Heideldesign

Mobile Website Design

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:44:55 -0500

Wise Words
As Ferris Bueller wisely pontificated: "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." The same could be said about business opportunities.

If you're not leveraging the mobile web, you're missing out on a huge opportunity for your business, brand and content. Consumers are rapidly increasing their reliance on smart phones, tablets and portable internet-enabled devices to get work done, make purchasing decisions and connect with their peers. Heideldesign empowers our clients by giving them tools to create content, manage communities and directly appeal to their users wherever they are.

Get a Mobile Website Using Your Current Tools
The mobile web isn't only a useful tool for content creators and managers; it is a daily reality for consumers. Creating smart phone optimized websites tailored for specific devices allows you to create a custom experience for your readers and users. Heideldesign develops the mobile interfaces and ties them to Movable Type or Wordpress, keeping a single point of data entry for site owners.

Get Your Own iPhone or Android App
You're not limited to mobile web sites. Heideldesign can also create iPhone and Android apps that are powered by your web site content. By having a presence in Apple's iTunes store or the Amazon or Google App Marketplaces, your business will be on the leading edge of mobile development and satisfy the craving of your customers for a custom experience.

Update Your Site from Anywhere
The dream of managing an internet empire on a remote beach is now a reality. As long as you have a mobile internet connection, you can keep your site updated with fresh content. You can answer site-submitted comments. You can push messages directly to your customers. And you can do it all with the same tool you use to manage your full website, Movable Type.

Movable Type's iPhone interface gives you a succinct set of tools for commonly-accessed tasks. It's just as easy as the full web interface; but optimized for smaller screens and mobile environments.

Client Examples

SAVANNAH MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Savannah Music Festival utilized a smart phone-optimized version of their Addy-award winning website during their 2010 and 2011 festivals. The optimized site gave quick, easy access to the daily calendars, artist bios and ticketing links. 2010 artists included Wilco and She & Him and 2011 artists included Band of Horses and The Avett Brothers.

2011 saw the music festival launch a dedicated iPhone app. Due to the high website traffic from smart phones, the festival saw the need to better engage those tech-savvy users. The SMF iPhone app included artist bios, a festival calendar, streaming audio, videos on the festival venues and a GPS-enabled map of venues that allowed users to easily find concert locations. Download the app for free in the iTunes app store.

KING COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY (SEATTLE)

The King County Public Library system in Seattle Washington wanted a mobile web interface for their popular book review blogs. Heideldesign extended their Movable Type-powered site to utilize mobile templates that look great on any modern smart phone. Best of all, the simple design scales across all of their individual library sites to create a cohesive, unified experience.

DADAESTHETIC: PARENT PRODUCT REVIEWS

DadAesthetic is a blog and mini-magazine featuring product reviews, craft and travel ideas for involved parents. Heideldesign crafted a mobile website and an iPhone app for the site, both of which are powered by Wordpress. With one click, content goes to their main website, the mobile website and is streamed directly to the iPhone app.

The iPhone app expands the web presence with exclusive content including a podcast and personalized video recommendations. There is even an "Ask a Dad" component that allows users to send in photographs and questions to be answered on the podcast. There are 15 separate content areas that allow the user to customize the interface to their most used sections. Download the app for free at iTunes.

CNATI: A SPORTS JOURNALISM MAGAZINE

For CNati, we built an iPhone application which delivers 16 separate channels of content to their users. Users can view stadium guides, filter their news by sports team, get the latest Twitter and Facebook status updates and more. The app has received over 5000 downloads.

To learn more about the mobile web and how you can position your business to innovate in this emerging field, Let's Talk.

Our Remedy for Health Care Sites

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:01:39 -0500

You make the waiting area comfortable. You hire front desk staff who are friendly and helpful. You provide educational materials. You create an atmosphere in your medical office that is welcoming, relaxing and cheerful.

But before a patient ever walks through your door, he or she may have already formed an opinion about your practice based on your website. Your site is your virtual front door, and quite often the place where first impressions are made. Are you making a good impression today?

Heideldesign has been working with physicians, large practices and medical organizations for many years, and we understand the unique needs of this specialized group. You need a site design that appeals to a wide range of users. Through use of color, quality photography and clean lines, we can help you achieve a design that is professional but not institutional.

