Website Page Layout

[Goknights]

I'm trying to decide on a new website layout.. I've learned a lot over the past year and I've decided that it's time to change. The only problem is that I cannot decide on a layout.. It's driving me nuts! Everytime I sit down to sketch a site the layout changes.. What is wrong with me? Any suggestions? Anybody recommend templates for ideas or certain layouts? I dont care much about design, more interested in placement and user friendliness..

Kevin

[SEO Jason]

there's just so many good layouts, here's some things i'd keep in mind...

- stay away from frames
- easy to use
- clearly branded at the top
- not cluttered
- professional colour scheme that is also easy to read

just so many, hard to say. i'd recommend looking in your area, seeing what the top realtors have done, and doing a mix of that, but something that is also personally something you like. i would suggest visiting the top ranking websites and finding what you like best about them and creating your site out of all the stuff you like best.

[LA_Agent]

Isn't the design driven by the more important need to optimize?
I have a great design idea for my site but am not sure if it would then
be a site that can be marketed well. I showed my design to a webmaster
who said it's best to stick to what we all know works. Is he just being lazy?
So many sites I see are the so boxed in with a ton of text that no one really
wants to read.

[SEO Jason]

Isn't the design driven by the more important need to optimize?

It is important to optimize but for the most part you can create a design and than do the optimization around it.

I have a great design idea for my site but am not sure if it would then
be a site that can be marketed well. I showed my design to a webmaster
who said it's best to stick to what we all know works.

It's hard to say that it's best to stick to what works without seeing your design idea. In my opinion the site should be built around the design and that a site can be optimized to a design.

Is he just being lazy?

He could be lazy, he could believe that it's best to stick to what works or he may not have the ability to optimize the site based on your design.

So many sites I see are the so boxed in with a ton of text that no one really
wants to read.

A site has to have text. Realistically, text is what the search engines see, so you do need text. a picture may say a thousand words, but not to a search engine it doesn't.

I dunno, maybe i'm wrong, but with what i've seen out there, and what we've done, I think a site with basically any design can be manipulated into being well optimized as well.

[Goknights]

I'm contemplating doing a site in black and white... the pics would be color, but the majority of the site in b/w. then i can use colors where needed to possibly help with conversion.. What do you think?
It sounds really basic, almost like a newspaper, but I really think it may work.. Am I crazy?

[SEO Jason]

done right it could work, but i almost think that it could look too bland or plain to people. stuff has to stand out a bit for people to stop and take a look.

black and white can work and can be quite impactful though.

[pcdoc]

Am I crazy?

Not if it's what you want.

[Duncan Pollock]

One of the recognized rules of written communication is that you should "Get to the point and then get off the page' -- or as someone said: "You should be Bright, be Brief, and be Gone."
However, this doesn't mean you should settle for a one page site. Far from it. The more pages the better. It's generally -- and I think correctly -- believed that Google likes BIG sites.
But the point is that you can do a lot worse than design your site on another written communication principle: "Tell them what you're going to tell them. Then tell them. And then tell them what you've told them."
Thus, why not make your home page an upfront summary of who and what you are and what and why you do what you (can) do? Then use a series of links to a detailed development of all your points. And finish with a page that says, in effect: "Okay, now you know the who, what, why, and how of it all, just e-mail / phone / snail-mail me and I'll gladly come running to help you in whatever way I can."
The effect will be to catch the visitor's interest right at the start and, assuming it's what they're looking for, they'll tend to move on through the succeeding pages with an end result that means: "Hey, I guess I ought to call this guy/gal."

Yes? No?

Duncan