Commercial Real Estate
RI Manhattan Realty – Retail Office Space
Overview
RI Manhattan Realty is a commercial real estate brokerage specializing in retail and office space across New York City. The company works with a wide range of clients — from small business owners searching for their first storefront to enterprise tenants negotiating large-scale office leases in some of Manhattan’s most competitive corridors.
The project involved a full redesign and platform migration of their existing website — from a custom-coded solution to a professionally built WordPress platform. The goal was not simply to refresh the look of the site, but to rebuild it from the ground up in a way that would give the business full editorial control, support complex search and filtering functionality, and preserve years of accumulated SEO authority during the transition.
This was a multi-layered engagement that required tight coordination between design, development, content migration, and technical SEO — with zero tolerance for ranking loss or broken user journeys on a site operating in one of the most competitive real estate markets in the world.
Problem
The existing website had been built on a fully custom-coded foundation that worked well in its time but had become increasingly difficult to maintain and extend. Several critical problems had accumulated over the years:
Platform limitations
- The client had no ability to update listings, add pages, or make content changes without developer involvement
- Adding new property types, filters, or search criteria required custom code changes each time
- There was no user management system — employees had no way to log in and manage their own listings or leads
SEO risk at scale
- The website had built up significant organic search rankings for highly competitive commercial real estate keywords in New York
- A poorly executed migration could have wiped out years of ranking history in a matter of days
- Hundreds of existing URLs had to be audited, mapped, and redirected with precision to avoid traffic loss
Functionality gaps
- The property search experience was basic and didn’t meet user expectations for a modern real estate platform
- There was no interactive map view, making it harder for users to evaluate location context
- The site lacked the tools to compete with larger real estate portals from a user experience standpoint
Solution
We approached the project in structured phases, treating the migration and the redesign as two parallel workstreams that had to stay in sync throughout.
Design and redesign
We redesigned the site with a clean, professional aesthetic that reflects the authority and credibility expected from a Manhattan commercial brokerage. The layout prioritizes property discovery — making it easy for visitors to start browsing immediately without friction.
Platform migration to WordPress
The entire site was rebuilt on WordPress using a premium real estate theme selected by the client as the foundation. While the theme provided the core structure, extensive custom code modifications were made throughout — adapting layouts, overriding default functionality, and building new features from scratch — to deliver the exact experience and capability the client required. Every section of the site is fully manageable from the WordPress admin, giving the client complete control over listings, pages, team members, and content without any developer dependency.
Advanced property search and filters
We built a custom property filtering system that allows users to search and narrow results by property type, neighborhood, size range, price, and availability. The filters update results dynamically, providing a fast and intuitive search experience without full page reloads.
Interactive map integration
Properties are displayed on an interactive map view alongside the standard listing grid. Users can switch between views, click map pins to preview individual listings, and use the map to explore availability by location — a feature that was entirely absent from the previous site.
Employee login and user roles
We implemented a multi-role user management system that allows different employees to log in with their own accounts and manage their assigned listings and content. Role-based permissions ensure that each user only has access to the areas relevant to their responsibilities.
SEO migration and URL mapping
Before launch, we conducted a full audit of the existing URL structure and mapped every relevant page to its new equivalent. All redirects were implemented and validated prior to go-live. Metadata, canonical tags, and structured data were carried over and improved, giving the site the best possible foundation for maintaining and building on its existing rankings.
Results
The migrated and redesigned website launched without ranking loss — a result that required meticulous planning and execution across both the technical SEO and development sides of the project. Key outcomes include:
- Full client independence — the team can now manage all property listings, pages, and content directly from the WordPress CMS without any developer involvement
- Significantly improved search experience — users can filter and browse listings by multiple criteria simultaneously, reducing time-to-find and improving engagement
- Interactive map view — gives users immediate spatial context for every listing, a standard expectation on modern real estate platforms
- Employee management system — multiple team members can log in, manage their own listings, and operate within role-defined permissions
- SEO continuity preserved — all legacy URLs were redirected correctly, and organic rankings were maintained through the transition
- Scalable platform — the new architecture supports future growth, including new property categories, additional filter types, and expanded content without rebuilding
Tech stack
- WordPress with premium real estate theme (heavily customized with custom code modifications)
- Custom property post type with advanced filtering
- Interactive map integration
- Multi-role user authentication and employee login system
- Full SEO migration: URL mapping, 301 redirects, metadata transfer
- Responsive design optimized for desktop and mobile
More work
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