WhoshouldIsee Tracks

Homeflow website launch pack

Now that you've chosen a Homeflow website...

WELCOME TO HOMEFLOW!

The purpose of this document is to make the launch of your website as smooth as possible, and aims to explain:

  1. The process we’ll be following, and the likely timescales
  2. Who will be responsible for what during the launch process
  3. A checklist of the information we need to create your website. What we’ll use, and the material or decisions we’ll need to receive from you, or will need to discuss with you
  4. Any additional requirements that may arise, and how we will deal with them

We are here to help you with your website, so please don’t hesitate to ask us any questions at any time.

PROCESS AND TIMING

We aim to have your website live within 30 days. To achieve this, we need to receive responses to the questions in our launch checklist, as well as materials such as logos, images, text and property data, very promptly.  Sometimes we can launch sites even quicker than that, but to hit our target timescale we need to progress, as far as possible, as follows:

CHECKLIST

In order to prepare your website to be the best possible online representation of your agency, we need to ensure it accurately presents the details of your business and properly reflects your brand. As such, you need to go through this list to make sure we are using the right details in preparing the site.

1.     Agency basic information

We probably already have this information, but we will need to confirm:

  • Details for all your offices (name, address, email, phone)
  • Whether you offer sales, lettings, or both
  • Email details for enquiries at each office, if different from the main office email
  • Names of staff, with pictures and profiles if needed (see below, staff profiles)

2.     Logo

We will use the existing logo on your current website. If we need to use a different logo, please provide it to us as a PNG or JPG file: the required dimensions may vary, and we will let you know the size range we require for your chosen design in our introductory launch conversation.

We are not able to design or change logos, so please be sure to provide us with the best version you have available.

3.     Colours

Most designs are driven off a primary and secondary colour. We will use the two main colours from your existing website, or the two main colours from your logo. If you’d like us to use different colours, please specify the hex values for the colours you wish to use. We can help you to identify the hex values of a new colour if required.

4.     Pages

(a)   Standard pages

A number of the standard pages on the website either require details specific to your agency, or can be made to work much more effectively for you if you provide specific information. The following table outlines what we need for these standard pages.

Page Information or material required Decisions required
Home page Depending on design chosen (we will explain which of these you need to provide):

  • Welcome text
  • Images and promo text
  • Banner images
  • Boxes – images and links
Terms and cookies pages We will provide standard text for these pages, you can edit them if you wish
Lettings fees page We need your lettings fee details, to publish them beside rental properties to comply with the CAP guidelines of November 2013 Would you like the lettings fees to appear as a pop-up or as a new page?
Branch details pages Photos of each branch, and descriptions of each branch, help make these pages more attractive, and increase the chances of website visitors contacting the branch Would you like to link to this page from the navigation bar?
Staff details / profiles Photos of the relevant staff members, and a short biography, help make the site personal and encourage website visitors to make contact. If you provide details for four staff, we will create those profiles for you. After that, we’ll show you exactly how to add any more.
Team Would you like to link to this page from the navigation bar?
Request valuation Would you like to link to this page from the navigation bar?
Contact us Would you like to link to this page from the navigation bar?

(b)   Non-standard pages

You can have as many other content pages as you wish – and you can edit them, remove them, or add others at any time from the admin side of your website. Typical pages that you may like to create may include pages for vendors / landlords, buyers, tenants, local information, news articles, company history or testimonials.

For every page you want to create, you need to have text, images (if required), and you need to know where you would like that page to be linked from (so that users can find it). We will help you create up to three pages, and then we will show you how to create any further pages, and how to edit them.

5.     Property data

We may well have your property data already, but if not then we’ll need to know whether you will be typing your data in to our system manually, or whether we’ll be receiving a feed from your agency software. If we receive a feed, we’ll just need to know what software you use and we’ll take it from there. Most software providers do not charge for the feed, but they will let you know if there’s a fee involved.

6.     Navigation

We need to know what you want in the navigation bar of your website. We are able to create both a primary navigation (the main headers that appear in the navigation bar), and, in most of our designs, a secondary navigation (the drop-down options that appear underneath the primary navigation headers). Typical primary navigation headers would include Home, Sales, Lettings, About Us, and Contact Us.

We can explain further, or help by suggesting navigation items if required.

7.    Website footer

When we have our initial launch discussion with you at the very beginning of the launch process, we will show you the options for how we can lay out the footer of your website. When you choose which layout you prefer, this will be the footer that appears on every page of your website.

8.     SEO page titles

It is very important that Google finds your website and that it indexes it and describes it appropriately. We need you to provide a title for your website, ideally in fewer than 70 characters, which best describes your business – this is the description that will appear in Google search results, as well as in the browser header when someone is visiting your website. For example, this may be something like “Smiths of Oxford, leading estate and letting agents”.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS AND HOW WE DEAL WITH THEM

It may well be that you need extra support in preparing your website, beyond what is envisaged in our launch process as described here. For example, you may want help with the creation of additional non-standard pages, or with the stocking of your site with staff profiles; it may also be that you want to have more review iterations before going live, beyond the review envisaged by our process.

We are always here to help, and can accommodate these requests, though in most cases we will need to make an additional charge. In most cases, we will charge for the additional time spent when called on to do work beyond the agreed launch process: we will always be clear about the charge and how it is to be calculated before embarking on the work.

If you wish to change how your chosen design works, or if you wish to have additional functionality developed for your website, we will quote for that customisation work on a case by case basis.

We really look forward to working with you.

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