Even seasoned website designers often see a webpage as a single vast empty expanse to fill with something at all costs. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Worse than some of these one-stop website designers are most "newbie" agents when they work on their own sites. Their idea of filling up a webpage is to tell a story (usually, and boringly, about themselves) in row upon row of text, running from the left margin all the way over to the right one.

Can you think of something more forbidding than to go to a website, only to see a page of black, tightly packed text, often in two or three long paragraphs? It is easy to find such pages. Just look at most agents' websites. Hmmmmm, maybe even yours?

Use "Modular Design" to make sites zing!

How do you get the brass ring in webpage design? It's easy! Just create pages that, even despite considerable content, look easy to read, boasting individual elements that are distinctly separated from one another, so that each one is easy to understand at a glance.

How do you do that? How do you create pages that people LIKE to view? (And here is the secret!) You create them in modules that can each be added to, subtracted from, removed or juggled around as need demands.

When you create content in modules, you also usually avoid having to redesign an entire page when you decide to remove or redo several key elements on the page. This can save you countless hours of programming and headaches!

Take a look at the 5/10 Google-ranked homepage of premier Arizona Realtor® Alice Held. See how effectively she uses "white space" (empty space) on her homepage? Every element is framed by white space. Notice that you don't feel "crowded." You are almost compelled to look at each one of her modules, especially since each mini-stack of links has its own headline with its own wonderful cactus character.

Do not even think of stealing the very clever stuff from Alice's site. Some who did have learned the hard way what a mistake they made. Alice and her attorney aggressively pursue all website pirates.

Then, look at how white space effectively frames the beautiful rose on the homepage of Wynne Achatz of Southeast Michigan. (The rose, itself, is a graphic module.) Note, too, how Wynne uses varying background color to shade certain modules, making them distinct from other modules and text, and thus easy to read at a glance.

So, now you have learned something from Alice and Wynne that goes hand-in-hand with modular design. The lesson is this: You have to have a means of separating the modules so that one can be distinguished from another. And as you can see from the two agents' sites, white space and shading are major methods used for this purpose.

Text links, text blocks, boxes

Most people add text links to a page by merely stacking one link horizontally on top of the other. But that's as hard to read as a page of rambling black text. You'll capture your reader's attention faster by separating similar looking modules into airy, two-decked blocks of text, further divided into columns, as Orange County, CA Realtor® Debbie Ferrari has done on this internal page. She also encloses content inside thin-walled boxes to set apart many key modules on her 6/10 Google-ranked homepage.

Multiple text blocks on a homepage don't have to look gray and foreboding. Text blocks can be aligned with button headlines and airy gutters to separate the blocks in a way that is quite handsome.

Look how Saskatoon, Canada agent Norm Fisher has laid out his 5/10 Google-ranked homepage with consummate logic and geometric consistency. Note that he can swap any single text module with another. Or, he can completely wipe out a row, or replace one with another, and the entire page will not need a complete redesign.

Modularizing content of different shapes/types

You can mix many different looking modules to make a page more interesting. Check out the homepage of Ken, Mary and Sherri Deshaies who sell mountain property in Colorado. Note how their homepage looks and feels "balanced" and is easy to read, despite so many different kinds, shapes, and colors of modules. If the Deshaies family suddenly needed to change some facts on their homepage, they have merely to edit that individual module, or, completely remove it and replace it. This lets them swiftly react to changing seasons in their resort area, or to include current local calendar events.

A particularly clever device Ken uses is to divide his homepage into clearly defined vertical "columns." See if you can see the three distinct columns on his "about" page. Notice how you likely would not have noticed the "columnization" of the modules on his page unless I had pointed it out. That's the beauty of modules. They work without the visitor having to expend any effort, such as that expended when reading rows of thick horizontal text, or in poring over a giant stack of links to find the one that you really want.

There is a beautiful simplicity to the modular columns on the homepage of the Schaller Family of Truckee, who market in mid-California's Truckee/Donner/North Tahoe area. Don Schaller was one of the earliest Realtors® in his skiing, rivers, lakes, and resort area to recognize that strong Web marketing is essential. See how a few scenic photos, a family portrait, and many links and text items do not have to look crowded on a homepage if they are handled in modules.

Note, too, that Don has effectively used a rare four-column approach to organizing the many modules on his homepage.

By the way, while you're in the Schaller family's site, take a look at the long history of service to the small town of Truckee by both Don and Lil Schaller and you'll quickly understand why they write many, many millions of dollars in sales every year despite being located outside of a major metro area. (Being known locally for your community service is good for both you and for your community. Remember, what you give to a community, or to anyone for that matter, you usually get back tenfold.)

Summary of modular design

Now you have a new webpage design paradigm in which to work. No longer will your webpages look like horizontal tire tread impressions in the mud. No longer will your website visitors turn away, wrenching and gagging, as they view the impossibly tangled mess of your non-modular, gray and grubby homepage.

Now you can discard all those ugly, black left-to-right-margin lines of type that have been turning away your website visitors for years, and create easy-on-the-eyes modules that will keep your visitors glued to your suddenly sticky, wildly interesting site!

You can take your existing content, reformat it, and place it thoughtfully on your pages in a modular fashion. Because now you even know how to define and separate the modules functionally, so that each is extremely easy to isolate and read through the use of white space, gutters, columns, shading, and boxes.

Modular design? Modern automobiles use it. Airplanes use it. Computers use it. Newspapers and magazines use it. So take a hint. Why shouldn't you use it?

Published: November 19, 2003

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .