Gardner+Lang's previous site already had a response gathering mechanism in their "Negotiating your Way to Success" e-report which gets emailed out to respondents. Gardner+Lang found it to be a great tool for attracting enquiries but they wanted to dramatically increase results.

Now, new website, not only offers 8 different opportunities for people to leave their email address, it also includes a "call to action" at bottom of each page, encouraging people to subscribe or to enquire about one of their complimentary consultations.

Response devices include:

* General enquiry page * FREE consultation * FREE 7 property investment lessons * FREE subscription * FREE - Negotiating your Way to Success

So, no matter who visits site, there's a good chance that people will leave their email details.

The result? Already, before any search engine optimisation activities have kicked in, Gardner+Lang are receiving twice as many eBulletin subscriptions.

5. Copy in general

Chris Lang is a talented copywriter himself, so we re-used most of Chris' copy but just tweaked it slightly to ensure it was suitable for web. This included creating new home page copy, shortening sentences and paragraphs and adding more frequent subheadings throughout each page.

When you visit site, you'll notice how use of powerful article headlines on home page entices people to read further:

* How to Create Your Own Investment Blueprint * 8 Factors to Consider When Selecting a Commercial Property Investment * 12 Criteria that Determine Your Property Investment Success * Property Rating Matrix

Notice way headlines are worded": * "How to " * "8 factors" * "12 criteria"

Each of these attract attention and arouse curiosity. They stand out. They offer a benefit. They appeal to driving needs of site visitor.

6. Credibility online

A website visitor doesn't have luxury of speaking with a sales person or visiting your company, so your website is your online storefront. It sends a message about credibility, professionalism and expertise that your company offers.

That's why it's important that your site sells and gives proof of your claims. The Gardner+Lang site does that perfectly. They have case studies featuring properties they have sold and properties they manage, and there are a whole range of success stories but what they also do is have from horse's mouth testimonials from clients ... from a long list of clients at that.

The credibility building keeps going. There are also a number of case studies featuring award winning marketing campaigns they have created.

IN SUMMARY

The Gardner+Lang website follows 5 golden rules of websites that sell including:

1. Easy to navigate 2. Simple, useable design that loads quickly 3. Flooded with email address capturing devices and enquiry mechanisms 4. Loaded with valuable content to maximise repeat visits 5. Heaps of credibility building tools in form of testimonials, case studies etc.

Next time you re-engineer your site, apply these rules and you'll find that your results increase dramatically.

On other hand, include a bit of individuality in your site. Make it stand out from norm - otherwise, your site will just blend in with every other site and will not be remembered for anything.

Use whatever color scheme you want, as long as text can be easily distinguished from background. And guess what, your pages don't need to match each other - in fact, you can make every single page different if you want. This is especially true for personal web sites - don't worry about conforming.

Sites don't need to be symmetrical, they don't need to balance and they don't need to match anyone else's criteria of "good". All they need to do is communicate something. Most of time (since by far most web sites are personal home pages of some kind) they are communicating something about an individual or group.

Black text on white backgrounds are for sissies; Try dozens of different colors until your site looks exactly like you want. Having a perfectly proportioned navigation system exactly same on every page is boring. Come up with something that gets your users from place to place without being same as everyone else's system.

Use image maps all over place - these are great ways to visually show your user how to get around without same old boring links. Use graphics as you see fit to make your pages shine. Yes, you should worry about image size, but don't worry that much. A few extra seconds of load time is fine (just don't go overboard); people will wait if they feel excited about a site. They will not wait if site is bland and boring.

Don't even try and add all of those extra doo-dads that so many sites seem to be using these days. Believe me, your site does not need a news feed - every one else already has one and you will not attract any new visitors with them. You don't need to include cute little quote-of-the-day buttons or ticker or weather map. These just tend to make your site look cheap.

Spend your time writing your content, designing your site and working on your graphics. If you do include plug-ins, concentrate on those that build a community such as forms, guestbooks, message boards and even online games. These are things that attract people - being able to communicate with other people.

And a note to those who judge awards - please take off blinders. There are many wonderful sites which communicate exceptionally well which deserve gold 5.0+ awards, even though they do not have perfect HTML, even though every page does not match every other page and in spite of a glaring color scheme. I have seen site after site loose major awards simply because some robot is sitting in judges booth, matching site against a fixed set of criteria (a way of turning off a judge's brain) instead of really looking at what's important - is site communicating effectively?

My advice is simple: create a web site which YOU like and don't worry about awards. If your site communicates something of value to your visitors, then you have succeeded. If not, then regardless of how many awards you've won, you've failed.