Have you ever wondered if your company website (assuming you have one) is good enough? Based on a meeting I recently had with David-Michel Davies, I bet it isn’t.
Davies’ company stages the Webby Awards, which are to business websites what the Oscars are to Hollywood, and I asked him to look at a few builder websites. His reaction: he thought the sites were OK but in every case were, as he put it, “old looking; like they were done in 2011,” which in digital time is a long time ago. (He suggested you look at the Trulia real estate site to see what new digital design looks like.)
When asked why the sites seem tired, he said there weren’t enough photos, photos were too small, and video was either nonexistent or hard to find. He wasn’t surprised at the absence of virtual reality or 360 degree video, but he guesses it will come soon and just might help builders slash costs associated with model homes (aka brick and mortar with sofas, carpeting, and warm chocolate chip cookies). He also wonders why there isn’t more content about, for example, why shoppers should buy a new home versus an old home, or why buying a house can be better than renting.
Davies recently commissioned a study to determine what kind of digital experience has the most impact. He was surprised that those surveyed said the best experiences were funny and entertaining. He was less surprised that consumers rated a site’s usefulness second.
Maybe a few of you will give funny a try, but all of you should be working hard to make your sites more useful, less old-fashioned, and more smartphone-friendly. Here’s why:
- According to the National Association of Realtors, about 50% of house hunters start the search online, a percentage that increases every year;
- More than 80% of buyers go online at some point during the buying process;
- More than half already conduct their online research on a smartphone and not a computer or tablet.
Other research shows exactly what home buyers are looking for when they go online. They want photos. Poor quality snapshots don’t count. They want detailed information about the house: floor plans, square footage, special features. They want interactive maps that show nearby shopping, restaurants, and schools. They want virtual tours, and static photos don’t count. They want neighborhood information like Trulia provides, including demographics like age range of residents and family composition. In other words, they want—and expect—a lot. And remember, they’re not comparing your site to other builders’ sites but rather to housing-related sites like Trulia and Houzz, not to mention Amazon, ESPN, and myriad travel sites.
I wonder if a bad site is worse than having no site at all.
So get to it. Fix your website. Make it more modern. Make it useful. Make it entertaining if you can. Do that and then figure out how to use social media and the next generation of digital tools, which are likely to be more important to you in the near future than nail guns. B
