The Hume Group

The Hume Group is a small, high-performing real estate team based in Tacoma. In the real world, they were already one of the top-selling groups in the area—but online, you would never know it. Their website looked outdated, performed poorly in search, and rarely converted visitors into leads. On average, it generated about one form submission per month.

I partnered with them as a freelance designer and developer and owned the project end-to-end: research, strategy, UX, design, development, SEO, analytics, and CMS setup. The site launched in late December 2025 and immediately began outperforming the old site in traffic, engagement, and lead generation.

The problem

The old site failed on almost every front. It looked dated, was difficult to update, and didn’t reflect the quality of the business behind it. SEO performance was weak, which meant most potential clients never found it. And when people did land on the site, there wasn’t enough clear, useful information to build trust or guide them toward contacting the team.

The three realtors felt strongly that their business deserved better. They were winning in the real world through referrals and reputation, but their digital presence wasn’t helping them grow. Failure for this project would have been simple: low traffic, no increase in leads, and no meaningful improvement over the old site.

Goals

The main goal was to increase visibility and conversions. They wanted more people to find them, understand what made them different, and reach out. Because the old site had no real analytics, we didn’t have clean benchmarks—but we did know they averaged about one form submission per month. Beating that was the minimum bar. Longer-term, the real goal was to make the site a true growth engine, not just a digital business card.

Understanding the audience

The primary audience is people selling their homes, with buyers as a strong secondary group. Most visitors arrive through search, with word of mouth and blog content playing a smaller but growing role.

For these users, what’s at stake is huge. Buying or selling a home is one of the biggest financial and emotional decisions people make. They’re anxious about choosing the wrong agent, worried about money, and looking for someone they can trust. The site didn’t just need to look good—it needed to reduce fear, build confidence, and clearly show that this team knows what they’re doing.

Research and insight

I met weekly with the client and talked with people who had recently bought or sold homes. One pattern came up again and again: people don’t choose agents based on clever taglines. They choose based on proof. They want to see results, reviews, experience, and local credibility.

That insight shaped everything. The design and content needed to make their success obvious—fast.

Strategy and UX

The structure of the site was intentionally simple, especially because many users skew older. The main navigation focuses on clarity: Home, About, Selling, Buying, Blog, and Neighborhoods.

The core experience is straightforward. Most users land on the homepage, learn what the group offers, see evidence of their results, and then follow a call-to-action to either the buying or selling flow. From there, the goal is simple: get them to feel confident enough to reach out.

One necessary tradeoff was using an IDX feed for listings. It isn’t the prettiest system, but it’s essential for real estate. We accepted the visual limitations in exchange for functionality, and focused design effort on everything around it.

Design

Visually, the site needed to feel clean, premium, and trustworthy. Trust is built through clarity, not decoration. Large sections show recent sales, client reviews, and a map of sold homes to make their experience tangible. Typography is large and readable, layouts are simple, and nothing feels cramped—especially important for older users.

Every design decision came back to one question: does this make someone feel more confident choosing this team?

Build and technology

The site is built with Next.js, React, and Tailwind. For content, I used Ghost as a CMS because the client wanted something extremely simple for writing blog posts.

I personally designed and built everything, set up the CMS, integrated APIs, implemented SEO, and configured analytics. The most meaningful technical growth for me was working through real-world integrations—connecting services, handling data cleanly, and making sure everything worked reliably together.

Early results

Within the first few weeks after launch, the site had 856 unique visitors. About 55% of users scrolled more than 25% down the page they viewed—well above the typical ~40% benchmark. Just under half of all traffic came directly from search.

The most visited neighborhood page was Proctor District, with Hilltop in second place. The most viewed blog post so far has been “Rehab Now, Pay at Closing.” Performance has also been strong: the site’s “Real Experience Score,” which measures load speed and overall experience, has hovered between 98 and 99—anything above 90 is considered excellent.

Most importantly, the site generated eight form submissions in less than a month—compared to about one per month on the old site.

Iteration

One early insight from analytics was that many users were reaching the bottom of blog posts and leaving. To fix this, I added a related-posts section at the end of each article so people always had a clear next step instead of hitting a dead end.

Impact

The new site has already delivered an eight-times increase in leads, strong early SEO traction, high engagement, and near-perfect performance scores. More than the numbers, it finally represents the quality of the business behind it. The Hume Group now has a digital presence that matches their real-world reputation.

Reflection

This was one of my first freelance projects to fully launch, and it’s one I’m especially proud of. It pushed me to own everything—from research and strategy to design, development, and measurement. It also reinforced something I care deeply about: good UX isn’t just about making things look nice. It’s about helping real people make big, meaningful decisions with confidence.