Spanish Real Estate forum - Spanish property - Estate agentsSpanish Real Estate forum - Spanish property - Estate agents

ianpullen · 06-11-2008, 10:17 AM

I've just rebuilt our website at www.propertyinextremadura.com/index.php - we've had to change names and url, but we initially made the move using a rebranded version of our old site and used permanent redirects to maintain search engine rankings. We'll have since lost some of the page rankings as I've since changed the file structure, but users will land on custom 404 pages giving them access to site navigation and search features.

The change was rather forced on us and so a bit rushed, but in the current market place, I think it makes sense to try and do everything we can to make the business stand out and as I don't think there is a weak English language property site here in Extremadura, adding features that will make our site better for users seems the best way to achieve that.

The crux of this post is to try and get an idea of what other members think are must have features for a property sales site to have. I think we've made a good start with the following and hopefully they may give other members ideas for adding features to their sites.

The usual suspects include:

Simple Search
Advanced search with option to save search parameters - registered users can save up to 5 different searches
Full room details on all properties with measurements and all available images
Area info and galleries

To these I've added some more features that I hope will make the user experience more pleasant and searching for a suitable property easier.

Using Google Maps on property listings to show the town location
Local events calendar for festivals and events (www.propertyinextremadura.com/calendar.php) - links to Google Maps to show locations, though I've only added a few dates for development purposes
Quick Notes feature to allow users to make personal notes and personal ratings - not fully implemented yet
Quick contact box on all property details pages to make asking a question a simple one step process without needing to leave the page

The Quick Notes is only for registered users at this stage, but I wonder if it should be available to all users, so would welcome your thoughts? If anyone wants a look, you can log-in as 'testuser@testuser.com' with password 'testuser'.

Have you got any great ideas for what features would make sales websites better for the users? I'd be very interested to hear other members' thoughts on user friendly features.

Ian

NotWebDesign · 06-12-2008, 10:07 AM

I think you have produced a very good property web site.

We just finished Spanish Property - Over 10.000 Spanish Properties for Sale which has the same features, plus live chat and 2 languages. I know how big a job it is, and you did a great job.

Richie · 06-12-2008, 10:18 AM

Another quality website Soren, haven't heard from you for a little while - so that is what you have been up to!

Like your style as well Ian - nice design.

NotWebDesign · 06-12-2008, 10:54 AM

Yeah we have been super busy with that site and also Property Spain France Cyprus Italy for sale and rent villa apartment house is taking a lot of our time. We have also been working on several non-property based projects.

Seems like the forum is thriving though?

Smile · 06-12-2008, 11:58 AM

hi Ian.. wondered why i haven't seen you about. There just seems a lot of property websites and a lot of properties for sale. (But then again I'm not in the property business am I) But nice work

Homefinder · 06-12-2008, 03:22 PM

Hello Smile
I have not seen you about either. I notice that this is your first post. Why don't you use the "Introduce Section" so that we can all get to know you?
We are a friendly welcoming forum and would like to meet and get to know you.

You say that you live in Benitachell. Did you know that the SREF has a sub-forum all about the Moraira and Costa Blanca North area.
The Costa Blanca Forum is full of news and people from your area. You don't get a lot of estate agents there. They keep going to have a look but hardy ever post.

Homefinder

ianpullen · 06-16-2008, 06:34 PM

Thanks for your comments and apologies for my delayed reply - we've had friends staying from the UK, so I took a rare break away from the computers for a few days.

Soren, I like the work you've done on the Livingstone site and having had a look around, I think I need to consider adding additional options for users to order search results.

I did consider suggesting a live chat feature to this Property in Extremadura's owner, but he spends little time online so thought it could be counter-productive.

I think a dual or even multi lingual site makes a lot of sense, particularly now in a shrinking market, but while the site owner speaks Spanish fluently, he doesn't feel the potential Spanish market here warrants translating the site. However, when time allows, I'll write a script that will automatically query Google Translate for translated text when a new property is added to the database - it may not be used on this site, but I think I could find a couple of other uses for it.

To Smile, I don't spend much time here on the forum as the Property in Extremadura site is a friend's business and I only have a small interest in it in return for maintaining his web presence - much of my time is spent working on print jobs for UK clients. I promised myself, when we moved, that I wouldn't sell property, so this as much as I want to do - probably as well as demand for property in Extremadura is at much lower levels than the traditional areas of Andalucia, Valencia and Catalunya.

Before I sod off, hats off to you Richie - it's not easy to get community sites going, but you seem to be moving this forum in the right direction.

Homefinder · 06-16-2008, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianpullen

Before I sod off, hats off to you Richie - it's not easy to get community sites going, but you seem to be moving this forum in the right direction.

Ian - just one thing before you sod off! When you mentioned the community site did you mean the Costa Blanca Forum?
I think it's great as well 'cos that is where I live.
A wise decision for you not to sell property, there are probably far to many at it right now and it's going to be like that for a while.

Homefinder

Richie · 06-16-2008, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianpullen

Before I sod off, hats off to you Richie - it's not easy to get community sites going, but you seem to be moving this forum in the right direction.

Thanks Ian, I thought it was going to be easy when I started out but I was wrong

It's only been 15 months (seems longer!!!), it has been one long learning curve but it has been worth it even after all the hick ups along the way.

Thanks again

Homefinder · 06-16-2008, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Ian - just one thing before you sod off! When you mentioned the community site did you mean the Costa Blanca Forum?

Ulp! - Looks like I got that one wrong. Sorry Richie

Homefinder