Real estate broker Luxury Rentals Manhattan knows the ins and outs of New York City. But there was one avenue they hadn’t mastered: the web. Updating their website with their rapidly overturning inventory was a daunting time commitment.

LRM wanted a site designed to index hundreds of New York apartment buildings, showcasing descriptions, images, space and amenities, developer details… But they couldn’t let indexing turn into a ‘round-the-clock project. They wanted a practical way to deliver all this to their users. They also wanted a sharp-looking site. And it had to be easy to use. And inviting to both search engines and potential customers. And loaded with well-written content on all things Manhattan real estate.

With a loft-y goal—running the web’s best Big Apple apartment marketplace—Luxury Rentals Manhattan chose Engine to design, build, and carry out the solution.

The ENGINE Solution

We delivered an effective, clear, and easy-to-use site. It’s topped with a focus on user-centered SEO and well-written content. May we walk you around?

Content Management Solution: Drupal

LRM’s primary reason for doing up their site was simple: they wanted to manage their content better. We knew the best solution.

LRM is now powered by the award-winning open-source option: Drupal. It’s a mouthful, but when customized for a specific purpose like LRM’s, Drupal makes life easy.

It turned out to be the perfect foundation for all sorts of features… a hierarchical tagging system, geotagged apartment profiles integrated with Google Maps, blogging, contact forms, apartment search forms, slideshows… Lots of cool, simple stuff.

Design Solution: Look Sharp, from Interface to Images

When you think of researching real estate, what comes to mind? A bumrush of whitened teeth and cheesy headlines? Duck and cover, here come the old-guy glamour shots!

LRM deserved better architecture—a classy blue, white, and gray color scheme, photos of beautiful buildings instead of tan-in-a-can men, and a UI that explains itself. They wanted their site to project helpful, not desperate.

Content Creation Solution: User-focused Articles and the Luxury Rentals Manhattan Real Estate Blog

Having a way to add tons of details about each listing was a great content cornerstone. Next, LRM wanted to take their content through the roof. So we put their site in position to be an authoritative source by researching and writing original articles and pitching in to the company blog.

LRM wanted a site packed to the vaulted ceiling with quality content. Instead of focusing on what’s great about LRM, our strategy was to explain things that New York real estate buyers want explained.

We wrote link-worthy and keyword-rich articles on each major Manhattan neighborhood, plus other useful content—not only will all this content turn up on Google search result pages, it’ll establish LRM as a local authority on what New York buyers really need to know.

LRM went a step further and took advantage of Engine’s blogging experience, asking us to create posts for their company blog. With each blog post, LRM is increasing their fresh content advantage. As their site gains age and trust, all this content will bring in more and more eyeballs.

SEO Solution: Content First, Links Second

With their luxury apartment expertise, LRM is very familiar with the value a good concierge adds to a building. How great is expert insight into where you can best invest your time? Engine turned LRM’s site into a kind of “web concierge,” making it easy for potential customers to find exactly what they need. “Searching Google for apartments near empire state building, ma’am? I’d recommend Luxury Rentals Manhattan.” Best part is, this concierge is always on the job.

Straight “out of the box,” Drupal is great for search engine marketing. Engine boosted Drupal’s SEO magic by installing a huge tagging system.

Focusing on traffic generators that didn’t involve buying ads, we used directories and social bookmarking sites like Delicious to add a little link juice. We’ve found in the past that this is a good way to get a steady trickle of traffic.

We also hit all the basics, like writing keyword-based anchor text, showing LRM how to apply alt text to images they post, and using PathAuto to create search-engine-friendly URLs. And, since we’re still working with LRM even though the site is delivered, we’re also planning a link-building campaign soon.

Tools

For this solution, we used Drupal, Views, Thickbox, and various customized modules, among others.

Luxury Rentals Manhattan’s Immediate Payoff

After showing LRM how they can easily maintain their listings (and the rest of their site) with Drupal, we handed the keys over to them.

Immediately after opening their virtual doors, LRM’s site was already ranking #1 for several long-tail keywords. Translating into an increase in leads overnight. Obviously, Manhattan real estate is extremely competitive, so the site’s best days are still to come.

LRM eagerly began adding new building profiles (and removing profiles for SOLD buildings). They’re able to keep their site current with very little effort or behind-the-scenes web-nerdery. LuxuryRentalsManhattan.com is turning into a towering success.

Take a tour for yourself at luxuryrentalsManhattan.com.

See anything you like? ENGINE can create a website for you.

Click below to learn more about some of the services we delivered for Luxury Rentals Manhattan, or, as always, contact us.