ND Estates.

ND Estates are a local estate agency firm owned by Nick Dodsley, who showcase properties on their website. Looking to refresh their online presence with a new website and get the functionality of an app with a progressive web app build, we worked with them to bring their site up to date.

Working with ND Estates meant we were working with a client who was already knowledgeable about technology. They were eager to ensure the new site presented users with a premium experience while ensuring their staff could easily update the site.

For ND Estates, ensuring that their site was up to date and offered the functionality that would provide a positive user experience, we opted to build a progressive web app. This meant that they would not only get a new website, but that it would function like a web app when accessed on a mobile device.

As the ND Estates team would need to update the site regularly, Nick had already decided that the site would be built using Craft CMS. This content management system is easy to use and allows the team to customise the information posted on the site, ensuring that if any additional features for properties need to be added, this can be easily incorporated by the team.

As we had decided with the client to build a progressive web app, we employed the use of Nuxt.js. We then made use of GraphQL, which connects the API and queries the Craft database to deliver the information held in craft to the nuxt.js framework. This ultimately delivers the front-end experience and using this new tech stack meant the client had an easy-to-use CMS while the site functioned as a progressive web app, something which Craft CMS cannot support alone.

Unusually for us ND Estates worked with us collaboratively on the project. Having a client who was interested and knowledgeable in the technology we were implementing meant we worked in a different way which allowed Nick’s input throughout the process.

As ND estates regularly need to update their listings they needed a solution which allowed their team to easily create new listings and update existing content. As we had used Craft to build the site, we knew that the ND estates team would easily be able to update their site as often as they needed without any complicated processes or new skills to learn.

As part of the new site there was also an option for clients to sign up and create a profile on their site. These sign ups linked to a Mailchimp sign up, meaning that ND Estates newsletter would be sent to those who signed up. This was a fully automated process, meaning the ND Estates team could eliminate any need to manually update their distribution lists and that all customers were kept up to date with the latest news.

Opting to build a PWA meant that the client only required one build to get both a new site and the app functionality, resulting in a reduced build cost.