Update Horizon template (KYSelectProperties.com) to new Pro Site for Remax-Mammoth.com

[Battler45]

Vihang,

For our next Pro Site, we will be converting an existing design (http://www.kyselectproperties.com) to a new Pro Site for http://www.remax-mammoth.com.

I've set up a new website here:

• http://remax-mammoth.sierrainteractivedev.com/index.html
• http://remax-mammoth.sierrainteractivedev.com/inside.html

Which is accessible via FTP at:

67.199.110.220 remax-mammoth_dev

using the normal password. Once you FTP into the site, you'll see that I have already copied over the site files from the KYSelectProperties.com version of the site. If you go to the default page for this site:

• http://remax-mammoth.sierrainteractivedev.com

You'll see that there are still some formatting issues in the HTML / CSS of this and the other site pages. Arthur (new programmer) has FTP access to this site and is curently working on fixing those (should be done by tomorrow or Friday).

In the meantime, can you get started updating the constants_client.asp and constants_client_specific.asp files for this site, and then also create the default pages (Home, Contact, About RE/MAX of Mammoth, Meet Our Team, About Mammoth, Careers, Privacy Policy) and a blog with default blog post?

We don't need a "Community Info" page for this site.

For the neighborhood / community pages, the site will have the following sections:

• Mammoth Lakes Subdivisions (/mammoth-homes/)
• Mammoth Lakes Condos (/mammoth-condos/)
• Mammoth Lakes Project Areas (/mammoth-lakes-real-estate/)
• Mono County Communities (/)
• Inyo County Communities (/)

Then, for the Condos and Subdivisions sections, the client has prepared a content template for each type (attached). In this document, there are two templates -- one for the Subdivisions pages, and one for the Condos pages. Upon reviewing this document, I believe you'll be able to make sense of what the client is looking for, and it requires a bit more flexibility than our current tools allow for. Do you think there would be a way to automate this type of content creation? If so, it would be good to somehow build that added flexibility into our system for future use in situations such as this.

In creating the condos and subdivisions pages, please use the attached spreadsheet (also prepared by client) as a point of reference. The subdivisions will be those listed in the "Mammoth Lakes Subdivisions" column, and the condos will be those listed in the "Mammoth Condo Complexes" column. I believe the Saved Searches for all of these should already be created. Any Saved Searches which are not already created can be dis-regarded for the time being, because I don't believe there are active MLS listings for those areas at the moment.

Last, one issue for this site is that this site is an upgrade for an existing customer who is currently using IDX Search Tools only. The URL of their search tools is: http://mammothmls.sierrainteractivemls.com/

One problem we may encounter in developing this site is that the Site Domain for the existing site is different from what it will be for the new site. I'm not sure what the best way would be to get around this, other than to hard code a temporary change into the /res/includes/session_mgr.asp file that would recognize the remax-mammoth.sierrainteractivedev.com domain and automatically change it to mammothmls.sierrainteractivemls.com before passing it into the Session functions. (Basically, a hack to get it to work until the site goes live.)

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks.

Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Thanks for doing this.

2 - Yes, I had not realized that it would be a problem for us that Residential and Condos are separate List Types in this region. Rather than creating separate pages and searches for Residential and Condos, can you alter these so that the "All Types" list type is selected, and then select the following List Type Descrips: Single Family, Condominium, Townhouse, Duplex, Triplex?

That will enable us to get all listings for each topic into a single page and a single search.

3 - You're correct that we don't currently have a way to denote "Recent Price Reductions" -- the only way to come close to this at present is to do a Price Reduction saved search, and then sort by Days on Market. Even though that would not always be most accurate in terms of recent price reduction, it's the best we can do for now.

4 - You are also correct that we don't currently have a way to do Longest On Market. I will inform client that we need an alternative search for this item.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Ben,

I have fixed the quick search issue reported in #56. The issue was due to the default Area option value was set to "0" as a result no matching listings were found when list-type or any other criteria was selected first.

Thanks Posted by Shah Vihang(unfuddle username: vihang)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

The changes look good, thank you. Can you just make one small adjustment to the new property listing detail page for this site? Currently, there is quite a bit more padding on the left side of the page than the right side (between the contents of the page and the border of the page). Can you try to even that out, so that it's equal on both sides?

