Concept site · Realtor concept · Cape Coral, FL
Florida Gulf Home Realty
Realtor concept · how far from the Gulf?
The brief
What we built.
A concept rebuild for a Cape Coral gulf-access specialist, designed as a nautical chart: a sample route shows boat time, distance and bridge clearance from a house to open water. A concept we built unprompted, to show what the site could be; not affiliated with the business.
- A chart-style hero: “How far is your house from the Gulf?” with a sample route of 22 minutes, 6.4 miles and a 9′4″ bridge (the real calculator stays the broker’s)
- Popular boating destinations from Cape Coral and “notices to mariners”
- A 2% listing commission pitch for sellers, on a “simple course to sold”
- 15 pages with real estate markup
The numbers
Google Lighthouse, mobile, their site before and our concept after. Local Lighthouse 13.5 mobile (machine under heavy load, so pessimistic); official PageSpeed not recorded · Local Lighthouse mobile (official PageSpeed not recorded) The SEO score is left out of the comparison: concepts are hidden from search engines, and that alone caps Google’s SEO score at 69.
The business
Who we were dealing with.
Independent Cape Coral real estate brokerage specialising in gulf-access waterfront homes, land and new construction.
Their brand as it was
- Compass logo plus a New Hampshire lake-map logo
- Red hamburger bar and red phone bar on the old site
- Broker's own name leads the header ('Licensed Broker in FL & NH')
Worth knowing
- Broker is an electronics founder (Inc. 500 list, 1996), a New Hampshire builder, and moved to Cape Coral in 2009
- Signature tool 'How Far to the Gulf?': boat time and distance from an address to about 75 destinations, with bridge clearances and speed zones
- Seller offer: cancel any time at no cost; photography and 3D tour reimbursed at closing
- Licensed in both Florida and New Hampshire
The research
How we studied the industry, top to bottom.
Why this business
- Picked from 18 local brokerages as an established owner-operated independent with a real signature tool
- Local Lighthouse performance of 20 and a bad first phone screen: no headline, no call or list button
- A real story and a real waterfront hook to build around
The industry
- Cape Coral buyers care how long it takes to reach the Gulf by boat, so gulf access, bridge clearances and canal type drive the search
- Visitors want quick search by price band and a clear way to contact the broker
- Sellers compare commission, so the 2% offer is a strong hook
The local market
- Areas covered: SW Cape, SE Cape, Cape Harbour and the yacht club, Pine Island and Matlacha
- Relocating New Englanders are a second audience (broker is NH licensed)
- Many competitor sites were already modern and were skipped; franchise agent sites excluded
- 18 Cape Coral and Fort Myers brokerage sites scouted and ranked; the sister episode picked another Cape Coral independent
What we found
- Best tool buried under 11 headlines
- Best offer (2% listing) buried deep on an inner page
- No neighborhood or canal pages despite gulf access being the niche
- No Google link or rating near the testimonials
The audit
What was holding it back.
Tested 2026-10-25/26
- First paint 12.9 s; main content (LCP) 14.4 s
- Blocking time 3,250 ms; layout shift 0.146; speed index 12.9 s
- Page weight 7.4 MB with 24 scripts
- Homepage had 11 H1 headings
- No meta description
- Featured Properties area said the content was currently unavailable
- First phone screen had no headline and no call or list button; only a tiny red phone bar at the top
- Seller offer buried on an inner page; no sticky call bar
- 75-item destination dropdown repeated on every page, heavy and a wall of text on mobile
- Two different office addresses on the same site
- No local business schema, 3 of 12 images without alt, an empty Cape Coral page
- Testimonials far down with no Google link or rating
- Copyright dated 2021
Brand & design
How far is your house from the Gulf direction.
The whole homepage is a modern NOAA-style nautical chart with one magenta course line that winds from a canal home down the page into the open Gulf. A giant boat-time number turns the broker's own gulf-distance tool into the hero.
- Chart cream#F4F0E4
- Chart blue#BFD9E6
- Shallow blue#8DB7CF
- Deep Gulf blue#2F6F9F
- Magenta course#C2187E
- Marker red#D1342C
- Marker green#2E7D4F
- Ink navy#102A43
Type
- Confident serif headlines in navy
- Condensed technical sans for small-caps chart labels and numbers
- A script signature set as a font
Signature moments
- Giant boat-time number counts up in the hero
- Animated example route on a Cape Coral SVG map: course line draws on scroll, a boat travels it, bridge pins pop with clearances
- Speed buttons recompute the example time live
- Course line reaches open Gulf water at the footer
Imagery
- 19 generated images, all text-free: chart background pieces, hero waterfront home, destination photos, price-band homes, a from-behind boat helm shot, buoys, sailboat, compass rose, palm, paper grain, share image
- Words, route line, pins, icons and panels built in code
- No AI face and no real listing photos
5 directions in round 1 (A to E); C (nautical chart) won at 8.5, then v2 refined it to 9/10 and it was locked as the design.
Under the hood
How it is built.
Built to convert
- Hero with an address field that sends visitors to the broker's real route tool
- Seller offer panel (2% / 1% / photos and 3D reimbursed / cancel any time) copied from his own page
- Price-band cards that link out to his live property search
- Call and plot-my-route sticky bar on mobile
- Valuation and booking forms (stand-in email)
- Reviews page with a Google link, no stars
- Area pages: SW Cape, SE Cape, Cape Harbour, Pine Island and Matlacha, gulf-access guide, NH relocation
Built to rank
- Concept is noindex until the owner approves
- Area pages instead of one empty Cape Coral page
- Proper heading structure replaces the 11 H1s (implied by the rebuild)
Built to be fast
- Local Lighthouse performance went from 20 to 96
- Chart art split into three stacked pieces rather than one huge image
Good to know
- SEO 69 is because the concept is noindex
- Official PageSpeed run on the concept was not recorded
- Booking forms use a stand-in contact email; the real address must be confirmed
- No MLS feed: all view-homes buttons link to his live search; price-band photos are generated art
- No real headshot; the helm photo is generated art seen from behind
- Two testimonials from his own site need his OK; Google rating not checked
- A concept built unprompted: the business did not commission it, and the details (reviews, photos, prices) would be confirmed with the owner before any launch.
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