Mike's old website was very basic, with two pages of information that hadn’t been updated in over four years. Michael had approached someone to build a site for him, but the project had never been completed.

Our first step was to take the old website down. The information wasn’t helpful, and didn’t reflect the current state of his business. A holding page was put up to inform any visitors that a new site was being developed.

I worked with Mike to understand what outcomes he wanted to achieve with the site, and what was required from a functionality perspective. He opted for a simple site, with a homepage that communicates the essential information, but needs very little maintenance. Mike has a busy office, and a cumbersome website is an overhead that a small business doesn’t need. He also wanted to host his own property listings - something his previous site had never been able to do.

When it came to site design, Mike was open to suggestions. His Estate Agency signage carries a different brand style from the traditional Legal side, but with similar colouring. I felt that it was important to incorporate this, because the visuals seen on the screen should be recognisable when seen in a For Sale board on the street. I devised a way of lightly integrating features from the Estate Agency brand while keeping the site appearance consistent across both areas.

We worked through several iterations of the layout before we settled on the final look and feel of the site.

From a maintenance perspective, the Content Management System is simple to use, and I’ve worked with the office staff to train them on the process of updating property listings and creating blog postings. The team are now entirely self sufficient, and the simple process of updating content has little impact on the working day.