Also, for this site, can you create a new section on this site called "Mammoth Sales Data" with the section filename "/mammoth-sales-data/" ? Within that, then please create three new pages:

• /mammoth-sales-data/homes/
• /mammoth-sales-data/condos/
• /mammoth-sales-data/lots/

And can you then import the content for these pages from the existing site, here:

• http://remax-mammoth.com/html/mammoth_residential_sales_data.html
• http://remax-mammoth.com/html/mammoth_condo_sales_data_2000-.html
• http://remax-mammoth.com/html/mammoth_lots_sales_data_2000-2.html

The formatting is not great on the existing pages, so please just do the best you can in importing them. The Page Titles of the pages should just be "Homes," "Condos," and "Lots"

The H1 tag of each page should be "Mammoth Homes Sales Data 2000-2011," "Mammoth Lots Sales Data 2000-2011," etc. Then, below the H1 tag and the data, please add a Content Label Widget containing links to all three of these pages, so that people can easily navigate between them.

Once that's done, if you could add a "Mammoth Sales Data" menu item as the bottom item in the drop-down menu under "Mammoth Communities," and linking to the "Homes" page, that would be great.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Great, thank you. I believe this site is now complete and ready to launch.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Ah, I see. That's strange -- I'm not sure what could have happened there, as I did not make any programmatic updates which could have caused such changes. In that case, please leave them as they are for now, and I will inquire with the client -- meaning, leave Meta Keywords as they are rather than updating per the spreadsheet.

If there are no records of changes in the PagesVersions table, then perhaps the client was not the one who made these updates? I'm just not sure what could have happened there...

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

The client has some additional feedback for the Remax-Mammoth.com site. Can you help with these as you have time? These would be lower priority that page-associations programming.

Comments and suggestions about the links in the “What are you looking for box?” The box is good and outlines exactly what Paul is looking for but some of the new links/pages you created pose a problem with duplicate content and SEO linking strategy. The links need to be linked to the already created pages to optimally SEO the site structure. As an example for the Mammoth Condos link, it doesn’t make sense to have two different pages to build back links to, to target the same keywords and/or show the same listings.

1) At the Lifts – I changed this to Ski Resort Condos. I also changed the URL to /ski-resort-condos/

2) June Lake - Good

3) Mammoth Condos – Please delete the page you created /mammoth-lakes-condos/ and link to /mammoth-condos/

4) Mammoth Foreclosures – Please delete the page you created /mammoth-lakes-foreclosures-properties/ and link to /mammoth-lakes-foreclosures/

5) Mammoth Short Sales – Please delete the page you created /mammoth-lakes-shortsales-properties/ and link to /mammoth-lakes-short-sales/

6) Recent Price Reductions – This link goes to the same page as “Price Reductions”. Please remove link and replace with Golf Course Properties and link to /mammoth-lakes-golf-course-properties/

7) Crowley Lake - Good

9) Mammoth Crash Pads – Good

10) Mammoth Homes – Please delete the page you created /mammoth-lakes-homes/ and link to /mammoth-homes/

11) Newest REO’s - Good

12) Single Family Homes – This link goes to the same page as “Mammoth Homes”. Please remove link and replace with Ski In Ski Out and link to /ski-in-ski-out-condos-and-homes/

13) In The Meadow – Please delete the page you created /in-the-meadow/ and link to /mammoth-lakes-real-estate/mammoth-meadow/

14) Luxury Homes - Good

15) Mammoth Dirt – Please delete the page you created /mammoth-dirt/ and link to /mammoth-lakes-lots-and-land/

16) Mammoth New Listings – I changed the URL to /new-listings-mammoth-lakes/

17) Price Reductions - Good

18) Snowcreek Condos - Good but can you change the URL from /snowcreek-condos/ to /mammoth-condos/snowcreek/. I have a plan for this page to add additional content with links to all the Snowcreek Phases.

The client also has the following comments about the foreclosures / REOs searches & pages. In general, I believe that our "REO" designation currently includes both Short Sales and Foreclosures. I believe we need to change the search criteria for both pages to be only Foreclosure properties. So, the searches for the REO pages should use only Foreclosures as the criteria, not REOs and / or Short Sales. Here are the client's comments:

There is still a discrepancy between the data for “foreclosures” and “reo properties.” These should be exactly the same listings. It would be ok to leave as two separate pages as some people may relate to the terms differently.