The medical field is also rapidly evolving, and you need to position yourself as an expert in your area of specialty. If the information on your website grows stale, this could reflect negatively on your practice. That's why we are big fans of the content management system Movable Type. This virtual, web-based software allows you to log in and update your website instantly and easily. Having fresh content on your site shows patients that you're on top of your industry, and can improve your website ranking with search engines like Google.

Speaking of search engines...
In this competitive industry, it does you no good to have a beautiful site if no one can find it. We build our sites with the proper foundation for search engine success. We use the tools inside Movable Type to employ advanced search engine optimization techniques at a template, category and entry level.

At Heideldesign, we pride ourselves on building websites that are accessible to users with disabilities. We can also offer a process for secure form submission, ensuring your patients can submit forms online without violating HIPAA rules.

Client Examples

Savannah Plastic Surgery needed a website that could effectively organize large amounts of content, while integrating features such as videos and before-and-after photo galleries. The site was developed with search-engine-friendly "landing pages" for some of the most popular procedures, ensuring web users can easily locate desired content. Visit the Savannah Plastic Surgery website to see how all these pieces fit together in one pretty package.

Dr. Brad Durham needed sites for both his cosmetic dentistry practice and his seminar series. In this competitive field, the sites benefited from advanced search engine customizations. The content on his site is cross-referenced to assist users as they explore deeper into the material. Video embedding is also set up on all pages. Visit the site for his dental practice or his seminars to see these customizations in action.

View more of our health care projects:
The South Georgia Center for Cancer Care
Georgia Public Health Association
The Health Manufacturers Management Council

If you're ready to give your medical site a dose of powerful content management and effective design, then Let's Talk.

Rise of the Mommy Blogs

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:03:04 -0500

Cartoon from www.dscriber.com

Motherhood is a powerful, transformative experience, and one that has bonded moms together through shared joys and struggles for centuries. But you no longer have to schedule a playdate to dish with a girlfriend about Tommy's potty training troubles or where you found that great diaper bag or how on earth you're going to manage once your maternity leave is over. You just have to open your laptop.

What may have begun as a way to share photos of the kids and their stories with grandma has burgeoned into a mommy-blogging empire. While most moms still blog just for fun, some are now blogging for business.

What sets these two types of mommy-bloggers apart? Lots. First of all, you need to publish a large amount of unique content to get the kind of web traffic that attracts advertisers. That's why our mommy-blogging clients use the content management system Movable Type. This web-based, virtual software lets you log in and publish new content instantly, with very little learning curve. After all, what mom has time to learn a complicated web publishing system? THERE ARE DIAPERS TO CHANGE AND SCIENCE PROJECTS TO BUILD.

With Movable Type, you can easily add photos and videos to your posts (because your kids are the cutest, right?), and organize all that content into a simple, user-friendly structure. We can help you design a page with ample space for advertisements so you can begin monetizing your mommy blog.

You also need a site built properly for search engine optimization. There are a lot of mommy blogs out there, but using Movable Type's search engine tools can help your blog get noticed.

Client Examples

CoolMomPicks.com is a shopping blog by moms for moms. The two women who created the site have great ideas and advice, but as parents, free time is in short supply. So we developed a dynamic site that is still simple to manage. The site is powered by Movable Type, which handles the main blog, a comprehensive archive search feature, a shop, ads and more. Visit CoolMomPicks.com to see an example of a mommy blog that's all grown up.

Role Mommy is an online community dedicated to working moms, helping them find the balance between work and home life. The site's creator, Beth Feldman is a busy mom herself, raising two children and writing two books. Her site uses Movable Type to organize numerous categories, from a blog, to news and events and more. See how she uses Movable Type to achieve balance on her website at RoleMommy.com.

Solutions for Content-Rich Sites

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:56:36 -0500

Active community weblogs can easily produce 50 posts per day. The online arm of traditional print and magazine entities can publish more than 300 website entries per day. It doesn't take long for that content to get lost in a maze of archives and broken links. To keep from being a casualty of information overload, you need a plan that effectively covers content creation, organization and usability.

We're unabashed fans of Movable Type for content creators of all sizes. One of the chief reasons for our devotion is the software's ability to scale and manage tens of thousands of blog posts, comments and forum threads. Movable Type was originally built as blogging software; but it has matured into a product capable of managing articles, static pages, complex dynamic templates and assets like PDFs, images and video files.

