If something looks nice you’ll spend a little more time looking at it. And if something looks run down and dated, you’ll probably move on. The real estate industry has known this fact for quite some time. Curb appeal has a lot to do with whether or not somebody will be interested in your property. If what you’re selling isn’t attractive, you’ll most likely lose out on potential buyers.
Website curb appeal is just as important. Dated looking sites, sites with copyright notices from a decade ago, and sites that don’t work on today’s mobile devices aren’t showing off your business. When I land on an extremely dated website I move on. Before I began offering web design services it was the same as well.
Which site has more curb appeal?
Currently we’re working with another Florida park, Sunny Pines. The site isn’t completed, and we’ll be finishing this week with our clients. But even thought it’s not finished I want to share what the site currently looks like.
Sunny Pines Resort
Popping over to Sunny Pines website visitors are greeted with a simple navigation menu, a click to call button for mobile users, a friendly slideshow, a map that leads you right to their door, and a fairly clean and modern looking website. I would venture to say that the site has some curb appeal to get you interested in learning more about the park.
From the navigation standpoint, the standard these days is top bar navigation. Everyone knows to look there. We follow the principles from the book, “Don’t make me think,” by Steve Krug. Websites should be easy to navigate, and obvious. If you start getting too complex you could lose a visitor. Make it simple, informative, and easy to navigate.
When working with RV Parks and 55+ Adult communities, we know what people are looking for. They want to know:
- How do I find you?
- What are your rates?
- How do I get in touch?
- What does your park / community offer?
Looking at our customers’ website statistics there’s a pattern. Just check out the image on the right, you’ll see it. The home page, what it costs to stay or live there (rates and park models), what the park offers, more about it, and finally getting in touch. Every park we work with follows the same pattern in what visitors read!
So, keeping it simple and easy to navigate, along with an attractive look (our curb appeal) is a great formula when dealing with destination locations like RV Parks and Resorts.
Looking at potential new clients, it’s always easy to see who needs our help the most. Let’s take a look at a site for comparison shall we?
Off the bat, this site turns me off. From fonts that don’t resize on my big screen to the navigation on the right hand side, and finally the drab colors, this site doesn’t have curb appeal for me. It’s also not usable or readable on my iPhone or Android. And when I’m searching for parks to stay at while on the road, I am in fact using my iPhone.
Beyond the lack of visual appeal, looking through the site you’ll find little information. The Reservations button brings you to a dead end page that doesn’t have clickable phone numbers, or any deep information. From an SEO standpoint the reservations page is a big loser.
Oh and the last copyright date updated? 2008. That means most likely that was the last time the pages were updated. That’s 7 years. A lot could change at the Resort in 7 years, photos are way out of date, and information might be outdated as well, you just don’t know.
Engaging sites with curb appeal
RLC Design creates clean, modern, mobile friendly, and SEO ready websites. We understand what your website is supposed to do (reach your audience), and with each installation we do we’re in constant communication with our clients. In addition, we also make sure that what we do will appeal to your customer base, and that what we build is easy for them to use.
So often website clients want to design sites that appeal to them, and they totally forget they’re trying to reach their customers with the site. We make sure that doesn’t happen!
The Internet is one of the most powerful ways to reach a global customer base. Investing in your website is a no brainer these days. And RLC Design helps you to build something you can mange and update for years to come, and we help to ensure your site is easy to use and visually appealing!