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| Who: |
AllAboutRivers.com is the original online river guide for whitewater rafting and kayaking. It was created in 1999 to help whitewater enthusiasts plan trips and connect with other enthusiasts. |
| Desires: |
This site was originally designed by a web design company and was maintained for several years by Quicksilver's principal, Brad Goettemoeller. The site design was dated, the database structure was not solid, and it didn't get a great deal of traffic. We wanted a site with a new look and rich functionality and high traffic where we could sell advertising and sell products. Our goal was to create a valuable asset as well as a useful site to our website visitors. |
| Results: |
In 2004 we began a massive overhaul from the database up. We moved the site to a linux server and converted the database to MySQL. The site now has some cool features like:
Automated streamflow monitor
Online bookstore
Chatboard
Calendar of Events
Gear Review
Product Review
Business listings with click through and inquiry reporting
Because the site is completely database driven, it is easy to maintain it with a small staff. We have many automated features so everyone involved in the site can be informed.
AllAboutRivers now gets more than 300,000 visits per year. We've doubled the number of site visits each year since 2004. We've been able to do this by adding content and optimizing it for search engines. An integral part of this strategy is to rewrite the urls of each page generated by the database so they are search engine friendly. We also have many links pointing to our site. After 2+ years of work it is now an attractive and feature rich site that gets lots of traffic. |
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| Who: |
Etched In Stone is a small privately owned company that creates hand crafted stone art and glass etchings. Jack McGee is the owner and primary artist creating their works. They're artwork is created for clients across the country. These clients are found by a strong word of mouth network and by leads generated from the Etched In Stone website. |
| Desires: |
In November of 2005, we optimized the EIS site for natural search engine results. Based on the positive results from that, Jack wanted to completely overhaul the site. He planned to move away from making stone signs to making stone art. To drive this new business direction, he would need a much more attractive site. Of course he also wanted to continue to do well in search engines as well. |
| Our Diagnosis: |
We began this process in the spring of 2007. In addition to creating a new look and feel, we proposed to create editable content areas so that Jack could easily maintain the content on those parts of the site. The main area was a portfolio of artwork that he has created. By giving him the ability to manage these areas, he can post as many examples of his work as he likes. The more content there is, the more traffic his site will get. We also proposed to create a links area that he could manage so he can do link exchanges with his business partners and clients. |
| Results: |
We launched the new website with most of the features in August of 2007 and had everything complete by the beginning of October. Jack has been able to manipulate the photos in the portolio to be exactly the way he wants it. The new look and feel portrays a much more professional image as well.
The technical features of the site include:
Client editable online portfolio
Slideshow presentation on the homepage is generated by a special porfolio that the client can change when they wish
Client editable links application - used for link building efforts
Apache mod_rewrite for search engine friendly urls
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| Who: |
Gillroy's Hardware is a family owned business that was established in 1945. They now operate 24 stores that are located mostly in Michigan. Their stores are full service hardware stores which provide a full range of products staffed by experienced, knowledgeable sales persons, and serve as an alternative to the Big Box experience (Home Depot/Lowes). GillRoy's purchases primarily from Do-it Best Corp., a 2.8 billion dollar dealer owned cooperative, selling to 4,500 stores throughout the world. Do-it Best is the same size as the better known Ace Hardware Corp. Gillroy's is Do-it Best's #1 hardware account in the United States and they carry approximately 28,000 different SKU's in our stores.
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| Desires: |
In the fall of 2003, Gillroy's wanted to enter into a new partnership with Do It Best to establish a strong online presence in the hardware industry. In this partnership, Do It Best would supply their entire product catalog to Gillroy's to build a website around. Gillroy's approached us to build a world class website that would produce high sales volume. Because this partnership was still in beta form, they didn't supply any documentation or guidelines. We were given the data and we had to figure out the rest. Gillroys primary desire was that the site be easy to navigate and find products. |
| Results: |
We completed and launched the site in the spring of 2004. We built the site using a combination of ColdFusion, PHP, and JavaScript. The website sits on top of a large MySQL databse. Today sales have grown to $500,000 annually. We have redesigned the site once and gone through two data re-structurings.
The technical features of the site include:
Automated data loader built on a ColdFusion Custom Tag
Verity Keyword Search
Product Review Application
Apache mod_rewrite for search engine friendly urls
Use of subdomains for search engine optimization
Custom Meta-tags for each page of the site
More than 100,000 database driven pages on the site
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| Who: |
The Chaffee County Visitor's Bureau, located in central Colorado, is a sales tax funded organization responsible for promoting tourism in Chaffee County. Chaffee County is about 3 hours southwest of Denver and is home to the most 14,000 foot peaks in the country and the Arkansas River which is the most popular river for whitewater rafting in the country.
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| Desires: |
In the spring of 2004, the CCVB wanted to rebrand Chaffee County as 'Colorado's Headwaters of Adventure'. A part of this move was to redesign their website and launch a new domain, coloradoheadwaters.com. They wanted a high quality site that would put Chaffee County and the towns of Salida and Buena Vista on a level playing field with nearby Summit County which is home to the well known towns of Frisco, Dillon, and Breckenridge.
Paramount to having a quality site was an attractive look and feel with a lot of fresh content. The old site was static but had many pages so there was inconsistency in navigation from page to page. It was easy to get lost or led into a dead end. |
| Results: |
We completed and launched the site in the summer of 2004. We built the site in ColdFusion and JavaScript and it contains a complete content management system that stores the information in a MySQL database. By breaking the site down into logical categories and using smart navigation systems, the site is easy to use even though it contains a lot of content.
The technical features of the site include:
Complete content management system. The site is almost entire database driven and the content is managed by the local newspaper publisher.
Automated export and electonic delivery of leads for fulfillment
Calendar of events application
Business listings application
Custom meta-tags for each page of the site
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| Who: |
Wilderness Adventures was created in 1979 to offer unique adventures on a series of remarkable rivers in Northern California. They are a high quality outfitter providing some of the most challenging adventures in the world. |
| Desires: |
The client had a website but didn't get any business from it. This was due to the fact that it was incomplete and was not optimized for search engines. They knew that their competitors were getting alot of business from the internet and they wanted to do so as well. However, they didn't know where to start or who to trust. |
| Results: |
Since Wilderness Adventures runs rafting trips on quite a few rivers they required a fairly large website to describe all of their trips. We created a new look and feel that presented a professional image with navigation systems that would make it easy to get around the site. We tied this look and feel into their existing branding. We used their existing content where available. We used standard HTML and server side includes to make managing their navigations systems much easier.
We also included in the redesign, a search engine optimization package. As a result they have received business from their website and now have a strong online presence.
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