LPNext Build plan

Strategy

The new pages will be build using HTML5 and Apache/PHP with little or no CMS implementation at the start. If CMS capabilities are desired, we will add features using a streamlined product such as Perch or Expression Engine.

The server we use will be standard Apache with cPanel. We will configure it to use pretty URLs and set up subdomains for AMU and APU so that mapping existing URLS to the new ones will be as simple as possible and included content can be leveraged to reduce duplication.

Domain & Subdomain configuration

lpnext.com | www.lpnext.com
- amu.lpnext.com | www.amu.lpnext.com = AMU LP directory: ~/amu/
- apu.lpnext.com | www.apu.lpnext.com = APU LP directory: ~/apu/

(The actual domain “lpnext.com” is irrelevant – it could be anything.)

Directory structure

Our new landing pages have very specific filenames that act as degree level (aka programLevel) indicators which will be easy to isolate in analytics. The URL pathname consists of: programName/programLevel. The index page redirects to a generic page called Overview. The folder structure of the host will be like this:

_templates/
- templateName/
  - common header.php
  - common footer.php
  - common styles.css
  - AMU overrides.css
  - APU overrides.css
  - common template assets
/amu/
- degrees/
  - associate-of-applied-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-applied-science.php
  - associate-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-arts.php
  - associate-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-science.php
  - bachelor-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-arts.php
  - bachelor-of-business-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-business-administration.php
  - bachelor-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-science.php
  - graduate-certificate.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/graduate-certificate.php
  - index.php – a required redirect to home.php
  - master-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-arts.php
  - master-of-business-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-business-administration.php
  - master-of-education.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-education.php
  - master-of-public-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-administration.php
  - master-of-public-health.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-health.php
  - master-of-public-policy.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-policy.php
  - master-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-science.php
  - overview.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/overview.php
  - undergraduate-certificate.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/undergraduate-certificate.php
/apu/
- degrees/
  - associate-of-applied-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-applied-science.php
  - associate-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-arts.php
  - associate-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-science.php
  - bachelor-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-arts.php
  - bachelor-of-business-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-business-administration.php
  - bachelor-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-science.php
  - graduate-certificate.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/graduate-certificate.php
  - index.php – a required redirect to home.php
  - master-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-arts.php
  - master-of-business-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-business-administration.php
  - master-of-education.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-education.php
  - master-of-public-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-administration.php
  - master-of-public-health.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-health.php
  - master-of-public-policy.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-policy.php
  - master-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-science.php
  - overview.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/overview.php
  - undergraduate-certificate.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/undergraduate-certificate.php
/common/
- css/
  - common CSS files (i.e.: typography)
- images/
  - common images
- js/
  - common scripts
/core/
- _includes/
  - rfi.php
  - cta.php
  - applyNow.php
  - footerInfo.php
  - disclosure

degrees/
- _banner-amu.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/_banner-amu.php
- _banner-apu.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/_banner-apu.php
- _banner-apus.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/_banner-apus.php
- associate-of-applied-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-applied-science.php
- associate-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-arts.php
- associate-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/associate-of-science.php
- bachelor-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-arts.php
- bachelor-of-business-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-business-administration.php
- bachelor-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/bachelor-of-science.php
- graduate-certificate.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/graduate-certificate.php
- index.php – a required redirect to home.php
- master-of-arts.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-arts.php
- master-of-business-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-business-administration.php
- master-of-education.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-education.php
- master-of-public-administration.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-administration.php
- master-of-public-health.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-health.php
- master-of-public-policy.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-pf-public-policy.php
- master-of-science.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/master-of-science.php
- overview.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/overview.php
- undergraduate-certificate.php – content included from ~/common/degrees/undergraduate-certificate.php

We would try to use relative linking where possible so common assets will link to the appropriate resource.

DNS mapping

Our DNS (administered by IT) will be configured so that incoming requests to files and folders in certain domains will map to counterpart files and folders on our host. The effect will be transparent to the user who will not notice any change to URLs. Because the pages themselves are actually on the same host, we are able to leverage content and resources across subdomains. Our servers also have an additional subdomain of "www." that maps to the main branded subdomains.

Incoming URL	maps to	Our Host
amu.lpnext.com	}	amu.lpnext.com
start.amu.apus.edu*
www.apu.apus.edu/lp/
www.amu.apus.edu/lp2/

apu.lpnext.com	}	apu.lpnext.com
start.apu.apus.edu*
www.apu.apus.edu/lp/
www.apu.apus.edu/lp2/

Incoming URL	maps to	Our Host
amu.apuseducation.com	}	amu.apuseducation.com
amuonline.com*	}	amu.apuseducation.com

apu.apuseducation.com	}	apu.apuseducation.com
studyatapu.com*	}	apu.apuseducation.com

*Because we don't want users to ever leave the apus.edu domain, we had to set up hard-coded redirects in each index page to bounce them to the Overview page. We call this the "fail-over" domain. This requires us to set up a separate server for handling landing pages on amuonline.com and studyatapu.com. Those domain's must fail-over to a .com domain rather than apus.edu. They share the same content on a nearly identical server with the domain apuseducation.com. there are slight differences with the brand index pages and the server specific variables page but the rest of the content is synchronized with the main lpnext.com server and whenever content is added, deleted or edited, apuseducation.com is updated too.

Technical considerations

There may be extra work configuring he .htaccess file to handle RewriteRules for the array of REQUEST_URIs with & without "www" subdomains. We feel confident we can solve for this issue.
We expect that PHP include content will work across pages in subdomains since PHP runs server side and is relative to document root and all files are on the same host.
IT Assistence: We are confident that Help Desk can set up the DNS mapping to our server. We will set up 301s for all of the pages and switch our PPC campaigns. We don't anticipate needing additional assistance beyond this.
We have options for automated backup of files but we do not think full-featured versioning and file permission control is needed or desired at this time. Authors will have local versions of the full site which can be backed up by company-provided or other backup seervice.
Authors will have FTP access to the file system to update content. We may setup a common shared directory with a service such as Dropbox so that our local folders are synchronized, backed up and versioned independently of the website.
Site does not have built-in search but that could be added if required. Additionally, a separate search of the public web could be added.
We can and should provide customized 404 pages.
We have he ability to insert randomized content into pages at page load which might be useful for have slightly different banner images or other content.
Although we may have more than one CSS or JS attached to each page, we will seek sensible ways to compress or minimize and concatenate files to optimize downloads.
We can use text variables within the content to replace keywords with particular phrases such as $shortName = "AMU", $longName = "American Military University" so they can be replaced with the correct brand on the corresponding AMU/APU version of each page.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to use the canonical meta tag (although since this site is an intended PPC target rather than organic SEO, it may have no benefit).