, the public’s expectation of a website is continually increasing. If you’re just offering a stock static image and a thin description of your properties a trick is being missed. With high levels of broadband acceptance and speeds available, the use of rich media (video) should be considered. How about providing a 360 tour of an apartment, but actually have people in the video moving around and really emphasise the lifestyle of the property. See how we did this for Cunard here http://queenmary2.cunard.co.uk (select “Queens Room – Ballroom” from “Bars and Lounges menu).

I strongly recommend you think about digital engagement with your customers – you have the ability to create emotion and aid the buying process, but from a tool available 24/7/365, and without staffing costs. If you surpass potential customer’s expectations with slick online tools that make it easier to get essential information, it sends a strong message about the quality of your brand.

One area I can only briefly touch on this month is personalisation. Once you capture data about the visitor, whether from an account signup, or from what they’ve clicked on, you can start to personalise their experience. If you know it’s a mid 20s male looking for a London apartment, then stock photography could be of a vibrant city shot. Copy can also be tailored towards them, as well as search results and any promotions for example.

To create emotion, the visitor could also be allowed to customise any interior options within their new home, and when they’ve finished how about asking for friend’s email addresses so they can share what it looks like? What better way to push them towards a commitment than opening up a debate with friends on décor specifics – it helps to move the conversation past financials and onto emotions which suddenly become a lot less tangible. Oh, and there’s a great piece of viral marketing hidden in there too.

So in summary, use the tough market to make the most of interactive experiences for your potential customers – the emotions will help to drive sales. Also, when you’re building the site make sure you have a proper specification, and do budget for ongoing “conversion consultancy” to find improvements to your website conversion rate.

No matter how good the site is on “go live” day, finding those small improvements that take enquiries from 1.5% to 2% of website traffic will seem all the more important when you realise what it’s done to your bottom line.