-
Overview
Through my business VanityGeeks.com, we redesign the total UX of Real Geeks IDX websites to help real estate agents convert more leads and make their brand look better in the process.
-
Users + Audience
Our clients comprises of real estate agents in the USA and Canada. The users of the sites we are redesigning are prospective home buyers and home sellers.
-
Responsibilities + Roles
I oversee all aspects of business including the following:
Figma wireframing
Coding: HTML, CSS, JavaScript/JQuery
Collaboration: Working with developer/business partner that knows little English. Collaborating on ideas, implementations, and pinpoint communication to ensure a fully well executed product.
Lead Generation/Marketing: From working with a community of agents in a Real Geeks mastermind group, SEO/PPC marketing, all follow up, etc.
Client consults: scheduling all client Zooms, consults on all Zoom calls, collecting all client needs + developing longterm strategy based on UX plan and SEO strategy, and closing all business.
Zapier automation: Deep API automations among G-Suite products, Follow Up Boss CRM, Stripe payment processing, etc to minimize business administration tasks.
Trello task management board to stay focused, organized, & efficient and keep team up to speed.
-
Problem Statement
The Real Geeks IDX front facing website is extremely outdated. Real estate agents depend on this platform to generate leads for them, but the issue is this space is so competitive that these Real Geeks sites are perceived as lackluster in the eyes of a consumer. Real estate tech companies are innovating and Real Geeks has not innovated in UX much. This pain point also was the main reason my business Vanity Geeks even exists. Real estate agents have experienced an increase of bounce rate due to outdated UX on their Real Geeks sites.
-
Scope Determination
Determining the following is the key to meet the needs of the real estate agent and formulate scope.
Are they focused on SEO, PPC, or a combination of both types of marketing? This is a big question that leads us to our design decisions on the site.
Are they trying to attract more home buyers or sellers? These two types of clients can have quite different needs, so UX may differ.
Is this going to be their main site? Or another lead generation website in their arsenal? If it’s not a main site, or if it’s strictly another lead generation site, it may change our UX approach.
Local real estate website market research. This will help us create a plan of attack on how to compete with the clients’ local market whilst remaining unique. We look into monthly keyword traffic, moderate competition keywords the agent wants to target, and then design the UX around these metrics. Reverse engineering.
Listing Result Pages
This is hands down the most important part of any IDX website, therefore this had a huge overhaul. Most prospective traffic spends their time on these type of pages—so we want to ensure once someone lands on these pages they get all the info they need, and fast.
-
Navigation
The navigation on mobile was too tall, and didn’t utilize space well. The other issue was it wasn’t fixed therefore the user had to scroll up to access the menu.
-
Search Header
The search header was added so the user can understand what type of search results they were seeing. This header would dynamically change based on search parameters.
-
Listings
This was a huge visual change. On desktop and mobile the listings would waste a ton of white space and require the user to scroll 5x more to see the same amount of a content as our redesign. We took all the data and placed the text over the listing image with a slight black to transparent gradient for separation. On desktop, we included a 4 column grid that would resize depending on the users screen size. We could fit a ton more listings on the same page whilst simultaneously showing larger images that users want to see. This resulted in a massive boost in conversion for our clients using PPC marketing, due to these pages being the primary landing page for campaigns.
-
Additional Call to Action
Due to the additional space created by our UX overhaul, we thought to add another additional lead generation opportunity. This box was catered to prospective home sellers in this instance. In real estate, the saying goes: “home buyers are also home sellers”. Upon clicking this call to action, the user would be directed to a home valuation page. This was also included on mobile, the screen just doesn’t show it.
-
Saved Search
This was a massive UX flaw we noticed on these sites, primarily on mobile. The save search feature is a big lead generation tool, and the mobile version keeps this button fixed out of user view upon scrolling. We fixed this by fixing the save search button on the bottom of the user screen on smaller devices, and also stylizing it to brand.
Search Section
-
Search Area + Background
The original background was too bright and the search section had too many options. Prospective home buyers want quick results, and too many options tend to increase the bounce rate. With the new re-design, the background was darkened along with an easy search bar that shows you results in one click. Just type in a city. The new UX overhaul allowed for a seamless transition to “estimate” and “sell” with tabs which created new lead capture opportunities.
Mobile Version
The old mobile version had zero background and a continuation of the multiple dropdown menus from the desktop version. In short, it looks very bland—and does not compete well with other websites in the space. We seamlessly integrated the desktop version into the mobile version that resized wonderfully.
Sign Up Forms
-
The signup form is a highly crucial component of an IDX website. This is the main lead capture tool on Real Geeks websites. The original sign up form had way too much text and almost felt like a spammy sales pitch.
We removed most of the text and simplified the form. On both desktop and mobile we blurred the form background to create more contrast.
Bounce rate improvements
Before re-design: 61% bounce rate
After re-design: 23% bounce rate
Property Pages
-
Property pages are another important piece of IDX websites. The typical Real Geeks website has a centered slideshow with huge gray bars on the side on desktop. The share button also hides icons of the share options. On mobile, the gray bars are also prevalent.
Desktop
With the re-design, we added a brand new form for lead capture and a new “start an offer” option. With this added form, the slideshow naturally pushed to the left. The new form added a new way to capture leads that prospective home buyers in a fast paced real estate market would typically use.
Mobile
On mobile, the gray bar issue was fixed with photos fitting the slideshow area. The crop is not an issue, most large real estate search engines do this and alleviate it with a gallery function that displays the full image (as done here as well). We also fixed the schedule showing button to the bottom of the screen to follow the user as they scroll, helping keep a call to action in view at all times.
Footer
-
The old footer was very bland and also had a poor color choice for the logo based on the background color. We also felt it was less likely to be interacted with based on the layout and overall palette. It simply didn’t match the black and white branding.
The new footer features a black background with white font that matches the overall design direction of the site. There is a grid that resizes the items appropriately based on screen size. We also added a new create an account section that creates a whole new call to action. It also has a nice feel to wrap up each page layout.
Mobile Navigation Menu
-
The old mobile navigation menu was nearly impossible to see. Very little contract between the menu and elements behind it made it difficult to interact with. The new menu blacked out and slightly blurred the background, centered, and enlarged the text. Much easier to read, much better UI.