1) Mammoth Lakes: The data in REO Properties and Short Sales is similar, because 445 Fir Street is the first listing on both pages. Foreclosures is showing 3 listings REO Properties is showing 67 listings

2) Crowley Lake: Foreclosures is showing 2 listings REO Properties is showing 6 listings

3) June Lake: Foreclosures is showing 1 listing REO Properties is showing 2 listings

4) North Mono County: Seems OK, both Foreclosures and REO Properties are showing 3 listings

5) South Mono County: Foreclosures is showing 0 listings REO Properties is showing 1 listing

Then, here are one additional set of feedback / comments from client:

On the home page in the main content area can you change the link for “Mammoth Lakes homes for sale” to link to /mammoth-homes/.

On the Mammoth Lakes Communities Page can you add a link for Ski In Ski Out under Mammoth Featured Properties and link to /ski-in-ski-out-condos-and-homes/.

Mammoth Condos Projects page looks good! Thanks for adding the pages, combining the multiple phase projects, and fixing all the abbreviations.

Mammoth Subdivisions page looks good as well. Only thing I noticed is that Mammoth Heights A & B should be combined into 1 page /mammoth-homes/mammoth-heights/. Again thanks for adding all the pages and fixing the abbreviations.

For the links above the info bar for Home and Blog, can we change the font to better match the font and color in the info bar? Also we need to add a link to Paul’s blog for his newsletter sign up. The anchor text for the link should be “Newsletter Sign Up” and the link would be http://www.mammothrealestateblog.com/2011/06/whats-this-bi-weekly-newsletter-about.html. Please open link in a new tab.

Below highlights the subdivisions to be added from your list below:

1) North Village – Subdivision, project area Village

2) Old Mammoth – Subdivision, project area Old Mammoth. There already appears to be a link to Old Mammoth Road. I went ahead and changed the page title to Old Mammoth and the URL to /old-mammoth/. Can you just verify that the search listings are accurate?

3) Pine Cliff Manor – Subdivision, project area Old Mammoth

4) Shady Rest Tract – Subdivision, project area Town

5) Webb Subdivision – Subdivision, project area Village

6) White Pine – Subdivision, project area Village

(Vihang, for creating the above pages, please use existing pages within the corresponding project areas as templates.)

Mammoth Industrial Park and Mammoth Lakes Airport are commercial areas, and currently there is not really a commercial category for the website except the listings page /mammoth-lakes-commercial-real-estate/. At first Paul was not too interested in displaying Commercial, but he would like to add these to the website. What about a subpage to the URL above i.e. /mammoth-lakes-commercial-real-estate/mammoth-industrial-park/ and /mammoth-lakes-commercial-real-estate/mammoth-lakes-airport-hangers/ and just add the links under Mammoth Featured Properties?

Mammoth Lakes Other is not important, all the condo projects and subdivisions are already accounted for.

For the 301 redirects for the old site to new site I just want to confirm that all the links are pointed to the correct URL. I noticed that there were some changes from the draft I put together for you:

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/featuted_listings.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/mammoth-lakes-featured-listings/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/mammoth-lakes-featured-listings/

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/new_listings.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/new-real-estate-listings/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/new-real-estate-listings/

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/new_listings_week_ended_novemb.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/new-real-estate-listings/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/new-real-estate-listings/

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/new_listings_week_ended_novemb1.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/new-real-estate-listings/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/new-real-estate-listings/

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/new_listings_week_ended_novemb2.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/new-real-estate-listings/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/new-real-estate-listings/

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/new_listings_week_ended_octobe.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/new-real-estate-listings/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/new-real-estate-listings/

http://www.remax-mammoth.com/html/top_of_the_market.html points to http://remax-mammoth.com/mammoth-luxury-homes/ not http://remax-mammoth.com/property-search/list/mammoth-luxury-homes/

Please let me know if you have any questions about this.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Great, thank you. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

The site is looking great, thank you.

As final steps for this site, can you please add:

• Regular site map (/site-map/)
• XML site map (/sitemap.xml)
• Property Listings Site Map

As with the MammothRealty.com site map, please make the /site-map/ page on this site include all available pages on the site. I don't see a good place to link these sitemaps in the footer, so, for now, please leave them un-linked, and I will look into this tomorrow.

Also, in checking the PanamaCityHomesOnline.com site, I noticed that the /site-map/ page does not seem to be available there (broken link). When I click on the Site Map link (http://www.panamacityhomesonline.com/site-map/) the site seems to hang, and the page takes a very long time to load. Can you look into that when you have a chance?

Thanks.

Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)