website design
Merrill L. Thomas
A real estate agency based in Lake Placid, New York.
Specializing in residential and waterfront properties, Merrill L. Thomas has served Lake Placid and the larger Adirondack community for decades. In the past ten years, Merrill L. Thomas has consistently broken sales records, making them one of the leading real estate agencies in the region.
Project Details
- SERVICES USED
- TECHNOLOGIES USED
- WORDPRESS
- NAVICA MLS INTEGRATION
- WP REVIEW SLIDER PLUGIN
- WP GOOGLE MAPS PLUGIN
- GRAVITY FORMS PLUGIN
- ADVANCED SEARCH & FILTERS
- EMMA EMAIL MARKETING INTEGRATION
- KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- FULLY CUSTOM WEBSITE WITH MLS INTEGRATION
- TOTAL BROKERAGE WEB-TO-LEAD ROUTING
- w3 Awards Silver Winner 2023
- Netty Award Winner 2023 for Multifunctional Design
The Challenge
Merrill L. Thomas wanted to upgrade their existing Drupal website to a fully custom WordPress website that stood out from the crowd and really made a visual impact. This new website would need to have an elevated, design-forward look and feel that reflected the Merrill L. Thomas brand, target WCAG Level AA Success Criteria, and be easier for users to navigate than the old website. Users would be able to filter properties by different parameters, view listings in an organized fashion, as well as leave the website with an understanding of why Merrill L. Thomas is the best option for all of their real estate needs.
Our Approach
We brought Merrill L. Thomas’ vision to life with a fully custom WordPress website that not only is dressed to impress but also integrates with several third-party platforms and services. Advanced search filters to find properties, multiple ways to connect with an agent, as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive automated emails alerting them when a property status change are just a few key highlights of the new site. Through a custom integration between WordPress and Navica MLS, properties are imported automatically to the website when added to the client’s MLS system. On the administrative side, we ensured the website backend would be easy to customize and edit, and that leads would be sent directly to the Merrill L. Thomas CRM upon form submission. Stunning from both a design and functionality standpoint, this website is some of our finest work yet.
Homepage Layout & Design
Immediately shows users that Merrill L. Thomas is an industry leader in the region, while also enticing them to quickly start their property search.
- Property Search Bar
- Featured Listings Carousel
- Service Areas Section
- Popular Searches Highlight
Hear From Merrill L. Thomas
Hannah Torrance
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
We began our search engine optimization (SEO) project for Merrill L. Thomas shortly after we wrapped up our website redesign. Their main goals for SEO were to improve their visibility on real estate searches in the Adirondack region, particularly for different towns and property types, along with boosting the overall volume of leads they receive from organic traffic. From this, our team developed a holistic strategy, putting local SEO and on-page SEO at the forefront. We optimized existing content with high-intent, hyper-relevant keywords, and focused on creating new pages centered around real estate in different Adirondack towns and lakes to broaden Merrill L. Thomas’s market reach.
New static pages were also built out to highlight different property types, from cabins and condos to luxury properties and land. To support these new pages, our team also helped create and optimize a mixture of real estate and lifestyle blog posts designed to assist with generating user interest, sessions, brand awareness, and internal linking. With this strategy has come some major wins for Merrill L. Thomas website, as they now are consistently able to rank alongside and even beat out enterprise competitors like Zillow and Realtor.com in search results. Even more importantly, we’ve seen significant increases in conversions (contact form submissions, phone calls, and text messages) and conversion rate from organic traffic year after year.
SEO & Organic Traffic Improvements
After 1 Year
Increase in conversions from organic traffic
After 2 Years
Increase in conversions from organic traffic
After 1 Year
Increase in organic traffic conversion rate
After 2 Years
Increase in organic traffic conversion rate
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