To maintain their prime position in such a competitive marketplace, Cheshire-based estate agents, Macmillans, asked Parker Design to create a brand new mobile responsive website design with excellent search engine optimisation and easy customer navigation.
After researching the main competitors’ websites and finding very few were optimised for mobile devices, Parker Design knew that using a responsive web design would give Macmillans a distinct advantage in the estate agent marketplace, whilst providing an excellent user experience both on mobiles and desktop computers.
Estate agents generally use a variety of industry-specific CMS (Content Management Systems) so rather than using WordPress, we built the front-end of the website using HTML5, CSS and jQuery. This was then hooked up to the client’s CMS database, so that users could perform detailed property searches, using parameters such as price bracket, area, distance, for sale or to rent and number of bedrooms.
The overall look of the new website design reflected the client’s new branding, recently designed by Parker Design with clean and friendly typography in shades of green. The fresh, uncluttered interface sets Macmillans apart from its competition.
Featured properties use key space on the homepage to drive interest – and these are changed frequently – to create variety for new and returning users. A prominent search panel on the homepage and all search results pages means users can easily perform repeat searches.
A wide range of information and resources are included throughout the website, offering valuable insight and guidance to home buyers, sellers, renters and landlords whilst providing good content for SEO.
The result? A more consistent and succinct brand image, increased traffic to the website and hence more enquiries from both prospective buyers and sellers, higher SEO rankings, and a very happy client indeed.