Information For Building A Site
How to Build a Smartsite
Site Build Checklist
NESTHUB ACCOUNT CONFIGURATION
- Create account (if needed)
- Create Site
- Create Blog and Authors
- Import Blog Posts
- Set Up Listings
- Test listings to ensure all the buttons are showing properly, and the functionality is working. Test the property page as well to ensure functionality is there and expected Application, Showing Provider, etc. is showing.
- Add user to NestHub account to post blogs & view forms post launch
- Add temp URL to Monday
WEBSITE FORMS
- Replicate or Create New Forms, if needed
- Set Correct Temp Success URL for services form: /success
- Set correct email address for forms including adding any additional emails or LeadSimple connections
- Test forms
- Delete any unused forms
- ***IF THE CLIENT IS A MARKET LEADER, please make sure that the PM services form as well as the Owner Resources form is set to a form swap. Also ensure there is a form within the blog page on the right-hand side bar.
BUILD CHECKLIST
- Check if we have domain access. If so, please check to make sure the DNS records are able to be seen in the account, otherwise we need the client to provide access or provide a copy of the records.
- If we don’t have access or cannot see DNS records, we need to notify the client right away so we can give them enough time to get us that info.
- Ensure the content worksheet is locked so the client can no longer make updates until review
- Add logo -- optimize and resize no wider than 350px
- Make sure to set "full" template as the default by right clicking and choosing "Make Default"
- Add Favicon -- both favicon.png and favicon.ico
- Update ALL Snippets
- Update robots.txt file
- Include the full URL with https and www in the domain to the sitemap line
- Update file names with market-1 (market-property-management & market-homes-for-rent)
- Go through page by page for content
- Delete any pages that aren't being used
- Add colors to match the client's brand and ensure everything is ADA Compliant
- Add images if they gave any
- If doing a Smartsite, update home banner image
- Optimize and resize to 2000px for desktops & create a small one for mobile. Ensure file is a webp
- Add social-sharing.jpg image & check open graph is working
- Optimize and resize to be 1200px x 628px
- Ensure there is an image on the home page somewhere that says city-name-property-managers.webp and has an alt tag of “City Name Property Managers” or a variation of this like property-managers-cityname.webp and so on. This should be the case on the home page and PM Services pages.
- If they don’t do residential property management, then make the keyword relevant to what their primary service is.
- Make sure logo is repsonsive for screen sizes and scroll (affix header)
- Check site on mobile device(s)
- Add advanced features, if needed
- Make sure to leave notes to add the client as a user when launching – don’t give clients access pre-launch unless they specifically request it.
- For LiveChat, let Mikayla know when you are launching the site so the Credit Card can be added then.
- Test all Advanced Features to make sure they are working:
- ***Please see individual pages for Advanced Features for more detailed setup notes
- Test AMP to ensure it's working properly
- Test the CallRail number by calling it to ensure it's tracking properly in the backend of the sitemap. Make sure call tracking number is swapping properly and was set up with numbers only and no special characters. I dial using *67 before the client's number so they don't have our phone number :)
- Ensure Grade.us is set up properly and is linking to the correct review site when using the funnel
- Ensure LiveChat is lazyloading properly
- Test any calculators set up to ensure they are working correctly
- Once complete add site to Pastel for Review https://usepastel.com/dashboard and add to Build Review in Monday
- If anything is missing due to client content make notes in Pastel & Monday
- If we are migrating the site, please copy over all tracking information from the old site to the new site.
- Make sure every page has a title tag and meta description. Make sure there are no exact duplicates.
- Image Guidelines:
- Ensure all images used are webp (the only exception is for the AMP logo, that one should always be png or jpg)
- Any background images that are full width should be a max of 1920px wide
- Logos should be a max of 350px wide
- About Us page images max of 400px wide (give or take depending on the design)
- Blog images should be a max of 1000px wide
ADDITIONAL BUILD CHECKLIST FOR CUSTOMS
- Ensure you are creating everything according to the Figma canvas at 1920px wide. Font sizes should be the same, all spacing should be exact. As the screen gets smaller, please ensure everything is responsive.
- Check/add template animations
- Run CSS through Auto Prefixer for better compatibility https://autoprefixer.github.io/
BEFORE SENDING FOR REVIEW
- Use chrome extension to check if any links are broken (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/check-my-links/ojkcdipcgfaekbeaelaapakgnjflfglf?hl=en) this again will only check if a link goes nowhere on the site.
- Make sure tenant/owner/app logins work and go to the correct login pages
- Check Wave on every page for ADA compliance
- Make sure site looks good and functions properly on Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge
- Check responsiveness for all screen sizes starting at 1920px and going all the way down to mobile. Also check for large screens 1920px and greater to ensure it looks good on all.
- Redirects
- If the original source url ends in / when you upload drop that as our system automatically drops it so the redirect actually doesnt work. If you leave the ending / in there, please setup a second one without it. Screamimg frog will pull the list
of urls with the ending / so its a manual update on each row or doing double the redirects.
- Delete unused forms
- Make /index the start page, if not already
- Use PageSpeed Insights or Chrome Lighthouse to check page speed to ensure everything is up to our standards
- Make sure you are testing open graph on blogs & properties to make sure they are populating the correct image & open graph