Builder Designs | Intelligent marketing for home builders

A few months ago, Google released a new update to their search engine algorithm, called Panda, that has had very wide-reaching affects, including about 35% of all searches online and the rankings of 12% of those search results.

The reason for Google’s new Panda algorithm is because they are responding to an increasing demand to provide the most useful results. Services such as Facebook and Twitter, whose users expect instant updating, play a big part. This new algorithm helps these search results populate with the freshest news.

This new rollout of Panda has changed dramatically how sites are ranked. Older, low quality sites have virtually disappeared and nicer high quality designed sites have seen their rankings improve. Now the question persists, how do you make sure that your site’s design is seen as high quality?

We’ve talked on these subjects extensively in past blog articles, now may be a time to really gauge your site’s design and functionality or you may be left in the dust for good. Here are some tips on optimizing your site.

Engage Your Audience. A big part of the reason of the for this new algorithm is that Google’s bots are thinking more like humans in terms of site metrics. The more your site engages its users, and the quality of user experience, the better. You may see these types of metrics in your monthly Google analytics reports. The amount of time users spend on your site, the pages per visit and response times are a few to mention.

Mind your P’s and Q’s. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that good grammar is important? Well, she was right and your web copy may be suffering from bad spelling and poor grammar. Google does evaluate the quality of content on web pages. The ability to spell correctly will actually rank you higher than sites that do not spell as well.

Stay Fresh. We’ve said this before and have stressed the importance of creating good web content and copy. This means having original content that sets you apart and defines your purpose. Having a good blog on your site is always a great idea by keeping updated, fresh content that help Google index your site more frequently.

Pack Light. You may want to take a look at how your site is coded and see if it complies with the current web standards. Years ago, designers and programmers used code that was incredibly lengthy and heavy where only 1 or 2 lines of code would do it now. Using good quality code that is more lightweight will improve your rankings.

Using these few tips to evaluate your current site, or when building a new site, will keep you ranking higher and help ensure that your site is up to or above the standard.

As web designers, we spend countless hours on focusing what the client’s objectives are, brand appearance, the customer’s needs, as well as all the page layouts, navigation and functionality of the website. Given all the wonderful design tools, its really the content of all of the pages that is the key to success. The website is only as good as its content. Its what conveys the message, boosts online presence and traffic. Here are some tips to writing and preparing the best web copy for your website and what you should avoid.

Creating Convincing Copy

Be personable. No one wants to feel pressured when they visit a website. Keep your copy personal and relaxed throughout the site. Simply putting your photo on the About page won’t be enough to convey your company’s personality. Don’t write in 3^rd person or like you’re reciting from Wikipedia. Reach your audience by speaking directly to them and find a way to connect by sharing or relating personal experiences. Be convincing by telling them what you can do for them.

Enrich your Writing. Using keywords in your copy is necessary if you want to draw a crowd and the right web visitors to your site. SEO enriched copy is key. Keywords are not hard to use, just ask yourself what words would you use to find your site? Use them throughout every page but do not overuse them or you will sound spammy or too forceful.

Use Different Text Lengths. Web users want information fast and usually will scan a page quickly. Your copy should include short bursts of text or headlines that stand out to the reader and will make them stop and read or go back and read the smaller text if its what they’re looking for.

Avoid Writing Offending Copy

Don’t be an Ego-maniac. Self centered web copy that is full of ‘we’s’ good practice for marketing and selling your products. Web users don’t really care about the company, they only care about what you can do for them. Your company values and commitments may be important, just relate it to the customer.

Don’t be a Blabbermouth. Long, drawn out web copy is just daunting & boring and it makes people want to leave. Keep it short and simple using key words and messages that get to the point. The website will be able to communicate much easier and quicker to visitors.

Don’t Scream. It may seem that writing copy that is full of hype, written in bold, all-caps will get the attention of your visitors. Not true. Visitors want helpful and informative content that isn’t all in their faces.  You want to express a message that gives reasons why they should be interested and back up your claim.

Combining  good website design with good web copy on your website will prove to be a very powerful tool and result in happy customers ready to do business with you.

When beginning to design a new website for consumers, or when evaluating your existing site, it is important that it has a unique quality and emotion that influences the user and reflects your brand. Giving a website a personality greatly influences decision-making on part of the user and can be a very powerful tool. Products are people too!

Often called Interface design, Human-Computer Interaction is where all the elements of computer science, behavioral science and design come together. They influence the user through emotion the way two people would interact. What’s interesting is that when done right, the personality of the product will override the computer’s inanimate coldness.

It is extremely important to know your audience and what makes people interested in your product. If you’re trying to sell homes, the website must be “trustworthy” and convey an openness as if they were stepping into one of your model show homes. Its true that many people with the idea of buying a new home will look online first, and your website must be invite them in, and offer them all the information that they are seeking instantly, or these “browsers” will go elsewhere.

Get involved in the design process with the web designers and make sure that they understand what really drives your customers and how your brand is important so they can bring it to life. Many times over, the designers will know how the architecture or “ bare bones” of the site should be orchestrated, to enhance a user’s experience and get them to information quickly.

