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Always trying to improve our
service
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Events that happened in 2009
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Western
Algarve Region. We are happy to welcome Tania to the Team, she
will be looking after the Western Algarve area and will over the next few
weeks be updating the properties.
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New Fresh
Look for 2009. Well after 6 years we decided to change the look of our
main banner to what we think is a fresher appearance. We cant change too
much, or the major search engines will penalise us, which may throw us back
down the rankings. So a subtle change which we hope you like.
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Credit Crunch
Hits Europe Hard. Well its what everyone is talking about, and Portugal
is no exception, But home owners are realising that the Euro/Sterling
exchange rate has effected their property values and some have started to
decrease their asking prices. We have a list of these properties on a
separate search page which can be linked to
HERE. Buyers and investors should also be aware that there are
bargains to be had and as a long term investment now is good time to buy.
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Events that happened in 2008
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Live Sterling
amounts shown alongside Euro Prices. Due to concerns over the Euro we
have added a live exchange rate conversion on each of listings main page.
The Euro value will be displayed as usual but the equivalent Sterling value
based on that days exchange rate will also be shown. We hope this will give
a quick indication as to its current Sterling purchase price.
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New Listings
added to main search database. After keeping a careful look at the major
search engines over the last 2 months we have decided to move our static
"New Listings" page onto the database search feature. Google and Yahoo did
not seem to penalise us when we added the new search feature, but we had to
be certain that the search positioning would not suffer due to the removal
of any static pages. Each property will still have its own Static page as
well as each of the major towns. These pages are very helpful in keeping ATP
high in the rankings on the major search engines. ATP will not become a
fully database driven website mainly because of its strong presence at the
top of most search engines. It is these main static pages that give us the
edge over our competition.
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New Search
Added. After much time and data entry we have added a slightly better
search facility to help clients fine tune their property requirements. This
is still a work in progress but we will try and complete this new feature
soon.
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New Search
improvements. We are slowly adding our database of properties to a new
search facility. We have realised that due to the high number of properties
we needed to make it easier to arrange the listings is a way that enabled
the visiting clients to easily see all there suitable properties. At this
time only a limited number of properties have been added but we are adding
every day and hope to see the full property portfolio online soon.
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Sales
Position Western Algarve.
We are happy to announce that ATP have found 2 new members to join and run
the Western Algarve region. David & John will be sharing the area and
working together to bring the West in line with the other areas covered.
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Events that happened in 2007
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New Listings
Changed. Due to the high volume of listings coming onto our books, we have
felt it necessary to segregate each areas "New Listings" by providing each area
with a dedicated page. This should help show more new properties for each of the
three areas served.
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Western Algarve
needs a new face.
We were sad to hear that Allen was going to move back to Scotland and could no
longer work for us, so we need to find a new person to fill the position. We did
have the position filled but regrettably this didn't quite work out. ATP will
now be actively trying to full fill this position ASAP, until then The central office will
deal with all enquiries that come to our attention. We are sorry for this
inconvenience.
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Floods in the UK
bring down our server. On Monday the 23rd July severe weather conditions
that spread across the UK managed to cause our dedicated server to fail. The
hosting companies help line was also effected by the local telephone exchanges
lines failing in the Gloucester area. On Tuesday morning the server was brought
back up online, BUT the technical service support team failed to re start
certain services that allowed internet access by our clients. I was able to re
start these myself at midday. I am very sorry for any inconvenience this may
have caused. This is the first time in 5 years ATP has been offline for any
length of time and we will try to take further steps to prevent anything like
this ever happening again. Thank you for your support.
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Prestigious
Property Website created. ATP has decided to actively promote the selling of
high end properties, and has developed a dedicated website for this type of
client. This will help visiting clients with a higher budget an easier format
and exclusive website to use and hopefully locate their ideal property.
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Cyprus Team
Properties closes. Unfortunately due to a slow
start CTP has decided to close. The companies website was slow to get noticed by
the search engines (something very hard to achieve in less than 9 months these
days) and as CTP adopted the same company policy as ATP it was decided that we
should close. One good thing has come from this though, Donna who was running
the company over there has now joined us to head up the Eastern area. Having
lived in Portugal for over 5 years she will drop straight into the role and
provide a professional service to our clients.
