Website Development for Blue Ridge Properties
Challenge
Serving the real estate needs of northwest Tennessee and Southwest Virginia since 1970, Blue Ridge Properties has developed from a primarily residential home resale business to a full-service real estate brokerage equipped to handle the purchase and/or sale of residential, commercial, and development properties. In 2020, four years after Blue Ridge Properties’ initial website redesign with Intellithought, it was time for another update.
Solution
This time, the focus was on restructuring the foundation of the website to improve usability, speed, and security and to account for changes made to Tennessee’s MLS system. The goal of the updated website was to make it easier for users to search for properties, contact BRP real estate agents, locate open house events, access information about local resources, and browse real estate tips. Aside from minor design and layout improvements, we stuck with their existing theme in order to avoid creating confusion for existing users. Here’s an outline of some of the major front-end changes: Site Admin Section and Agent Login Intellithought worked with Blue Ridge Properties to build out the password-protected admin and agent sections of the website. These sections allow BRP personnel with the right credentials to make edits to the website including adding or editing agents, pages, posts, media, and more. The admin and agent areas also contain tools that are vital to BRP’s internal operations. Automated MLS Feed We coordinated with TN/VA MLS staff to configure and integrate the new MLS system with the new website. New listings, along with all details and images, are automatically added to brphomes.com. The most recent BRP listings are automatically featured on the homepage under the “Newest BRP Listings” section. Dynamic Features There are many features on the new BRP site that update dynamically depending on defined business rules. For example, the homepage and About page currently reference “Over 50 Years” of service, but that number will update automatically with each passing year. Another example is the “BRP Testimonials” section on the homepage which displays a new, random set of testimonials each time the page is loaded. Map Search BRP’s map search tool allows users to search for residential, commercial, new, vacant land, multi-family, and foreclosure listings by keyword, city, zip code, county, or MLS#. Autopost to Facebook We’ve programmed new listings and open house listings to automatically post to BRP’s Facebook page with the appropriate backlink to the listing, photos, and details and a custom caption. Real Estate Tips and Local Resources BRP’s blog and resource tool box contain tips for buying and selling a home and helpful info about local resources including Government and Tourism, Major Employers and Industries, Regional Businesses, School Systems, and more. We reorganized the tips and resources by topic/category to make them easier to browse. Media Archive The media archive is a new addition to the website where visitors can access Blue Ridge Properties’ library of videos. In addition to these changes, many back-end improvements were also made to the website structure and database to enhance functionality, improve ease-of-use, increase security, and to make it easier to maintain and update the website on an ongoing basis in order to keep the website fresh, up-to-date, and ahead of the curve.
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