creedefitch.com

OVERVIEW

I built creedefitch.com when I moved to Austin and started my real estate career 10 years ago. By focusing on the user, I built a site with 650,000 visitors and 1.1 million views, a newsletter of 1,200 subscribers and drove 95+ home purchases worth more than $45 million. It helped me rank at the top of Google searches for “Austin mid-century modern realtor" and led to me writing for Dwell and a print feature of my own home in Dwell. Here's how I did it.

TIMELINE

TIMELINE

2016-2025

2016-2025

ROLE

SOLO DESIGNER, STRATEGY, CONTENT, UX, UI, BUILD

PROJECT TYPE

PROJECT TYPE

SELF-INITIATED BRAND PLATFORM, UX/UI MARKETING SITE


An image of laptop with creedefitch.com on the screen
An image of laptop with creedefitch.com on the screen
An image of laptop with creedefitch.com on the screen

About the project

Traditional real estate sites suck(ed)

Let’s be honest, real estate websites are pretty horrible. They have gotten better, but ten years ago they were a mess. Most were not great to look at, weren't responsive, and relied heavily on forced registration, which made them unhelpful at best and downright annoying at worst for potential clients.

An image of laptop with creedefitch.com on the screen
An image of laptop with creedefitch.com on the screen
An image of laptop with creedefitch.com on the screen

A TYPICAL REALTOR WEBSITE 10 YEARS AGO

MY COMPETITION

I was different by design

The solution was what I now know as human-centered design. I built an audience by giving potential homebuyers what they wanted: curated content, updated daily, that helped them make sense of the market and trust my taste. I shared my favorite homes for sale, highlighted local businesses, documented local mid-century modern architects, and presented everything in a clean, usable, responsive web experience.

DESIGN-FORWARD DESIGN

RESPONSIVE CONTENT

SHARING MY STORY HELPED BUILD TRUST

TREATING CLIENTS LIKE FRIENDS, NOT LEADS

My Process

My design thinking

Long before I knew what UX or product design was, I approached CreedeFitch.com the same way I approach design today. I started with the audience, built a content system with clear goals, designed workflows that could scale, organized information to make discovery easy, wrote honestly to build trust, and refined the site based on real user behavior and conversations with clients. Here’s the process that shaped it.

Start with the audience

I knew from running a successful design blog for years prior that the audience comes first. My goal was to avoid competing with the 6,000+ other realtors in Austin by building a niche audience of design oriented buyers and sellers. To do this I would need a beautiful, well curated site that focused on modern and mid-century modern homes. A site built for people like me.

Start with the audience

I knew from running a successful design blog for years prior that the audience comes first. My goal was to avoid competing with the 6,000+ other realtors in Austin by building a niche audience of design oriented buyers and sellers. To do this I would need a beautiful, well curated site that focused on modern and mid-century modern homes. A site built for people like me.

Start with the audience

I knew from running a successful design blog for years prior that the audience comes first. My goal was to avoid competing with the 6,000+ other realtors in Austin by building a niche audience of design oriented buyers and sellers. To do this I would need a beautiful, well curated site that focused on modern and mid-century modern homes. A site built for people like me.

Fail and follow the numbers

When I started the website, I had plenty of ideas about what might work. Not all of them did. My attempt to sell mid-century furniture bombed. Photographing and interviewing local businesses took a lot of time and did not move the needle on traffic.

What people did want were posts about building a home, so I documented my own construction project. Content about mid-century modern architects was also a hit, so I doubled down on it. Traffic grew, I refined how I converted visitors into clients, and the business took off.

MY FAILED MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE STORE

AN EARLY STORY ABOUT A LOCAL BUSINESS

CONTENT READERS WANTED

"THE REAL COST OF BUILDING A POOL" WAS A BIG HIT

Results

650k

Unique visitors

1.1M

Pageviews

95+

Homes sold

$45M

Sales volume

See for yourself

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This will hide itself!
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This will hide itself!