Demystifying Design – Part 3: Giving Your Site a Personal Touch

Now that you have decided on a basic layout and colour scheme for your website, it’s time to personalize it. You’ll want to make it visually clear to visitors what exactly your focus is in real estate. Is suburban residential sales your specialty? Or downtown commercial?

Also think about your target market. Do you work mostly with families, first-time buyers, investors, or retirees? Asking yourself these and other questions can help you figure out what you should highlight on your website.

MAKING CHANGES

One of the first things you’ll want to personalize on your site is the header banner. There are many header options to browse through, so you’ll be able to choose the one that best suits the look and target market you have in mind.

See video instructions for changing the header banner (note: you’ll need to log in to access the video).

There are many categories to look through. Some of the categories with the best images (in my opinion), are Widescreen, Toronto, Indoors, Large and Family.

We also have flash banner options if you want something a little more… well… flashy!  A flash banner consists of several images and / or animations that move and change.

To view the flash banner options, you’ll need to first insert the “Flash Header” widget onto your site. Refer to Part 2 for more on this. Then edit the widget and select a picture set. When you save the widget, you will be able to see what the flash banner looks like.

Some of my favourites include: Condo – Large Window View, Set #3 – Happy Family, Toronto – Silhouette, and Condo – Endless Scroll.

You may also want to change some of the colours on your website. Maybe that shade of blue in your chosen theme is a little dull for your taste… or you’d like to change the background to black. You don’t have to stick with the original theme colours; you can experiment!

Go to Template/Layout > Change Template Style in the website editor to open the Template Styler. Click on the tabs to set colours, borders, and padding to different areas of your website. You can even select a background image if you’d like. The template styler does not affect the colours/borders of your menus. They are altered by editing the respective widget directly.

At this point your website may be looking a lot different than it did before. Great! It should better reflect the core message that you want your business to portray, and your brand as a whole.

Now you may want to work with the content. Each content element on your homepage will have some arrows associated with it. These allow you to rearrange the content on the page. Move the content around to find the configuration that works best for you.

You can also add to the content by going to Add Content at the top of the Website Editor and choosing from the many available options.

Et violá! Here is your customized website. To go the extra mile, you may consider having a custom header banner created for you. Our designers can combine your photo, logo, and any contact information into a banner that reflects your business. We can add some real estate imagery in the background, or some colour to finish it off. If you are interested in this option, just submit a Support Ticket with your ideas for the banner. We’ll take care of the rest.

Authored by: Tara, Client Relations