Some Help making site fully functional - user accounts, user submitted content, etc

[timothyi34297763]

Here is the new site I am working with https://test.1ink.us/index.html . It is a real estate investing site.

I am very happy with it, but it is not entirely functional:

It has a lot of cool front end features that are not functional, including:

• User Accounts Registration and Login. There are user login details on the top bar of each page. Ideally, I'd like people to be able to add properties into there account to follow and track the property deals we complete together. If they buy a house from me, I'd like this house to go into their 'portfolio'. Would something like this work, is there another way?
• Blog (Information) section has a keyword tag entry that I'd like to set up to be functional, in addition to set up user comments (I plan to use the facebook plug)
• How do I set up the List and Add Properties functions by users so they can submit there own property (that is really cool). User submitted content.

I asked the template designer who made the site but he can't help with this 'back-end' stuff. Would appreciate a little guidance here. Cheers

[pziecina]

Congratulations, you have just done the equivalent of buying an empty body shell of a car/auto.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I hope it does get the point across. What you are asking now is how to build the engine and all the other items required to make that body shell into a fully functioning motor vehicle. Doing what you ask will require a very good knowledge of server side code and databases, with html, css and javascript thrown in for the back-end functions.

Trying to teach you what you need to know will require 100's of hours, and is not a 'use this and this' answer. I would suggest that you first look at what server side code and database your hosting provider supports, then find a developer who can work with those, to produce what you require.

Word of warning though, it will nor be cheap and expect to spend 1000's for a good developer to do this.

[osgood_]

pziecina  wrote

Congratulations, you have just done the equivalent of buying an empty body shell of a car/auto.

One point in its favour is at least the template developer has only use the Bootstrap grid ,not the crappy coded Bootstrap components, like the navbar.

[pziecina]

The main problem for me though, is that the OP has now tied the front end developer/designer into working with the person who will develop the back end, as the UI for the back end and the none server side functionality should match the front end.

Yet another example of thinking web design/development is easy.

[timothyi34297763]

My server, startlogic, use MySQL.

MySQL is an open source relational database management system that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database.

Current MySQL Version: 5.6.32

How there is bootstrap, I am asking for same with the backend systems -- already pre-assembled systems in place etc. Do entirely new systems need to be designed from scratch for every single site?

Sitelock from vibralogix seems to be just this. There are probably more user-account registration systems out there too. My point is, I don't want to code this systems myself, or hire someone to design a custom system, just scrape by and manage whatever  pre-assembled system.

Web design is easy, it just takes time to learn. I need an option that won't take 100s of hours or cost thousands of dollars!

A lot of times I am wary taking advice from these forums since mostly developers reply with the mindset of developers and not casual users. Developers know how to make from scratch, users spend time learning all the other options. I need viable options.

Naive, probably, apologies.

So, take sitelok for example, it is a user registration management system (with hundreds of additional plugins to use inside of it). Any advice on such programs/systems? They don't cost 1000's of dollars. Is this too, just a front end system and I still need to hire someone else to customize it for my site?

[timothyi34297763]

Reply from Vibralogix, creator of sitelock - (synopsis - sitlock can serve as starting point, needing further back end program customization)

Apologies pziecina, another case of thinking it will be easy.

For login and registration you just need to create the forms in Sitelok and add them to pages on your site which can be linked form the menu.

For tracking properties I am not really sure how to do that. How many properties will there be? Perhaps you could assign a usergroup to each property and then on a tracking page have a section for each property. The user would only see the section for the usergroups they belong to.

Not really sure about the blog. The Facebook plugin is really just for sharing a login with Facebook. Perhaps Disqus could be used for commenting?

Users can register in Sitelok so in theory you could just use a registration form for the property details if everything can be stored in the 50 custom fields. A user can only register one property per account though. If you need anything more complex you would need to setup a separate backend for that though.

Its potentially quite a complex project. Sitelok can certainly be the basis for it but to control access but it may need further development.

Will likely hold off on registration system and user submitted content, for now.

[pziecina]

I posted my previous reply whilst you wrote yours.

It may be worth looking into a custom back-end solution for real-estate agents selling properties. I know a few exist as I can remember Nancy posting about them some time ago.

Nancy OShea​

can you help with the link to the real-estate solution?

[pziecina]

timothyi34297763  wrote

My server, startlogic, use MySQL.

MySQL is an open source relational database management system that uses Structured Query Language (SQL), the most popular language for adding, accessing, and processing data in a database.

Current MySQL Version: 5.6.32

How there is bootstrap, I am asking for same with the backend systems -- already pre-assembled systems in place etc. Do entirely new systems need to be designed from scratch for every single site?

