Custom Ranch Real Estate Website

One of our Internet marketing partners, Blue Tent,  brought a client to us that needed a powerful ranch real estate website functionality that would promote their property listings and link each listing with one of its brokers. We have had much success with ranch real estate sites in the past, but each varying slightly in specific needs. So, naturally we were eager to learn more about this opportunity and build a custom solution that would fit RMA's specific needs.

There were primary objectives going into this custom eCommerce website were:

• Branding RMA as a premiere ranch real estate company
• Implement custom website development that allowed for easy property promotions and broker directories
• Increase traffic to the site through SEO and ultimately increase online conversions

In order to discover what was needed to make this ranch real estate website successful, we worked with Blue Tent to dig deep into RMA's specific needs for this website.

• Determine what types of content were going to be published (blogs, newletters, property updates, etc.)
• Layout how the website's content would be organized (site map)
• Streamline the conversion process for interested buyers to request more information, or download a brochure
• Enhance the user experience with custom page templates and processes (property details, .PDF downloads, etc.)
• Integrate a seamless search for properties into the website

Going into the website design process, we had a pretty good idea of what needed to be incorporated into robust ranch real estate website.

Blue Tent handled the design portion of this project, as RMA was their client -- our role was to implement the design into our content management system (CMS) and host the website once it was completed. However, we did need to have a minor consulting role in the design phase to assure that the designs were matching the website's development needs.

Blue Tent created a custom website design that displayed large, professional photography in the hero area. Buyers are researching properties online, so it was important to have a great online presence with massive photography. A custom website would give RMA great flexibility to do this.

To streamline the development phase, it was important to design all of the necessary page templates that were going to be built into the site. These included page types for the homepage and basic internal content pages, property previews, and property detail pages.

The first step in the implementation process was to slice the designs that Blue Tent handed over to us. The design team provided photoshop files that are basically a static image of what the website will look like, then we transfer that image into CSS and HTML code.

This website was being built on our content management system (CMS), so once we had the page template code we could start building out templates in the CMS. With page templates, we are able build one and re-use it many times for all pages that will use the same layout. The website developers went to work on all the page templates and got completed as much as their expertise permitted.  The web developer will then document what functionality is needed that will require an engineer's code, and they pass this list on for more advanced implementation.

Engineers are programmers that write code for complex website capablities. RMA's website included a lot of complexiity in building a great ranch real estate website. We built a robust listing plug-in that would give even the non-technical website admins the ability to add new listings, add custom Google maps, images, and more. We also integrated a broker directory that would link listings with a specific broker.

After a month or two of the project being in the hands of our developers they had created a working website that was ready for quality assurance and testing. The QA team got to work and started hammering on the website to put it through intense usability testing. They worked with the site on different devices (computer, tablet, mini tablet, phone), with different operating systems (Mac OS, Windows, iOS, Droid), using different browsers and browser versions (Chrome, IE, Mozilla, Safari), all to track down hiccups in the display or functionality bugs. We needed to make sure that any type of user could access and navigate the site.

As the quality assurance team was putting the finishing touches on the website, the marketing team was in there optimizing it for the search engines. There are several search engine opttimization (SEO) items that need to happen on the website during the build out of a site, so the SEO team needs to get all these completed so that the search engines can accurately index content on the website when it goes live.

When all teams are finished, it's time to go through the GO LIVE process. We have a 25+ item checklist that we run through before sending any website live. When we completed the GO LIVE list, RMA had a great ranch real estate website.

Now that RMA had a great new look and a great ranch real estate website design, let's take a look at the objectives to see how we did.

Branding.  Our partner Blue Tent did a great job of designing the custom website, so we knew from the get-go that the designs would achieve our goal on accurately branding the website. The new website had the brand in the logo and within the content and imagery, but it was also easy to navigate and use.

Create a Promotional Tool.  The ranch real estate website needed to be easy for the website admin and brokers to add/manage property listings. We built a robust listings plug-in that allowed for even non-technical users to easily add new listings, images, maps, documents, and more. We also implemented a powerful broker directory, which allowed brokers to link themselves to specific properties. This would help streamline the conversion process (i.e. a broker would receive only requests about their listings.)

Online Conversions = Success.  RMA has achieved great results from their custom ranch real estate website. RMA  has received several requests for more information on their properties/brochure downloads a week since the site has been launched. They are also ranking on the first page of Google search results for one of the most popular search terms in the industry.