The real estate industry has sweat and pushed through the highs and lows – the mountains and valleys, plus the coastline that’s below sea level – of our chaotic economy over the last decade. And here at Inclind, we’ve been able to help pick up the pieces for real estate agencies in southern Delaware (and beyond) in need of an extra push in this changing market.

Gallo Realty, covering both real estate and rental properties in Rehoboth Beach, Lewes and Bethany Beach, has been a client of ours since 2005. That’s more than a decade-long relationship together – and Gallo was ready for a three-peat, with Inclind charged with revamping and refreshing its website for a third time. Just in time for another surge in the real estate market.

What’s the constant in all the changes? Customer service. This is what should never dive below sea level. Online, that means always keeping up with the speed and demand of potential customers. And Gallo Realty, gotogallo.com, has been renowned for its commitment to customers since 1979. In fact, even though the firm now has more than 100 sales and rental associates on staff, its mission statement has always remained: “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectations for reliable service and professional guidance in selling, buying or renting real estate.”

It’s one of the top brokerage firms in the area, having sold 852 units and more than $306 million worth of real estate in 2015. That takes a rental management system software that doesn’t miss a beat. Our team was integral in integrating gotogallo.com with Home Away’s V12.net platform. And, along with a vacation rental platform upgrade, we also improved the Apache Solr-based property search for a much more fluid search and vacation reservation experience. Our checklist of goals and challenges that were met included:

1. Migrate existing content and data
2. Optimize data storage
3. Increase site conversions ratio
4. Refresh web site aesthetic
5. Complete everything within a short timeline (as always)

On the front end, the site’s entire theme and design was ripped out and refreshed. We wanted this firm’s mobile engagement to be ridiculously amazing, so we redesigned and inserted responsive images rather than the old text-heavy site; we streamlined the rentals search to reduce the clicks and dead-ends; and we brought Gallo’s agents more to the foreground. It’s what Inclind’s president Shaun Tyndall calls an “overall healthier look.” The results? Page views increased by more than 100% and mobile pages per session by 97%, with a hefty decrease in the bounce rate. Translation: we were able to boost the number of people viewing the site, as well as the number of pages they viewed while they visited (an average of 10 pages). The longer folks stay, the better chance they’ll choose Gallo Realty to book their stay in our southern Delaware vacation destination.