Sitelock from vibralogix seems to be just this. There are probably more user-account registration systems out there too. My point is, I don't want to code this systems myself, or hire someone to design a custom system, just scrape by and manage whatever  pre-assembled system.

Web design is easy, it just takes time to learn. I need an option that won't take 100s of hours or cost thousands of dollars!

A lot of times I am wary taking advice from these forums since mostly developers reply with the mindset of developers and not casual users. Developers know how to make from scratch, users spend time learning all the other options. I need viable options.

Naive, probably, apologies.

So, take sitelok for example, it is a user registration management system (with hundreds of additional plugins to use inside of it). Any advice on such programs/systems? They don't cost 1000's of dollars. Is this too, just a front end system and I still need to hire someone else to customize it for my site?

Sorry I wasted my time answering, and your time replying.

Sitelok is a website security managment tool, and what it offers any good developer would include anyway.

But to answer your question, yes, you will still require someone to customize the back end. If you look at the Sitelok products and read the blog, you will see that it still requires a back end system to be in place, for which they often refer to joomla and Drupal which are both php/mysql based cms's.

As for this forum being developer based, yes it is, but only to a limited extent. Many of its users are front-end designers, but even they will tell you that what you are asking is not as simple as you think it is.

[timothyi34297763]

Thanks pziecina. This has been worthwhile.

Though in my defense, having a problem, asking a question, seeking the easiest way, is natural.

If answer is actually complex, go easy on the one asking the question, they don't know what they don't know. Presuming they are assuming it is easy and actually mentioning that is probably counter productive.

All the best,

[pziecina]

Thank you for your reply.

The sad fact about back-end development, is that it requires much more thought and work than any front-end that one will ever see or use. It is o/k to build a simple site using a cms such as wordpress or drupal, but once you invite users to use the back-end, things get much more complexed than anything provided by the basic cms system and any plug-ins one may use.

For one thing, everything in the user experiance of both the back and front-end must match. The design and usability must be consistent and feel professional throught the entire experiance. At one time it was enough to just make the back-end functional, but now that is not good enough.

Site users are expecting more and more from websites both front and back-end, and any site not offering what users expect cannot compete. This also means that web designers/developers who cannot offer what users expect,  will also fail.

[Nancy OShea]

Hire a back-end developer.  This will require advanced coding skills with PHP, MySQL and JavaScript. 

The trouble with purchased templates such as this is that they don't DO anything.   They just look nice. 

[timothyi34297763]

I will likely do that at some point in the future, after a few higher priority tasks are taken care of.

Meanwhile, unrelated, what are your guys thoughts on url name length.

house-finders-program-on-distressed-houses-or-situations-hamblen-county

Is the above needlessly too long, not worth a marginal seo boosts, or possibly worth a shot? If the benefit is small, I might rather choose an easier to remember url.

[Nancy OShea]

The URL needs to be short & sweet - 2 or 3 words.   Cash-4-homes.com might work if it's not taken. There's no law that says you can't have more than one URL.  Just be sure to make one URL canonical. 

https://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-create-an-seo-friendly-url-structure--webdesign-9569

[timothyi34297763]

Thanks Nancy. I enjoyed and learned a bit from that article.

My domain name will be something like ivoryrealtysolutions.com, or ivoryestate.com, I'm wondering if these are better because they are easier to type, though harder to read, unlike like ivory-realty-solutions.com, which seems clearer.

Most of the page names have much longer titles like:

house-finders-program-on-distressed-houses-or-situations-hamblen-county

so the full url would be ivoryestate.com/house-finders-program-on-distressed-houses-or-situations-hamblen-county.html

My question was if it is okay to have this page name long with lots of keywords. For domain names, keywords don't seem necessary, but what about the page names?

[Nancy OShea]

Pages can be whatever you want.  

[osgood_]

timothyi34297763  wrote

Most of the page names have much longer titles like:

house-finders-program-on-distressed-houses-or-situations-hamblen-county

so the full url would be ivoryestate.com/house-finders-program-on-distressed-houses-or-situations-hamblen-county.h tml

My question was if it is okay to have this page name long with lots of keywords. For domain names, keywords don't seem necessary, but what about the page names?

I'm told by a digital SEO company that I'm currently working with that a page name which is as long as that would not be favoured by Google. When it comes to SEO how long is a piece of string, ask 10 developers and you'll get 10 different answers.

[Nancy OShea]

According to Google, you should keep the URL under 2,000 characters.  No, I did not make this up.

Google Groups

[osgood_]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

According to Google, you should keep the URL under 2,000 characters.  No, I did not make this up.

Google Groups

lol that's really extreme, I've always suspected Google pushes BS and that's proved it. They will usually tell you something and then proceed to do the exact opposite where one of their own pages are concerned.