This article is not specific to Real Estate, but it highlights the importance of usability in a website. If you aren't designing your site with your clients in mind, you ARE losing business to your competitors...
Good Web design can mean good business
The Web site for Sophia Brodsky's day spa in Philadelphia, the Body Klinic, was pretty rudimentary until a college student walked into the spa a little more than two years ago with an irresistible offer.
As she tells it, the student, Nathaniel Stevens, said that for $10 he would take her existing site and redesign it to drive traffic to her salon. If she got more business, they agreed, he would get additional money. Brodsky, a Russian immigrant, whose interests run more to cranberry facials than the Internet, thought why not.
Brodsky now maintains three Web sites and estimates that they have brought in thousands of dollars in business. "Now," she said, "people are coming to my Web site daily."
But small business owners like Brodsky who have a Web presence are still a minority. In its first survey of small business Web sites last April, Jupiter Research found that just 36 percent of all businesses with fewer than 100 employees had a Web presence.
Still, the Web as an alternative yellow pages is drawing increased attention. The Kelsey Group, a market research company in Princeton, New Jersey, estimates that sales revenue from Internet Yellow Pages and wireless and other searches will increase to $13 billion in 2010 from $3.4 billion in 2005.
Those small business owners who venture online say the experience is generally worth it, though the learning curve may be steep.
Recognizing this, online advertising companies with names like Yodle, Weblistic, Webvisible and ReachLocal are springing up to help manage the sites.
The Web was not on Brodsky's mind when she put down $165,000 in 2004 for a spa that grossed about $6,000 a week. The spa was not even computerized at the time.
Experts generally advise small business owners not to establish a Web presence unless they have time to keep it updated. Jean Pratt, assistant professor of information systems at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Clair, said, "If someone doesn't maintain a Web site, it does become more of a detriment because competitors are keen on making theirs part of a marketing strategy."
A static site may damage the credibility of the business, she added.
Jody DeVere, president of askpatty.com, an automotive advice site for women that started in 2006, said she was determined not to let that happen.
To avoid spending $50 to $200 an hour for a Web developer, she spent several weeks learning how to post feature articles, blog and tag entries properly. To gauge the site's effectiveness, she enlisted a group of 20 women, including her daughter and two daughters-in-law, forwarded links and asked for comments.
The reaction was positive, though at least one said she was not sure what she was viewing, asking, "Is the site geared for women's questions about the car business?"
Steve Krug, author of a Web usability guide, "Don't Make Me Think," says that what looks great to a business owner may be totally lost on a user unfamiliar with the site.
He suggests business owners watch their site being tested, devoting several hours a month to the effort.
That's a feeling K. Rudolph knows well. She runs Native Intelligence in Bethesda, Maryland, selling computer security and security awareness training courses. The company started a Web site about a decade ago but took a workshop based on Krug's book in 2003.
During his presentation, Krug singled out her site's graphics and asked participants if they knew what business Native Intelligence was in. The first person to answer thought bright colors and cartoons meant it was designed for children.
"Watching someone use your site for the first time can be a humbling and enlightening experience," she said.
Rudolph and her then business partner spent about three quarters of their time over the next two weeks revamping the site, trying to answer questions Krug posed like, "What can I do on this site?"
Now Rudolph sets aside several hours a month to watch as many as three users in succession navigate links on the site. She enlists friends and acquaintances to cast a critical eye.
Native Intelligence has prospered since the site's revamp in 2003. The company's gross income rose to $1,094,000 in 2006 from $483,000 in 2003, although Rudolph says that she does not know how much of the increase was due to the Web site improvements.
Brodsky said that she used to favor winning customer recognition by developing new product offerings. But Stevens, who was just starting an Internet company, showed her that a versatile Web presence was also crucial. Stevens created two Web sites that mirrored one another. One, www.thebodyklinic.com, features a local telephone number, with area code, that had a picture of a brownstone front and clickable foliage that leads to the spa's various services. The site has generated a 10 percent increase in sales since Brodsky - now a Web convert - redesigned it in October, she said.
Its not quite mirror double, www.thebodyklinic.net features a toll-free number and was intended to track calls. He and Brodsky agreed that she would pay him for each individual click. Her phone calls on that line are monitored so she can tell how much customer traffic the site is generating.
Her Web budget has grown to about $1,000 a month, Brodsky said, but her weekly gross is now $8,000 to $10,000 a week, up from $7,000 in the past two years.