Websites with thousands of pages can produce major headaches for site admins, authors, server technicians and, most importantly, your readers. Heideldesign provides the technical expertise, design and management skills to alleviate that stress by creating simple systems for managing your site content. We can make it not only easy to find; but also easy to leverage archive content to enhance new content.

Once you have your site pages, posts, assets and articles effectively categorized, tagged and separated at a system level, you can then customize how that content is received by your readers. You can create specific channels, or portals, tailored specifically to narrative themes, locations or specific user interests. Custom RSS feeds, integration with social media like Facebook and Twitter and mobile device access can all be easily achieved with the right content strategies.

Heideldesign believes in a create once, publish everywhere philosophy. Your authors and editors should only have to add one entry to your CMS one time. Submitting your content to aggregators and social networking sites then happens automatically behind the scenes. This frees up your staff to work on new content or bask in the glow of their newfound reach.

If you'd like to learn more about what Heideldesign can do for content-intensive websites like online newspapers, interactive magazines or community and group blogs, Let's Talk.

What is Social Networking?

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:24:43 -0500

Click on the arrow buttons in the bottom right hand corner of the presentation to navigate. Click the monitor icon to go full screen.

If you'd like more information about Social Networking, let us know. We can schedule a webinar, on-site consultation or create an action plan for your organization. Let's talk.

You can bookmark this presentation directly at Prezi.com

Straight Talk about SEO

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:05:11 -0500

Search Engine Optimization basically means building and maintaining a website in such a way that you get high rankings on Google, Yahoo, and all of the other search engines. SEO is vitally important to bringing customers to your site, and fortunately it's not difficult to achieve.

Here are our top 5 recommendations for improving your search engine rankings:

1. Be sure your website has a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS gives you the power to update your site regularly, ensuring fresh and relevant content. And you don't have to be a web programmer to use a good CMS. We recommend Movable Type for most sites. Heideldesign will be glad to install it and train you how to use this easy, web-based software.

2. Identify your target keywords, and create appropriate content. Think about what your customers may be typing in that search bar, and make sure you use those words on your site. This is where your CMS comes in handy, because you have the ability to add content and ensure keywords are used. A blog can be especially helpful as an addition to your site, because blog articles are an appropriate place to use keywords. For example, if your website sells baby gifts, a simple 200 - 300 word article about the hottest baby gifts of 2009 provides numerous opportunities to mention your keywords, while at the same time providing useful information to your visitors.

3. Links make you stronger. Links are another way search engines determine your ranking. When other websites link to yours, your site is perceived to be more important. So the more inbound links your site has, the better. Likewise, it can be helpful for you to link to other relevant (but non-competing) sites.

4. Clean code gives you more SEO opportunities. Website that are coded using clear, semantic, valid code give you, the content provider, more opportunities to let your message stand out. When website code is less cluttered, it's easier for search engines to read (and to maintain and upgrade).

5. Remember, your home page is the most important. This is true from SEO and user standpoints. Search engines look at your home page first to see what kind of content you provide, and this goes a long way toward determining your ranking for target keywords. Also, consider your home page as your virtual front door. It creates a first impression with users, so be sure you have enough information about who you are, what you offer, and why they should keep clicking around on your site.

If you're ready to improve your search engine results and want some assistance, we can help! Let's talk.

New Year's Resolutions for Your Website

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:05:49 -0500

1. Add new, relevant content. A stale website is about as inviting as stale bread. Adding fresh content not only gives users a reason to visit your site more frequently, but can increase your search engine rankings, too. If your site isn't easy to update, talk to us about installing a content management system like Movable Type. (More about Movable Type)

2. Blog. This can tie directly to resolution #1. A blog can be a great way to add fresh content to your site, and can also help you relate to your customers on a more personal level. Use a blog to share insight into a particular topic, react to news and show users you're connected. Blogs are often written in a more informal style, which can help you or your organization seem friendly and approachable. (More about blogs)

3. Reach out to your users. This year, consider sending an email newsletter. This is a simple way to position yourself as an expert in your field and stay in touch with your clients. Email newsletters are also far less expensive than most traditional marketing campaigns. (More about email newsletters)

4. Incorporate video and/or podcasts. Video can add energy to your website while highlighting your services. Your videos can be informational, demonstrate a product or showcase client testimonials. (More about video) Podcasting is the on-demand delivery of audio or video files from the internet onto the desktop or portable media player. It's easy for your users to sign up to receive the podcast, and they can view or listen to your message at their own convenience. It's targeted, requested advertising. (More about podcasts)

5. Be on the look out for expired content. Even worse than stale content, expired content includes information or links that are no longer relevant or no longer function. Resolve to comb through your site periodically to ensure your content hasn't expired. If you have a calendar or event listing, be vigilant about purging items once they've passed. Be sure to click links on your site from time to time to confirm the links still work and the external websites are still worth a look.

