Web Design and Development - Property Advertising Website + Ecommerce

The Client : A German client wanted to have a Property Advertising Web Site where property owners can advertise a wide selection of privately-owned holiday properties covering popular destinations worldwide. Unlike estate agents and travel agents, this Property Advertising Website would  put consumers directly in touch with the property owners thus cutting out the added cost and inconvenience of a middle man. 

Targeted Market : Client wanted a middle class 'look and feel' without any flash and multimedia as his targeted market is the Middle Class Home owners who can advertise properties on his site by availing Cheap Subscription Packages. 

The Property Rental website has been designed with Multi-Level Administration and provision to restore properties removed by webmasters so that a future call center can be engaged to manage the portal. The call center manager can be the super administrator who can create webmasters at various security levels.

The Challenge : Client wanted to fill a space in a fragmented market place by setting new standards of quality and service. They aim to be the number one choice for holiday villas and holiday homes to rent. In essence a ‘one stop shop’ for both holiday makers and holiday home owners. To accomplish this they needed to drive huge volumes of traffic to the website, via both online and offline initiatives. One of the key requirements to achieve this is to consistently rank highly in all the major Internet search engines. The website also needs to encourage repeat business usage and referrals. The website needed to be very user friendly and accessible as it will be catering for the needs of holiday makers and holiday home owners from around the world. The users accessing the website will have varying degrees of computer and Internet literacy and they will be using various different operating systems and browsers.

Solution : Our Web Development Company took to the task by creating an identity for the Property Listing Site. This included the creation of a new logo followed by the design of a clean, logical and easy to use homepage and design template for the new website. To help with usability our web designers created the website following the simple three click rule. This meant that wherever possible all the properties displayed on the website should be reachable within three clicks of the mouse. To aid this, the new layout was specifically designed to allow users to start the search for a property directly from the homepage.

Technology : The website was built in Microsoft Technologies - Active Server Pages, XML, Visual C++ and MS SQL Server 2000. Most queries are in stored procedures. Triggers have been used to send email to inactive users and then remove their records. The choice of technology helped to ensure a feature filled, yet easy to use website for holiday makers and property advertisers alike, as well as optimizing the website for speed, compatibility and ease of use.

Private Members Area : Easy to use Forms allow property owners to easily add and edit their properties. Private Login features for property owners, the website make it possible advertise and promote holiday homes. With search options that make it easier for the visitors to narrow down on a selected holiday spot. The system enables property owners with differing levels of technical ability to self manage their adverts with little or no input required from the administrator. As part of the Member Administration system, we developed an image upload facility to allow users to upload their property pictures to the website, in any format, size or quality. The system then automatically resizes and formats these pictures before displaying the fully optimized images on the property owner’s individual web page. Provision to batch upload images is also provided. The advanced search facility on the Property Listing website allows the processing of thousands of database entries within a fraction of a second, thus enabling users to perform complex searches based upon multiple criteria such as available date ranges, specific facilities, activities and locations The website will also enable online bookings in the near future.

Client Feedback: "From the outset, it was clear that Objective would bring to the project tremendous depth of experience in our marketplace. This and their willingness to take an iterative approach to development singled out Objective from the crowd."

He continues: "The result is a system that is both simple to use and sophisticated in its scope and capabilities. By refining successive prototypes based on user feedback, we have come closer to our users’ requirements than would have been possible with an ordinary project – or an ordinary supplier."