Web icons – Check out these long time favorites!
Web icons are an important and sometimes forgotten component of web development. The overall design and coding of the site might get all the glamour, but for a cohesive experience it's important to make sure to use icons to better represent the features available on a site. Web designers spend a lot of time and energy on making sure the icons that are used in the site match the look and feel just as much as the overall typography or even the navigation menus. A great site will include web icons that compliment the design instead of detract from the overall style. Effective web icons shouldn't be the star of the show, but just the little extra finesse that makes your site look professionally designed instead of one that was slapped together over night.
There are several thousands of web icons available and a lot of them are also available for free. One web icons set that is still quite popular is the Silk set from FAMFAMFAM. At Like Rock, we've used this amazing set of free web icons for several projects. The variety that this set offers with over 700 different icons has served us well and is sure to add a little "wow" to your site as well.
Other than FAMFAMFAM, there are several other sites that also offer free and paid sets of web icons. If we don't find something that works for us at FAMFAMFA, then our next go-to site at Like Rock is iconwanted.com which features over 38,000 web icons for you to choose from. Check out either one of these and tell us what you think. If you have another favorite source, we would love to hear about it. Send us a tweet or a comment and let us know.
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A website of your home can help sell your home faster
Although most people associate websites with businesses whether they be restaurants, IT related companies, e-commerce stores, etc. or even personal sites like an online resume or some place on the web to store family pictures or mailing lists with their own domain and email address, more and more people are looking to boost traffic to their physical home by showcasing their home via a website. A website of your home is a great investment for someone looking to provide more information than a generic real estate agents site that usually has only a few pictures and some generic descriptions about the square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. Here are five tips to help you get a website that could help sell your home even faster:
- Create a domain name that is the same or very similar to your physical address.
By keeping the domain for the website of your home the same as your physical address, the search engines will pick up the site and your site will list higher up when others are searching for information on your home. - Keep the information clear and precise.
It's important to understand that this isn't the platform to necessarily try unique and new web design tricks. You want your home to be the focal point of the site, not your amazing web development skills. Keep the navigation simple without being overwhelming. Provide as many details as possible about the home, the property, the neighborhood, the amenities, nearby schools, etc. Think about what made you love your home when you bought and try to convey that same feeling when describing your home. - Pictures, pictures, pictures.
When my wife and I were looking for our home, we would always look at homes that had real pictures. The more pictures the home had, the more likely we were to look at the detailed listing. Take pictures on a bright sunny day so your pictures don't look dark. Take pictures of the outside - front and back. Take pictures of every room, even if they are the same size! Give the pictures some dimension by including furniture as part of the picture (but make sure the room is the focus, not your furniture, however awesome it may be). This is the website of your home, so showcase every aspect of it. Most importantly, make sure to clean before clicking away! - When you see it
Even though we live in a digital age, almost no one is willing to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever physically checking out your house. The next best thing to lots of pictures is an in-person visit. Provide information on open houses that you may be holding and/or when is a good time for buyers to come and take a look around. - Contact information
No use in putting up the site or trying to sell your home if it is hard to get in touch with you. Make sure to have a phone number, email address and even an online form to let potential buyers contact you. It only takes one interested buyer to seal the deal.
Follow these five steps to help boost the traffic to your home. Since most home buying experiences start online, a well built website of your home that provides all the key information will surely inform buyers more about your home than the others they may be interested which will hopefully help you close on your next home sooner. If you want help setting up a website quickly, don't hesitate to contact us. Like Rock can get a website of your home up and running within a day or two in most cases. If you are just looking to host your site until your home is sold, check out our no-contract packages that beat the prices of many other contract based hosting plans.