Only when you are comfortable and knowledgeable of your brand’s influence on your customers, will you be able to create a powerful website full of personality that will meet people face-to-face and overall, win their trust. Its is very important to great customer service and an online sales person that will continue to embody the same brand persona and guide them to the next step of purchasing a home or product. Most importantly, if you don’t respond to them in a timely fashion, you could lose that person and bond you created online. Remember to follow up!

Here’s another sign that the times are changing and technology is only getting better, especially when it comes to building a website. Its astonishing to see how far we’ve come just in the last ten years.

The 3 key technologies that exists within a normal website are HTML, CSS and JavaScript. jQuery has been the leader in the JavaScript department and makes it easier and faster to build web pages with Javascript.

For years, Javascript has been used by designers as a way to respond to user interaction and has become the favorite over Flash according to appendTo, LLC, a company dedicated to jQuery and jQuery support. Their research confirms that more and more web developers are using jQuery and Javascript over Flash at a staggering rate. Recent data that they analyzed shows that 48% of the world’s top 17,000 websites are using jQuery, compared to 47% using Flash. This is big news.

The reasons are simple. jQuery is much easier to use, learn and is an open source product. Its compatibility is also a major factor of its popularity. Mostly all web browsers support jQuery, even iPhones and iPads that do not support Flash and probably will not ever.

jQuery is also very light weight, meaning using 1 line of jQuery code to do the same thing as 10 lines of regular Javascript code. It loads extremely fast in comparison with complex Flash files that are larger and take up more space.  jQuery allows developers to have nearly the exact same functionality of Flash when creating animations and computations with much less effort.

This means that tomorrow’s web designers will be embracing the jQuery code and that in turn, web users will be happier with a fast and interactive site websites.

When creating a home builder website, there are several important elements that can give you an edge over other home builder websites.  The truth is, having a professional home builder website is crucial to bringing in clients considering 80% of homebuyers search online for homes.

The first thing you want on your website are the houses and floor plans available. In order to save potential clients time, allow them access to view home plans online. A typical home builder should offer several home and floor plans so clients can see if the homes fit what they are looking for before heading out to view the homes.

Giving potential clients the ability to print plans and brochures is also another added bonus that can give your site a leg up on the competition. This can give clients a reference as they tour model homes.

A second factor to take into account is that while some people are visual and will like as many pictures as you can give them, others might prefer more written information about the homes. Having an adequate amount of information for the client will suit those who want more than a picture.

Next, it is important to make sure that your site is easy to navigate. There is nothing more frustrating to any consumer than a site that is not easily followed. Also, have all the answers to questions they might have available on the site. For example: homes, home plans, locations, financing information, company history ext.   Along with navigation on the site, is navigation to where the homes are located. Adding an interactive map on your site allows one to click on a location and view homes in a desired area. This shows the client that the home builder wants to make the search for homes and developments easier.

Allowing the client to search by different factors they are looking for is also a way to make the search easier and more beneficial to you for potential clients. For example, allowing them to search by factors such as location, neighborhood, price range, number of rooms, amenities, ect. can help draw clients to your homes.

Have interest list forms or additional information request forms available allows for the client to take the next step in the conversation of buying a home from you, and also allows them to qualify for special offers and discounts by doing so.

Lastly, consider adding a mobile site to your website. It is predicted that by the year 2013, more people with search and browse on their cell phones than on their laptops. Having a mobile site ensures that consumers can easily access your site via their mobile device.

If you own a website, read on. If you have had your website for over three years and have not maintained the site or re-designed the site at all, it is time to start planning an update today.

There are three key reasons you should follow the three year update or re-design plan.

First, your business objectives changed. To put it simply, over time the objectives of your business will change.  If you want your website to reflect your business, your site must also change. When you talk to clients and tell them the objective of your company, it is crucial your website follows the same mindset you are selling to them.

Second, your site is based too heavily on Flash. This Web development technology prevented sites to be properly indexed by search engines. Now, search engines can index Flash files as long as they are properly optimized. If you are wondering if your website falls under this category, ask yourself this: When your website was created, did you have to watch a loading video that re-sized your browser, or made all kinds of clicking sounds when placing your cursor on something? Those are bad sites because they are still invisible to search engines since they were not created with user-friendly search parameters for Flash. If a customer cannot find you on a search engine, or is irritated by your out of date website, your business relationships will suffer.

Third, your site suffers from the “Frankenstein’s syndrome.” Most companies make a major investment in creating a website. Unfortunately, many think that this is a one-time expense. The truth is, just as companies evolve, technology is also evolving at a rapid pace. This requires any company that owns a website to regularly update and enhance their site in order to compete with other companies. If you do not update frequently or only update one part of your site at a time, this can leave your site looking patched and un-uniform. A re-design is often the best way to ensure your company gives off a professional image to the public and provides users with optimal experience, which in the end leads to business.

Its easy to understand what makes a good builder website. Users need easily understand the navigation, have well-written text to read and always have a way to get in touch with you or your sales team from a click of a button. Once you have the user engaged, why not give them something else to enhance their experience and to help you create even more leads. Its really a win/win situation. Here are some of the best interactive features for homebuilders to have on their websites.

