Five Techwe are

Responsive Ranch Real Estate Website

Responsive web design enhances a ranch real estate brokerage's online presence for mobile use.

Pfister Land Company is a real estate provider for ranches and land for sale, primarily in the western region of the U.S. Pfister wanted a website to impress and show people the incredible beauty of its ranches. With a custom and responsive web design, we made their ranch real estate company vibrant among any others. On this site, potential buyers are able to search for property depending on their desired area, property type, and price range.

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Project Challenge

Pfister needed a website that would showcase its beautiful estates located primarily in the western region of the United States. As an elite ranch real estate company, the company wanted a website that would provide a great online environment for all users, including ones who used mobile devices. As an established brokerage, it was important to continue to drive users to the site and provide them the information they were looking for.

The 3 primary objectives going into this website design project were the following:

  • Brand Pfister Land Company as an elite ranch real estate brokerage in the west
  • Optimize the site for mobile with a responsive web design
  • Implement functionality to easily manage property listings on the site

Discovery

Because Pfister Land Company needed improvement with its website, there were many questions and issues that needed to be addressed such as: 

  • What type of content needed to be made available for property listings?
  • How would the new website organize content? 
  • Streamline the conversion process between the buyer and broker. 
  • How would Pfister be using the site to market its properties and other services?
  • Establish Pfister as a reputable and established ranch real estate and property broker. 

Going through the website design process, we had a pretty good idea of what needed to be added into this website in order to drive an ultimate user experience for potential customers. 

Design

For the design of Pfister's website, we first needed to implement wireframes to layout content for the hompage, preview, and detail pages. With a responsive web design created for Pfister, it allows its users to access the website from any device and any time. Knowing the exact content Pfister wanted included into its website made it easier to construct and create a great responsive web design. 

We put together a design team to carefully yet creatively construct a truly unique and stunning website from the ground up. With Pfister's custom design, their company completely stands out from its competitors and other property brokers. Our graphic design team created a great website for any device (e.g. mobile, tablet, or desktop).

The graphic designers included unique elements like the burnt menu naviation and textured backgrounds. On Pfister's website, we implemented large hero images showcasing featured properties. This allows potential customers to be able to get a clear picture of what they could purchase, and the types of properties that Pfister sold. A custom map was also included on their website to search properties by state directly from Pfister's homepage. 

Implementation

Once we had sign-off on all of the design mocks and had a solid understanding of the development that was going into the web design build, it was time to pull in the web developers to implement the designs and buildout the functionality.

The initial step in the implementation phase was to slice the design mocks. The design team provided Photoshop files that are a static image of the site's design that we converted into HTML and CSS code. We could then implement that code into the content management system (CMS).

This website was being built on a powerful CMS, so once we had the code for the page templates, we could start building out the templates in the CMS. Page templates give us the ability to re-use it many times for all pages that will use the same layout. The developers went to work on all the page templates and got them as far as their skillset could get them. The developer documented the functionality needs that required an engineer to code, then they pass the list down for further implementation.

The software engineers got to work on writing code for the complex functionality that was needed for this website to be a success. Process like updating property listings with text, images, videos, and downloadable documents were necessary to provide a simple back-end experience for the website admins. The engineers also provided an easy way to add listings to an interactive Google map that signified property locations with a custom branded drop pin. Content marketing is a huge asset in a company's search engine optimization (SEO) tool belt. So, we implemented a custom blogging platform that would provide an easy way for Pfister to update customers on properties, ccompany news, and industry tidbits.

After a couple of months of the project being in the developers hands, and some back and forth to fine tune the functionality to the client's needs, they had produced a functional website that was ready for quality assurance. The QA team worked hard to break the site and find errors in the functionality. They tested the site on all browsers for different devices, and kept track of any fixes that were needed. When everything checked out we powered through our 25+ item checklist that we run through for every site that we send live.

Upon completion of the Go Live list, Pfister Land Company had a brand new, responsive web design.

Results

Overall, we would say that this project was a success, but let's take a look how we handled the goals that were laid out earlier.

Branding Pfister Land Company.  This was one of the objectives that didn't need a lot of analyzing as we knew as soon as our graphic designers produced the design mocks that we had accomplished this objective. The new site had the Pfister brand within the logo, the content, and the subtle graphic design elements throughout the site. Pfister's new website promotes the firm as an elite ranch real estate broker. Verdict: Success!

Optimize for Mobile.  The creation and implementation of a responsive web design was a direct result of the growing mobile web and its users. Mobile users will srupass all user types very soon, and Pfister Land Compnay is now prepared for that transition. Mobile users are presented with the same content as the desktop users, but with a responsive web design the layout is optimized for the mobile screen. Verdict: Success!

Make it Functional.  Most ranch real estate websites come equipped with robust functionality requirements. This website was no different. We implemented the functionality for easily managing all property listings on the website, custom google mapping, and a blog that would make content marketing efforts quick and easy. Verdict: Success!

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