WorkCase study 02 / Real estate advisory

Nifel International.

A property advisory with offices in London, Dubai and Istanbul was presenting itself through an 18-plugin page-builder site. We replaced it with a bespoke site at half the weight and a third of the requests, that says what the firm actually does.

Client
Nifel International
Sector
Private real estate advisory
Services
Design, build, migration, technical SEO
Went live
8 October 2026
Platform
WordPress, custom theme
New Nifel International homepage: film of the Dubai skyline with the headline Property, With Perspective
52%lighter homepage (21.8 MB to 10.5 MB)Lighthouse, mobile
34reqrequests to load the homepage, down from 105Lighthouse, mobile
1pluginrunning, down from 18 (plus 4 themes removed)WordPress install
100/100Lighthouse best practices, up from 96mobile and desktop

01 / Where it started

A private advisory, dressed as a property portal.

The old site was a standard Elementor build. It looked acceptable on a desktop and carried a lot of machinery to get there. We restored a full working copy before changing anything, so every figure on this page comes from the real thing.

  • 18 active plugins, mostly overlapping page-builder add-ons: Elementor and Elementor Pro, five add-on packs, a slider and a carousel. Free and premium Yoast were both active, and four themes were installed.
  • The homepage loaded 45 scripts and 40 stylesheets.
  • No page had an SEO title or description. The homepage had no H1, no canonical tag, and 17 of its 20 images had empty alt text.
  • The header linked straight to the founder's mobile number, which the client had asked never to be shown.
  • Thirteen published pages on a 567 MB install.

The brief: a site that feels like a private advisory, not a property portal, that explains the firm in plain terms and works properly underneath.

02 / How it ran

Restore first, then rebuild.

Nothing was touched on the live site until the old one had been backed up, restored and measured. Scroll along the rail.

Step 1
01

Back up and restore

Full files and database backed up, then restored as a working copy so the old site could be measured honestly.

Step 2
02

Audit

Lighthouse runs, a plugin and theme inventory, and a page-by-page check of titles, headings, alt text and markup.

Step 3
03

Design

A three-city film to open, then one idea per section: what the firm does, how it works, who leads it.

Step 4
04

Build

Ten hand-built pages, working forms, structured data, a hand-written sitemap and live office clocks.

Step 5
05

Migrate

A small custom theme serves the pages inside WordPress. Old addresses redirect to the closest new page.

8 Oct 2026
06

Launch

Seventeen plugins and four themes removed, leftover uploads cleared, and the new site live.

03 / What we built

Three cities, one clear story.

The new site opens on a short film that moves from Dubai to London to Istanbul, the three offices. Below it, each section states one idea: what the firm does, how it works with clients, who leads it and which developers it works with.

  • Ten pages: home, advisory, expertise, development, careers, the four service pages and appointment booking.
  • Three live office clocks for London, Dubai and Istanbul in the footer.
  • A four-step process (consultation, shortlist, acquisition, aftercare), so a prospective client knows what happens after they get in touch.
  • Working forms for contact, careers and appointments, with validation, a consent tick and a hidden spam trap. CVs are stored outside the public web folder.
  • No phone number anywhere on the site, as the client asked.
Take one / Measure

Restore before you touch

Every before figure comes from a restored copy of the real site.

Take two / Design

Advisory, not portal

Film, plain words and one idea per section instead of stock photos.

Take three / Build

18 plugins to 1

Hand-built pages served by a small custom theme, still inside WordPress.

04 / Before and after

The same firm, finally saying so.

Full-page captures of the restored pre-launch site and the launched site.