If you're ready to create or update your online presence this year, Heideldesign can help. Let's talk.

Adding an E-Newsletter to your Marketing Toolbox

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:46:41 -0500

Why an email newsletter?
An E-Newsletter can be an effective online marketing strategy because it gives you an opportunity to forge a direct link between your company and your customers. Quality information and advice helps customers see you as an expert and a valuable resource in your field.

You can also offer special incentives that not only get your customers to come back to you, but reward them for being loyal to your business. The E-Newsletter provides many opportunities to link back to your website, which increases your web traffic and reminds people they can count on your site as a resource.

If your website utilizes Movable Type, you can use the system to create your newsletter with the added benefit of an automatic on-site archive. This gives new users access to previous editions, enhances your website content offerings, and is another way to drive more traffic to your site.

And finally, E-Newsletters are less expensive than traditional newsletters because there's no paper, printing or mailing involved.

What should be in my E-Newsletter?
Your E-Newsletter must be interesting and provide value to the customer, otherwise, it's not much better than spam. Don't just try to sell things through the E-Newsletter, because you may come across as too pushy. Instead, offer tips, advice and other insight into your field of expertise.

However, a few key discounts or special offers are a great way to entice customers to not only patronize your business, but stay on your mailing list too. Creative, personal writing is another big plus. Let your business' personality shine through, and your customers are likely to respond.

How will I know if my E-Newsletter is successful?
One of the keys to a successful email newsletter is having lots of subscribers. Enforce with your staff how important it is to get an email address whenever they have contact with a customer. Add a "register for our newsletter" form on your website as well. You may have a fantastic newsletter, but if no one is signed up, then you're wasting your time.

Once you have an acceptable number of subscribers, we recommend sending the newsletter through one of several campaign monitoring websites which can provide excellent feedback and reports. These reports can instantly show you everything from how many people opened the newsletter and when, to which links they clicked on most.

Let's Talk
Ready to find out if an E-Newsletter can benefit your business? At Heideldesign, we can walk you through the entire process, from developing your E-Newsletter's look and feel, to adding content, and then monitoring the campaign's success. Contact us today for a consultation.

Movable Type 4.2 Released

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:41:57 -0500

It Takes a Village to Raise a Website

Video Courtesy MovableType.com

The biggest update in 4.2 is Movable Type's inclusion of the "Community Pack" features into the newly christened Movable Type Pro. This allows websites of all sizes to actively solicit and collect information from site visitors in many different forms. This includes the obvious (commenting) and previously available (author blogs), but also introduces a whole new community atmosphere and environment that is conducive to expanding your website into a diverse content delivery system. It's now extremely easy to take a single-focus, sole-voice site and make it a community of like-minded authors and contributors. This means more content, more relevance, more "stickiness" and more interactivity. Visitors to your site go from passive readers to active participants in your content strategy.

Zoom!
Movable Type 4.2 is also significantly faster than its predecessors. How fast depends on your exact configuration and needs, but in some cases, we're talking 100 times faster with common tasks.

Spam Comments are so 2006
The new Typepad Antispam has also been added to the release. This update keeps junk-comments at bay and lets you focus on communicating with your readers.

Oh Yeah - It's Free
Did we mention that MT Pro is a free upgrade for personal users or licensed professional installations?

Let's Talk
We'd like to discuss how Movable Type Pro can help your business grow online. Contact us today for a consultation.

Heideldesign Recognized by Creators of Movable Type

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:53:20 -0500

Here at Heideldesign, we build websites with the content management system Movable Type because it's easy to use, powerful and extensible. In fact, we've become Movable Type experts over the years - but don't just take our word for it.

Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, just highlighted Heideldesign as a case study of creative, innovative and successful MT application.