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Easy Search
Added. We have added a simple easy search facility that allows clients to
easily choose there desired amount of bedrooms with a pool choice by a simple
one click option. The normal search facility has been retained for those of you
that still wish to have a more selectable search facility.
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Events that happened in 2006
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Western Algarve Re-Opens. We
are very pleased to announce that we have recruited an experienced member of
staff to head up the Western Algarve, and help us to start increase our property
portfolio in that area. Allen Hutcheon will be responsible for taking any
enquiries regarding that area and will be very happy to answer any questions
our clients may have. Allen has settled in very well and has increased our
property portfolio in this region and has started selling already. So well done
Allen and keep up the great work.
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New Email address in force
due to high spamming techniques being used on our large site. Over the last
year inbound spam emails have increased to a unacceptable amount so we have
instigated touch measures to combat this illegal intrusion. Over a period of
time we will be migrating our current email addresses to new accounts that have
a much higher protection level. The website has already enforced these new
accounts. Where possible we will try and let all our clients know our new
account details. As you can imaging we cant display the actual addresses on
this site anywhere. This is what causes so much spam. So we have instigated
anti spamming techniques in our website design, and hopefully over time will
eradicate these intrusions. As a visiting client you will see no change other
than being asked for a security number before your email client is opened.
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New Telephone Numbers. Due
to the move of our main office we have upgraded our phone system to allow more
calls to be taken by agents and help improve our service to our clients.
Therefore we have requested a bank of new numbers. The main number is on 4
lines so nobody should get an engaged signal. Also our Fax number has changed
to stay in the same number range. The 0871 number has also changed. The old
numbers will run side by side for a few weeks and be diverted at our expense
until the new numbers take over permanently.
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New Office in Albufeira. We
have just moved into our new office in Albufeira, Which will soon become our
Head Office after all the paperwork has transferred from our Loule Office with
IMOPPI and the local authorities. Situated on "The Strip" the new office will
serve as our main office and will be open to the public for meetings and
general office use. However as ATP are mainly an internet based company we will
not be advertising as a typical front line Real Estate agency. We will have on
display all the necessary documents licenses and paperwork needed to comply,
but will not be advertising properties in the window. We strongly believe that
doing business by the internet only, is the best way to serve our clients. Both buyer and seller.
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Search engine positions
improved again. After an upset with the way Google reported their search
results a few months ago, we have been able to get back on top of things and
have shifted back in the top 1-10 positions on various key phrases. We are
constantly trying to keep ahead of the optimisation game.
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New improved search
facility. We have now developed our own in house database driven search
facility, which will improve our clients ability to narrow down their property
search based on there own property criteria. We also have left the link to the
old search page just in case some find it confusing.
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New advanced contact manager
system. Not seen by the visiting clients. This in house designed database
application allows agents to keep on top of day to day tasks, such as
contacting clients on a specific day and have a record of all communications to
date handy as a reference. Once referred to as "A Tool" it soon became
apparent to us that this system used after 3 years and with over 5,000 clients
on file, has become the backbone of our success.
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New look for 2005/2006. we have added symbols to each of our
listings in both the full lists of properties as well as new listings, golf
and below100K pages. This helps browsers quickly see the most fundamental
information at a glance without having to read too much into the property
description. We hope this helps your navigation around our website.
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ATP is now hosted on a Dedicated Windows 2003 server
, we have gone to considerable expense and have
upgraded our service to offer our clients a fast and efficient website, and as
such have decided to place our massive site on a dedicated server, this means
that ATP website has full bandwidth available to our visitors, offering speed
and reliability.
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We are very pleased to announce
that ATP have strived to become a market leader in Internet Real Estate
solutions by concentrating on providing our clients with an up to date and
current web site that is updated daily. We also promise
never to place bogus properties at tempting prices to lure clients to make an
enquiry. Above all we can only rely on this website and recommendations by
previous clients to keep the business going. So for us this is paramount that
every visitor that makes contact with ATP will be treated with respect and
honesty.
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