Rural property sales, community portal and auction site, RuralTrader.co.nz is a resource for the NZ rural community.

The initial site launched in February 2009  with weather charts, rural news, blogs, events, forums, a community fund and a registration system that allows users to participate in the site.

The news section provides up-to-date news items for the rural sector and market information is sourced via RSS feed and displayed as dynamic graphs using Flash. The weather section is updated hourly via web services and has regional reports as well as interactive maps showing satellite and rain radar. These feeds are integrated with the CMS for updating all other content and member management.

Rural Trader Auctions and Rural Trader Property launched in late 2009 and 2010 with livestock, pets, and rural real estate sales. Real estate listings from Real NZ Software and other real estate software listings allow realtors to automatically update their listings.

An attractive and functional user interface combined with strong underlying functionality create a site which is easy to use by the community and easily managed by the Rural Trader team. Relevant advertising adds to the site, with positioning of the ads designed to work with the design without overpowering the content.
Identifying marketing opportunities and advertising initiatives, and provision of SEO and AdWords helped to get some good initial traffic to the site.

Testimonial

"Phosphor Essence have been involved with Rural Trader from the concept right through to launch. Cam & his team were very hands on with all aspects of the project and brought a wealth of experience that extended further than just website development. This was imperative as Rural Trader had many key components of functionality that had to be integrated together to make an easy to navigate, well-designed site.  We believe Phosphor delivered on all aspects.  We are currently in the process of launching stage 2 of our website and will continue to work with Phosphor Essence as we evolve."