Placester Codeless

With almost a decade of experience in the industry, Placester understands the daily struggles of real estate agents and brokers. The real estate market is not only one of the biggest industries in the US, it’s also one of the most demanding. Agents and brokers must juggle administrative work, home staging, inspections, responding to inquiries, and meeting with clients who frequently schedule home visits outside of standard work hours or even on a weekend. For many agents and brokers — whether new to the business or have years of experience — 9-to-5 is just the beginning of the workday.

From the very beginning, Placester’s mission has been to deliver a solution that would allow agents to create their own websites fast and hassle-free. This would allow them to focus their efforts on the other aspects of the business and still get all the benefits of a beautiful, professional website.

The Challenge

Placester has been changing the real estate industry since 2011, but, after a decade of service agents and brokers, the company decided it was time to give their product a makeover. For years, they’d been using classic site editor, a product that enabled advanced website building for non-tech users. However, as the years went by, the technology behind it had become outdated.

Placester needed a tool that would be comprehensive and advanced while still offering their customers the kind of fast, friendly, coding-free environment that modern users have come to expect. However, rebuilding its platform from scratch presented unique challenges: Placester has a large active customer base of brokers and agents that rely on it to represent their brands online. They wanted to go fast without missing a beat in supporting the existing customer base and do it affordably.

The company looked to WP Kraken to achieve that vision.

The Process

Placester understood that instead of little upgrades and polishes here and there, the platform needed a complete overhaul. To boost their competitiveness and reduce the churn rate, they partnered with MPC and a team of UX/UI designers, introducing an intuitive visual editor with loads of different options and features.

After discussing PPlacester’s benchmarks, visions, and goals, it became clear that upgrading Inc-App to accommodate new themes wouldn’t be enough. The company had envisioned its product to involve minimal visible code while allowing deep customization of a website’s elements and live visual editing. It had to be advanced but, above all, user-friendly, intuitive, and easy to grasp.

To solve that problem, the product design team developed preset bundles, taking most of the decision-making process on themselves. This way, the agent can swiftly change the total look of their website, making fewer decisions along the way and taking a quick glimpse at the outcome. Styles and layouts act as a starting point for further customization of any elements—or none if that’s what the user prefers. Ready-made color palettes were introduced to reduce decision fatigue further, while an advanced custom coloring tool allowed easy editing of various elements.

The UI was designed with the vision of a busy agent in mind. WP Kraken designers crafted an interface similar to well-known products based on user habits. To meet these goals, a toolbar provides quick access to the editor’s most important functions, and WordPress-like blocks facilitate easy content creation. For maximum convenience, the team introduced an auto-save feature, pre-saved settings, and intuitive navigation that groups similar settings and options with quick links.

But the work didn’t stop at the user interface. The WP Kraken design team also modernized the pre-built website themes that Placester offers its customers — and designed around 20 brand-new themes for users to choose from. The Kraken Squad knew that it was critical to Placester users to keep their website content intact, even if they changed between different themes and designs. It required much attention to detail to ensure each module would be available in every design, but it was worth it for the user’s benefit.

WP Kraken also added labels and intuitive previews to the visual editor, making the editing process as easy as pie. Thanks to this solution, the learning curve has decreased, as beginner-level users can build and edit their websites piece by piece rather than scrolling through the navigation sidebar.

The Outcome

Placester constantly evolves to deliver as much functionality as possible in a user-friendly platform. Right now, Placester’s codeless interface is a valuable tool for agents and brokers to build their online presence and nurture their brand while sacrificing as little time as possible. The average time needed to learn the ropes and establish a complete, working website is just one day.

Placester’s new, revamped tool not only helps agents build and cultivate their personal brands, but it’s also the first major step towards partnering with brokers. With this versatile product as a foundation, Placester will be able to offer even more services in the future, like providing a team of creative assistants who can help busy brokers quickly provide all their agents with a personalized website.

Results

An advanced, yet simple tool to create real estate websites with a modern, personal feel.