Maracay Homes new website reflects the new realities of marketing new homes online – it must be easy to navigate, easy to find the details on the various home options, mobile-friendly and integrated with social media. Real estate and new home sales are driven by location and price, so etainia used an interactive map as the primary navigation point for desktop users and the navigation organized by location for mobile users. Branding their inventory homes as “Move-In Ready Homes”, etainia created a landing page that organized all these homes by location and neighborhood, while also feeding the listings for these homes into each neighborhood’s page making it easy for the buyer to look at all home plans and then choose from currently available homes. Part of the marketing and SEO strategy recommended by etainia was to establish an individual page for each home plan as well as each Move-In Ready Home. Each neighborhood also includes several components to satisfy the home shopper’s interests without taking them off the page; neighborhood site maps, lifestyle and amenities shown on an interactive map with details on local schools, parks, employers, shopping and entertainment venues, a driving-directions map with turn-by-turn instructions and a registration form that flags the neighborhood the customer is interested in.
A blog and integrated Twitter and Facebook components were created to be maintained by the client’s social media and PR agency. Etainia also recommended integration of content created on Houzz to help promote their interior design studio and their landscaping and pool vendors. Outbound data feeds were set up for third-party advertizing partners to keep their websites updated with the available neighborhoods and home inventory. Registrations on the website are also automated to update the parent company’s CRM system.
Perhaps the most challenging factor faced by home builders and developers is managing the vast inventory of homes while also keeping information, images and contact details current. The structure of the site allows the client’s staff to update pricing, add and remove inventory, change the contacts for sales teams and maintain their Realtor Rewards program. The homepage was also design with two rotating banners for changing call-to-action items – driving traffic to new neighborhoods as they open and other special promotions.