Before
Old homepage first screen: a stock photo of a family on a Dubai balcony with the headline Discover premium real estate opportunities
BeforeOld homepage, first screen. A stock photo and a generic headline.
After
New homepage first screen: film of the Dubai skyline with the headline Property, With Perspective
AfterNew homepage, first screen. The film plays across the three cities.
Before
The whole old homepage scrolled top to bottom
BeforeThe full old homepage. Scroll inside the frame.
After
New homepage services listNew homepage standards and figures sectionNew homepage founder sectionNew homepage four step processNew homepage contact section
AfterSelected sections of the new homepage, in page order.
Before
Old founder section, a portrait beside a paragraph on a green panel
BeforeFounder section, old. One paragraph beside the portrait.
After
New founder section with portrait, role and a signature line
AfterFounder section, new. His role and the group’s remit beside the portrait.

On a phone

Before
Old homepage on a phone
BeforeOld, first screen.
After
New homepage on a phone
AfterNew, first screen.

Inner pages

Before
Old advisory page
BeforeAdvisory, old.
After
New advisory page
AfterAdvisory, new.
Before
Old careers page
BeforeCareers, old.
After
New careers page
AfterCareers, new.
New page
New development page
NewDevelopment. Did not exist before.
New page
New expertise page
NewExpertise. Did not exist before.

05 / Speed and quality, measured

Half the weight, a third of the requests.

Lighthouse, homepage, median of three runs per row, both versions on the same server.

Lighthouse, full results

Mobile / Desktop
MetricMobile beforeMobile afterDesktop beforeDesktop after
Performance score47598389
First Contentful Paint2.0 s1.3 s0.5 s0.3 s
Largest Contentful Paint10.2 s12.4 s2.1 s2.2 s
Total Blocking Time795 ms610 ms0 ms88 ms
Layout shift (CLS)0.0000.0000.0010.016
Page weight21.8 MB10.5 MB21.0 MB13.5 MB
Requests1053410334
Accessibility89959095
Best practices9610096100
SEO score *50695069

Before and after

Mobile, Lighthouse

Page weight (MB)

Old site
0
New site
0

Requests

Old site
0
New site
0

Performance score

Old site
0
New site
0

Accessibility score

Old site
0
New site
0

Where it is still slow. Largest Contentful Paint on a phone is about 12 seconds on the new site, slightly worse than before, because the first screen is a full-screen film behind a short loading screen. Desktop is unchanged at about 2 seconds. A lighter first frame on phones is the next improvement.

* Both versions sat behind the same “do not index” header while being tested, which lowers the SEO score of each by the same audit. The search checks below were read from the page source instead.

06 / Under the hood

Moving it without losing anything.

The client wanted to stay on WordPress, with the pages as plain HTML for now. We wrote a small theme that serves each page's stored HTML directly, so editors keep their WordPress login and users, and the pages stay exactly as designed. When the client is ready to edit inside WordPress, the content can move into blocks one page at a time.

Old page addresses that no longer exist redirect to the closest new page, so existing links and search results keep working. Seventeen plugins and four themes were removed, along with the old Elementor pages and their leftover upload folders.

Search basics, checked in the page source
CheckBeforeAfter
SEO title on the homepageDefault (“Home - Nifel International”)Written
Meta descriptionNoneWritten, every page
H1 on the homepage01
Canonical tagMissingPresent
Images with empty alt text17 empty, 3 missingNone missing; 8 decorative left empty on purpose
Structured data1 blockReal estate agent, three offices, social profiles
SitemapGenerated by the SEO pluginHand written, ten pages
Scripts / stylesheets on the homepage45 / 408 / 1
WordPressCustom themeHand-built HTML/CSSSchema: RealEstateAgentCanonical + sitemap301 redirectsSecure formsLighthouse audited

07 / What comes next

Live, measured, and still improving.

The site went live on 8 October 2026, so there is no traffic, ranking or enquiry data yet. The speed figures above were taken on our own server for both versions, so they compare like for like but are not the same as scores on the public internet.

We will add search impressions, enquiry counts and a comment from the client here once the site has run for a few weeks.

Figures: Lighthouse 13.5.0, run 9 October 2026. Screenshots: full-page captures of the restored pre-launch site and the launched site.

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