Davidson Homes Mortgage

As part of Jack's work with Davidson Homes, we had the opportunity to create a new headless WordPress website for Davidson Homes Mortgage (DHM) in 2021, following the company's rebrand (formerly Heritage Mortgage). The objective was to develop a modern, user-friendly, and responsive website that would seamlessly integrate Davidson Homes' branding, while improving overall performance and user experience.

With prior experience in building Heritage Mortgage's WordPress website, Jack had since honed his skills in React and was eager to leverage the benefits of Next.js in this new project.

The project commenced in January 2021 and concluded in May 2021. Although most of the work was completed by February, the remaining time was dedicated to refining the site, ensuring optimal performance, and preparing for a successful launch.

Design and Development

A key focus of the website redesign was to create a clean, modern aesthetic, anchored by a bright color palette. The new design also needed to incorporate Davidson Homes' existing branding to ensure a seamless transition from the old website to the new one.

To achieve these goals, Jack employed a headless WordPress architecture, allowing him to take full advantage of Next.js' developer-friendly features and the performance benefits associated with its Incremental Static Regeneration. This approach also facilitated a fast and efficient development process.

Launch and Performance

The website's launch proceeded smoothly, with no significant issues or delays. In the first six months post-launch, the new DHM website demonstrated impressive improvements in performance and user engagement:

• A 34% increase in users

• A 95% increase in pageviews

• A 7% decrease in bounce rate

• A 25% reduction in average page load time

Furthermore, the site achieved excellent page speed scores on both desktop and mobile, contributing to a vastly improved user experience.

Client Feedback

Davidson Homes Mortgage expressed their satisfaction with the new website, praising both the modern design and the seamless integration of their parent company's branding. They also appreciated the improved performance and user engagement metrics.

Legacy

Following the mortgage company's merger in early 2023, the site was replaced with a templated site hosted by its new controlling company. However, our version of the site may still be browsed at the link above. The headless architecture, powered by Next.js and React, proved to be an excellent choice for this project, resulting in a faster, more engaging, and better-performing website.

However, we were unsatisfied with the headless WordPress experience, and roughly a year after launch, we migrated the backend to SanityCMS, whose flexible GROQ API integrates with Next.js much more seamlessly.

The strong performance metrics and positive client feedback attest to the success of the project, highlighting our abilities to effectively leverage cutting-edge technologies to deliver outstanding results for their clients.