2024-01-19

Transformative Drupal Migration and Custom Design for Eaton Realty

A Real Estate Brokerage Built on Streamlining the Customer Experience

Eaton Realty is a family-owned and operated business and believes that overall success comes from the relationships built with its clients. Eaton is dedicated to providing quality service and making the home buying, selling, or renting process as smooth as possible for everyone involved. They also manage properties and invest in real estate, so Eaton has you covered whether you’re looking for a new place to call home or need help managing your current property.

The Challenge:

With an outdated Drupal 7 platform, Eaton Realty sought to upgrade to Drupal 9 to leverage its advanced capabilities. Moreover, a custom home listing feature with advanced search filters was necessary to offer clients an easy and user-friendly way to browse properties. This was complemented by transitioning from a RETS-based MLS to an MLS Grid-based integration, allowing us to easily pull data from the MLS Grid. A custom design was required to improve user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) tailored to the real estate industry's specific needs to increase conversion rates.

Outdated Drupal

The update to Drupal 9 was a strategic move towards leveraging the latest web technology for enhanced performance, security, and scalability. We carefully analyzed Eaton Realty's existing digital infrastructure, identifying critical components and data needed to transition with minimal downtime and without losing data or functionality.

Improving User Experience

The focus was creating an intuitive, engaging user interface (UI) that simplifies the property search and browsing experience. Inclind achieved this by incorporating responsive design elements, ensuring the website's optimal performance across various devices and screen sizes. Attention to detail in the user interface design, such as strategic placement of search filters and property listings, enhanced user engagement, and ease of navigation.

ADA Accessibility

This commitment to accessibility meant rigorously adhering to web standards that guarantee the website is usable by people with a wide range of disabilities. By integrating accessibility features such as keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and color contrast adjustments, we ensured that the website was more inclusive and aligned with legal standards.

Our Solution:

Each solution was carefully crafted to meet Eaton Realty's specific needs, ensuring a modern, efficient, and user-friendly digital presence that stands out in the competitive real estate market. With a successful Drupal migration and implementation of a decoupled front-end architecture, we were able to provide a web solution that meets Eaton's needs.

Drupal Migration

This migration provided a more secure and scalable version of its CMS platform, enabling Eaton Realty to better manage its content and digital assets. Inclind's expert team ensured a smooth transition, preserving the integrity of existing data and functionality while unlocking new features and efficiencies offered by Drupal 9.

Decoupled Front-end Architecture

Implementing a decoupled front-end architecture allowed for greater flexibility and improved user experience. This approach separates the back-end content management from the front-end user interface, resulting in faster page loads, more dynamic content updates, and a more responsive website. This architecture enables better integration with various APIs and services, offering a more cohesive and interactive user experience. We also used Next.js as our framework to deliver a scalable and future-proof digital solution.

The blazing fast user experience includes:

  • Map based search with advanced filtering
  • Conversion friendly listing pages
  • CRM integration for lead capture
  • Similar listing engine
  • Automated Neighborhood landing pages
  • Favorite listing feature
  • Visitor registration & dashboard
  • SEO friendly blog

RETs-based to MLS Grid-based Integration

Transitioning from a RETS-based to MLS Grid-based integration gave us the means to pull the data easily for Eaton Realty. This modern integration system streamlined the process of updating and managing property listings, ensuring more accurate and up-to-date information for users. The MLS Grid-based integration also provided a more robust and reliable platform for handling large volumes of real estate data, enhancing the overall efficiency of the website.

Ongoing Support and Maintenance

Recognizing the importance of keeping the website up-to-date and functioning optimally, Inclind has committed to providing Eaton Realty with ongoing support and maintenance. This includes regular updates, security patches, and technical support to ensure the website remains secure, efficient, and aligned with the latest web standards and technologies.

Custom Design

A custom design reflected Eaton Realty's brand identity and enhanced the user experience. Inclind focused on creating a user-friendly interface that resonates with Eaton Realty's audience. The design emphasized ease of navigation, aesthetic appeal, and alignment with Eaton Realty's branding, ensuring a memorable and engaging online experience for visitors.

Hotjar Implementation

Incorporating Hotjar provided valuable insights into user behavior and website performance. This tool allows for tracking user interactions, such as clicks, scrolls, and mouse movements, offering a deeper understanding of how visitors engage with the website. These insights are instrumental in making data-driven decisions to optimize the user experience and interface continuously.

Recaptcha Integration

To enhance website security and user trust, Inclind integrated Google's reCAPTCHA system. This helps to prevent spam and abuse by distinguishing human users from bots. Eaton Realty's online forms must ensure a secure experience for legitimate users while blocking malicious activities.

The Result:

Eaton Realty

Inclind significantly enhanced Eaton Realty's digital presence through a strategic Drupal 9 migration, implementing a decoupled front-end for improved performance and user experience. The transition to an MLS Grid-based system modernized home listings and searches while custom design work aligned closely with the brand's identity. Additionally, Inclind integrated Hotjar for user behavior insights and Google reCAPTCHA for increased security, supplemented by ongoing support and maintenance to ensure continuous website optimization and performance.

 

Client Quote: 

"Our old website was slow and was running an older version of Drupal that was due for an upgrade. We've struggled with previous web development vendors that needed to be equipped to handle our site's complexities, which cost us financially and required an enormous amount of time to get the site to the finish line."

I vowed not to repeat past mistakes when choosing our next vendor, and I'm glad we found Inclind. The team took their time to understand the project's scope and set expectations. The project was expensive. As a company, it's the most costly marketing project we've ever undertaken-- but at the end of the day, "you get what you pay for" holds true. We're proud to now have a high-performance website that is accessible and editable and delivers the same high-quality experience to our clients online as we provide in person."

 

Shawn Eaton  
Director of Operations

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Here are snapshots we took along our journey together.

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Eaton Realty

Eaton Realty is a family-owned and operated business and believes that overall success comes from the relationships built with its clients. Eaton is dedicated to providing quality service and making the home buying, selling, or renting process as smooth as possible for everyone involved. They also manage properties and invest in real estate, so Eaton has you covered whether you’re looking for a new place to call home or need help managing your current property.