Home staging is the practice of setting up a home for client’s visit. A clean and tidy home will stand much more chances to get approved and be bought, as compared to a messy place that can work as a deterrent, despite of everything else going your way (e.g. location, price, the area, etc). But this article is not about the advantages of home staging, instead it is about some invaluable lessons you can learn from “Home Staging do’s and don’ts” to improve your website design and layout.
Remember that website’s layout is becoming more and more important, especially with Google giving more importance to user’s experience and bounce rate than the factors like keyword density and all, which means your website layout should be good enough to hold the visitors for some time. Following are some invaluable lessons from home stagers that you can use to improve your website designs and outlooks.
1. No Clutter
There are some websites or blogs so cluttered and untidy that you’re forced to think that their webmaster or owner has stopped visiting this place for ages. I am not sure how one can create so much mess on their own website, because as far as I am concerned, I’d let go some earnings just to keep my site clean and tidy, but I am sure not everybody thinks like me. However, with Google Panda update slamming websites with lots of ads and links and less content, it is high time that you cut down the clutter and showcase your content instead of ads.
2. Lighting
Of course, you cannot use light bulbs to set alight your blog or website like home stagers do, but you can do the same by choosing light back grounds, cool colors, and fonts which are easy on eyes. Funky and bold colors might turn out to be a tad more memorable in first visits, but for regular users, they can turn out to be quite irritating in the longer run.
3. Neutrality
Home stagers advise the property owners to remove the personal belongings like family pictures and the likes when a client is visiting, or it will make them feel a little uncomfortable. Same goes for the website owners, it is important to avoid giving a cult like impression, it is especially true for blogs or forums catering a particular niche or you will fail to hold on some new members, just because they weren’t at home with the overall feel of your website. Your aim is to entice this feeling into each and every visitor that they are welcome.
4. Decorations
Staging is all about decorating the home (while staying well within your budget). And when it comes to websites, the various types of widgets, social features, videos and images can serve as the adornments. Try providing your visitors with interesting polls, social networking widgets, surveys, contests, videos, and images to catch their attention and make them stay on your website for longer periods.
5. The neighborhood
Home staging applies to the exterior and adjacent landscape as well. For a website, it’s applicable to your Blog and social profiles. Many websites make the mistake of not harmonizing the blog and social profiles with their website, so when you click on the blog from their website, you often feel that you’ve arrived at a different place altogether, same goes for the social profiles like Facebook Page or Twitter.
You must make sure that each and everything is complementing your website theme and style, including the blog, social profiles, and even newsletters.
Hi Farah! This is a great and informative post. Thanks for sharing your ideas to improve my page layout… Happy New Year!
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