Existing website needs updating

We want to update our website and we are interested in receiving bids from providers who have a good eye for modern design and navigation. Our website is very similar to Getafreelancer in principle however; we don’t deal with tech issues but it is a reverse auction site. We will want to see websites that you have created prior to this request as well so please provide us with a list of websites you are responsible for and please also let us know exactly what you did for each referenced website. If these clients happen to be US based, all the better. We are only interested in working with someone who is creative who can look at a situation and come up with either a solution or some interesting options to incorporate. We don’t want to do the thinking, we want you to. We will definitely communicate our ideas and will work along side you however. We want a highly experienced individual to look at our site and give us some ideas on how to improve it. Having a user friendly site is extremely important to us. We also want to work only with an individual who follows through in a timely manner and keeps us informed of progress regularly. If we email you with a question or comment, we want a response in a timely manner – we are quite firm on that point. You must be able to handle our workload. If you already have quite a few projects you are working on, do not bid on our project. Also, we expect you to test your work before applying it to the site. We will be happy to assist you if necessary but all work must be cleared before it is applied. You must have experience in and be capable of the following: • Proficient in Object Oriented PHP+MySQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript to handle the main site code (all of the mentioned are mandatory) • Experience with payment gateways (not only on principle, but also to be able to follow up on and clear any issues) • Experience with XML for the configurations and with PHP loading data from XML files • Experience with shell and PHP scripts started from crontab for the maintenance operations • Medium level Linux administrator experience to be able to fix small issues on the server and to administer main issues like maintaining crontabs, databases, etc. when needed. We’ll need a duplicate of our site created as a test site and all updates should be performed there before uploading to the real site. Some of the changes/updates we have in mind are: • Incorporating a mail client into the back end. In summary, we want to be able to set up several different form emails One message is created for each, we click on who the email should go to and the system incorporates all the correct usernames, id’s, and links. If there is an existing software that we can merge into our back end that will accomplish this and more then we are open to that option as well as long as it’s not open source. • We need email confirmation implemented following sign up. • We would like to completely re-do our home (index) page to make it more efficient and informative. We want it to be quick, easy to read, and inviting at the same time. • We want to completely re-do member profile capabilities for a more polished look. We would also like to incorporate graphic stars for our rating system. • Some font resizing and editing throughout the site. • Make some minor changes to posting (add a mandatory form, budget option) and specialist sign up pages. Also incorporate a “where they found us” option that links to the admin. • For project descriptions, bidding, and profiles, we would like to have HTML capabilities for our users. Something basic including font size, color, bold, italic, a few fonts to select from and bullets. • A lot of our users ask a lot of questions about our process. We have the few easy steps clearly written in a number of places however, they seem to continually get missed. We need to come up with an easier way to get this information to them. Perhaps each time they finish a step, a pop up comes up to let them know what to do next. This is undecided and we are depending on the experience of who we work with to come up with some creative ideas that will have an impact. • We want to add more functionality to the admin. Right now it’s fairly basic so we want to hear some ideas on how to make it work better for us. • Right now the site is too wide (pixels). A lot of users have to use their horizontal scroll just a little to see each page. If we could easily bring it to a more screen friendly size that would be great. If this is very complicated however, we may skip it. • There are also a few other small things to be done that might be about a half day to a full days work depending on how fast you work. These small items were not covered on this list. • Lastly, once we are through with this work, we would like to be able to continue our relationship if both parties are happy working with each other. We would also need to be able to depend on you in case of a website emergency. This is of the utmost importance. If you cannot quickly deal with website emergencies then do not bid on this project. We can work this out later. Finally, please only bid on this project if you have the time to get to it right away and if you fit the description of the programmer we are looking for. If you would like to know the website URL in order to get a better idea of things, please contact me. Thank You.