Search Function – Having a good working custom search tool that will help a buyer find the perfect home is a must. This can be done in a variety of ways from a basic sorter that sorts through your home listings from price, square feet and home type to a more search function that searches down to the number of bedrooms and garages. HHHunt Homes dedicates an entire sidebar to this function.

Interactive Floorplans – This is by far one of the more advanced options available but they are very exciting to play with. Your buyers will become excited about building and have them interested in what customizations you have to offer. Here’s a great example from American Legend Homes Interactive Floorplans.

Mortgage Calculators – These are a great tool for homebuyers to use to calculate their financial responsibility and will help them narrow down what price range they can afford. A quick tool in the sidebar is very helpful as well as having a quick link to a calculator on your available homes pages can help boost interest and leads.

Google Maps/Navigation – Having Google maps on your website not only will help your searchability from the website but also from Google.  Add a mobile website and it gets even better. Direct traffic straight to all of your communities and show homes.

Videos – Utilizing YouTube on your website will create a tremendous amount of interaction. Videos outdo photos and gives the buyer a front row seat to touring your communities, homes or design center without leaving the house. There are awesome ways of using YouTube on your site. See how Simmons Homes uses Cool Iris for their videos from their homepage.

My Favorites – Create a custom dashboard for your interested buyers where they can save their favorites from of your communities, available homes,  floorplans and more. A new lead is created every time someone signs up on your website. They can even print their favorites complete with all your contact information. Goodall Homes calls theirs “My Dream Folder.”

Get the most of your website user experience and try using some of these tools next time you want to upgrade your website.

When you are designing a new website or redesigning one, the importance of good organization is key. Using a Wireframe can be pretty abstract, but you will find that this is essential to the final cut and extremely helpful to us designers. We understand that every client is unique and it is our job to make the website do everything from getting more visitors, more sales to making it easy to maintain and while meeting all business goals at the same time. That is the purpose of the wireframing stage and any preplanning strategy, helping attain all of these needs.

Before the wireframe is drawn it is also very important to have not only a creative meeting, but an overall goal-setting meeting where questionnaires are introduced and preplanning can begin. Online software such as Jumpchart is great at planning websites. This will give us designers all the necessary information to understand you as a client, your objectives and to begin designing.

As the design process begins, it is easy to get caught up in design decisions of layout, features and content but know that this can slow down the entire web development process dramatically. The area of concentration for clients should be on the wireframe of the website. When you are coming up with great organization and hierarchy, you will find that this will increase conversion rates and lead more visitors to the most relevant areas on your website.

Web Design teams really have their work cut out for them these days. To the smaller firms, web design itself is only the big picture. Its all the smaller nuts and bolts that have to turn and work underneath in order to have a successful product that meets the clients’ needs.

Designers have to pay attention to a lot of things and much of it falls outside the design sphere. Not only are designers designing, they are also part-time project managers, navigational architects, proofers, usability experts and even copy-writers. They need to know what browsers people use and why and be able to test different browsers out on the design and written code. The designer is the go-to person for anything on the web that is feasible.

When taking on a new project, its all the little things that really matter when designing a new website. Thinking through the details critically and analytically and coming up with the best solutions are the key to being a truly great website designer and developer. Understanding the motivation of the client and maintaining communication throughout the process is what it takes to really stand apart.

Being as successful as the design itself, starts with being able to see all the angles of a project, seeing everything is in the right place, and also caring about the collective whole to make the final project seamless.

When building a website, there are two principle ways of structuring HTML that a Web designer uses. Building using table-based layout works just fine and has been used for years but it is difficult and hard to understand, mostly because of the number of table tags. Most designers are using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to format web pages because it is easier to read the textual content that is stored separately. There are many other reasons to have your website coded in CSS that will help you in the future and with its Google rankings.

• CSS is easy to download. It has fewer HTML tags which means that they are quicker to download. Table-based sites are very large and have an increased download time for visitors. This also has an effect on SEO since Google has said it uses the download speed as part of its algorithm rankings.
• Easier readability of the HTML source of pages. This is because the CSS ‘style sheet’ that formats the page is kept separate. This also helps the search engine spiders since they are reading words instead of looking inside of tables for information.
• CSS keeps important key-word phrases at the top of the page, and allows you to layout that information anywhere else on a page. For example, if you had a summary full of key words that you wanted to appear in the middle of the page and keep those words in HTML near the top, this is possible with CSS. Search engines give more credit to information that is near the top of the page.
• Friendlier printable pages. CSS makes it possible to create a style sheet for the screen and another for print, using content on the same page instead of duplicating content.
• Formatting is easy. All the pages of a website refer back to a style sheet. It requires only one small change such as text color, to modify the whole site instead of changing each page individually.
• Using CSS allow you to create different style sheets based on the browser, such as a mobile browser on a cell phone.

It is important to know how your website is built, and these are just some of the major reasons why it is important to use CSS in designing your website. Many designers that have been designing for years have failed to learn CSS, so be sure to do your research when investing your money into a new website, and go with the company that offers plenty of other options.