We’re delighted to announce our Website of the Month winner for April 2017 – Castle Homes University Lettings!

Focusing on providing students with affordable housing in Hull, their website is fast on both mobile and desktop, and has great SEO – difficult to achieve in such a field!

We sat down with Mark Higgins, web developer at Kireth Design, who was responsible for building the Castle Homes University Lettings’ website, and asked him a few questions about the site and the design process.

Explain what Kireth Design is. How did you make the Castle Homes University Lettings’ website?

We mainly focus on developing small to large-scale brochure websites.

Our unique approach is to develop websites on Joomla! using our own bespoke CCK Kit, which is very flexible. Although we build using a content management system, we deploy with pure static sites, like Castle Homes University Lettings, meaning that the sites are very fast, and with no CMS engine or database, also very secure.

How does the site support and drive the business’s goals?

This site was designed to quickly show rental options for our client’s large stock of student accommodation. It’s proven highly successful for the client, and is the only form of advertising they use for their lettings.

What would you say the website’s personality is?

As one of Hull’s better landlords, Castle Homes’s site had to be friendly but also reflect the professionalism of the company.

When you designed the website, did you design with the customer in mind or did you have a fixed idea on how you wanted to portray the brand through the website?

We always try to design for the customers of the website. We believe this is the main focus in creating an economically successful site.

What’s your favourite thing about the website?

The usability of the site. This is always my main concern. It doesn’t matter how pretty the site is, it has to quickly and easily supply the information a user is looking for.

What do you think makes this site different from its competitors?

The ease of use and the speed of page rendering. The speed allowed us to use a lot more graphics on the site, which is important when advertising accommodation.

Do you have any future plans for the site?

Due to the success of the site, with more enquiries than properties available, Castle Homes has been purchasing more properties to renovate, which means we’ll be adding even more to the site as they become available.

Thanks, Mark! And congratulations again for winning!

If you think you could be the next Website of the Month, visit our Website of the Month Facebook post and submit your site!

Please see our previous post for further details.