Estate Agents Website design - standing out from the crowd

Ginger Homes are an independent estate agency based near Balsall, in the Midlands. Ginger Homes initially found Servon via a Google search for ‘Estate Agents Website Design’, and then through links from other estate agents and property related websites that we have designed and developed over the last 22 years.

Although Ginger Homes had a website, they felt that it no longer represented their current business model and who they were trying to appeal to. They wanted to make everything consistent to help bring through a proper identity and to try and bring a sense of fun into the property industry. They wanted to stay away from the standard template-based estate agency websites that are out there and try something a bit different.

Roadmapping: We started with our unique roadmapping exercise, which is designed to dig deep into discovering a businesses preferred customers, the type of people they are, their age, where they live and why they might choose to use Ginger to sell their property. Doing this allows us to clearly define the persona of who we are looking to attract.

We also found out in our roadmapping exercise that Ginger wanted to productise their services. They wanted different levels of services that would come in a package, a bespoke service and also the do-it-yourself service.
The finished website gives users the ability to create their own listing within the Ginger Homes website, as well as the option to list the property on portals, such as Rightmove and Zoopla.

Ginger Homes also wanted their customers to have the choice to opt for a hands-on approach for customers who preferred face-to-face meetings and a higher level of interactivity with the estate agency team themselves.

Design: With the focus on generating leads for Ginger Homes, we made sure that contact information, lead capturing forms and valuation buttons were prominent site-wide. We also took their branding to a higher level, tweaking the existing branding and standardising it across all their products and website.

The Ginger Homes website has a great blend of animated and static visuals. The homepage is based on a unique looking grid system, to give the site a fresh new look that is very different from many of the ‘cookie-cutter’ type estate agency websites that currently exist. Together, these features create a unique look that jumps right out of the screen and definitely adds that element of fun that Ginger wanted from the beginning.

One of the key areas of the website for any estate agent’s website are the property pages. With the property details we wanted to give the user as much information as possible, and at the same time make the user comfortable when viewing the property.

The property details page has a clear number of actions for the user to take including the usual ‘Book a Viewing’ and ‘Book a Valuation’ as well as links to an ‘Instant valuation’, ‘Like to Make an Offer’ and ‘Registering Requirements’.
The property image gallery is based closely to what users are used to on sites like rightmove, making the user comfortable when using the website.

One of the main highlights, and something a little different, is the way the location of the property is shown. We integrated a solution from Locrating. Locrating gives a very high level of information with regards to a property’s location. Some of Locrating’s features include showing information about the wifi strength in that area and the best schools in that area. This is a great tool that helps Ginger Homes’ customers make a decision on whether a certain property is the right property for them.

Development: Most of our clients use a CRM for their property database and property management, and Ginger Homes is no different. The Ginger Homes website is directly integrated with the Reapit property management CRM (Reapit is in use by approximately 500 Estate Agents in the UK). The sync from Reapit can be set to sync daily or down to as little as 15 minutes. Any changes made from within Reapit are synced almost instantly.

The online packages section of the website (My Ginger) is built using woo-commerce and hooks up to Stripe payment system. Users can purchase the base package and select from a number of add-ons including ‘Professional photography and floor plan package’, EPC package’ and ‘Rightmove Premium’.

Results: Ginger Homes are extremely happy with the results. From a visual point of view, they love how the website looks and how the animations work. It elevates their brand and thus how they are perceived by their target audience.
The website gives Ginger the potential to market successfully, in terms of creating landing pages on their website and content marketing on the new blog section. The integration with Reapit property management CRM also allows them to save a lot of time on their property management operations; time that can now be spent on growing their brand and business.

Looking at Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021, the number of users is up by just under 10%. Organic search users are up by just over 18%. But the largest increase in the number of users is from a social media perspective. Leads from social media are up by a massive 196% because they can now spend more time on their media output and social media marketing.