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What is usability?
Why is usability important?
How do I make my site usable?

Those are 3 questions every individual interested in starting a blog on real estate or a real estate website should be asking.  Whether you have or are starting a full on real estate website or just a simple 1 page listing, usability is vitally important.

What is Usability?
When it comes to your real estate website or blog usability can be defined as the interaction between your website and the visitor.  For your site to reach its full potential, it must focus not only on appearance but ensuring the visitor’s experience is as pleasant and easy as possible.  That in a nutshell is what usability experts strive to do.

Let me put it this way, the difference between a real estate website that has a good grasp on usability and one that does not is in the visitor’s experience.

Why is Usability important?
Your website’s goal should be to drive the visitor to an action.  Whether that action is filling out a loan or listing form, subscribing to your real estate newsletter, or picking up the phone to talk to an agent.  A site focused on usability will drive the visitor to action in the simplest most elegant manner possible.   Your page essentially becomes a funnel driving them to take that action.

A site that doesn’t focus on usability makes it difficult for the visitor and often frustrates the visitor into leaving your site without taking any action.

Don’t put up barriers.  People tend to utilize sites that are easier, more intuitive, thus usability becomes a high priority for anyone serious about their website.

How do you focus a website on usability?
Usability starts at the design phase.  Keep in mind, designers are great at what they do: design web sites.   They are not usability experts so don’t expect them to be.  Usability experts are an expensive breed, but luckily they are usually unnecessary.

The staff here at Elegance in Design has found the best way to test the usability of a design is with an actual bed of users.  We get feedback, refine the design, and test again.  Follow that same procedure until you cannot refine anymore: evaluate, refine, test.

This stage can take between 1-4 weeks depending on how aggressive you want to be.  But the return on investment for usability is enormous.

We’ve counseled customers on usability when they’ve come to us because their website isn’t performing.  This is exponentially more expensive, as we often have to completely redesign the website with usability in mind.

If you don’t yet have your real estate website or blog designed, you are at the perfect stage to start focusing on usability.

If you already have your site up and running, check to make sure you’re getting the maximum potential out of your site by having it reviewed.  Choose strangers to review your site; people who are more likely to be honest with you.  Take your site to discussion groups and forums and ask for feedback on their experience and interaction with the site.

Take that feedback and refine your site.  No website is perfect, but if you focus on usability and an elegant design your website potential is limitless…

Good luck and much success to all your online ventures.
Mike

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Michael Farley is the owner and Search Engine Strategist at Elegance in Design, LLC.   With over 10 years experience in the website design industry he’s counseled his clients on the importance of usability, accessibility, and Search Engine Optimization.

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