Here's what they're saying about us.

"Today, the firm uses Movable Type 4 to enable a range of content-rich web applications for a wide customer base, and continues to explore new creative territory on the Movable Type platform.

"Heideldesign has made it their mission to investigate innovative ways to publish and manage content with the goal of delivering creative solutions that fit the unique needs of each client."

Aw shucks!

Click here to read the entire profile, including a showcase of three of our clients.

Asset Management with Movable Type

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:23:23 -0500

In MT parlance, assets are files that you've uploaded to the web server using the Movable Type interface. For most of our clients, that means images: Photos, renderings and illustrations of all kinds. No matter how good your written content is, sometimes that extra push it needs to be noticed can only come from a visual stimulus. So, it's great that Movable Type makes uploading, categorizing and finding those visuals intuitive and easy.

Once you've uploaded a file (through the "Upload file" menu option or through the rich text editor when creating an entry) you can give your image a title, description and tags. Tags are one to two word short descriptions that best sum up the content. For a photograph of a landscape, your tags might be: photograph, color, landscape, grass, trees. Then, if you're looking for all of the images you've uploaded to your site that contain "trees", it's one click away.

But the best part of asset management with Movable Type 4 is using the auto-generated resizing options to create on-the-fly thumbnails and apply custom cropping to images directly from the templates. On a recent project for Lowcountry Exhibits, Heideldesign leveraged that power to make adding a multitude of different image sizes, crops and effects a one-step process for the client. All they have to do is upload a single photo once.

From there, Movable Type and the custom template set does the rest. On the home page, a custom template creates an XML feed for the scrolling Flash interface with auto-resized and cropped thumbnail images from the first asset on each entry in the "portfolio" category. On the Entry Listing templates, a different thumbnail is created on the fly. For the Entry templates, three different image sizes are created automatically: A medium thumbnail, a small thumbnail and a large javascript-triggered lightbox overlay.

And all the author has to do is upload one image into their Movable Type entry.

Not only is it a huge time saver for the author, it's a great solution for the designer and developer as well. They never have to worry about a design "breaking" due to a mis-sized image. Pixel-level control can be maintained throughout the templates.

If you have a graphic-intensive project and want to learn more about how Movable Type's asset management may be able to help you, contact Heideldesign today for a free consultation.

We're growing!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:19:46 -0500

Heideldesign is pleased to announce the addition of Ginger Heidel to our staff as a full-time media consultant. We're still the small firm with big ideas you've worked with in the past, but now we can do even more for you and your business.

Ginger is a veteran of the broadcast and public relations industry, and mixes those experiences into one big pot of multimedia knowledge. Having trouble coming up with fresh content for your website (or the time to add it all)? Now we can help. Think your website might benefit from the addition of video clips? We can help there too.

With Ginger on board, we can now offer website maintenance packages. Let us take care of the small details to keep your site current and increase your search engine rankings, leaving you more time to - literally - take care of business.

Not sure if video is right for your site? Here's how some of our existing clients are using video to enhance their web offerings:

Savannah Plastic Surgery - this website features short introductory clips by all 6 surgeons, allowing potential clients to become familiar with a doctor before he/she even makes an appointment.

South Georgia Center for Cancer Care - this new site will feature videos demonstrating some of the treatments performed in the office. The opportunity to see the equipment in action may help lessen the fears of patients who will soon be coming in for treatment.

Buckhead Builders - this new site will feature a product video showing potential buyers how easy it is to install one of their quality storm doors. Product descriptions are great, but sometimes seeing is believing.

Contact us today to find out more!

Heideldesign Celebrates 10 Years

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:36:06 -0500

We certainly don't feel ten years older - but the fact is that Heideldesign has been enabling business, education and government clients to be successful on the web for a decade. Let's take a minute to explore what Heideldesign would be like if it were a child, instead of a web development firm - humor me... According to Pediatric Advisor, a ten year old:

is eager to learn and master new skills
is proud of doing things well
has internalized standards of right and wrong

Well, that applied more than I thought. The web has changed a lot since we first began splicing Photoshop images. The advent of web standards, the end (and resurrection) of the browser wars and designing for mobile devices have all been hot topics. We've had to remain well-versed in the latest coding techniques and design trends. And, we've always taken pride in our work. Whether it be a global site launch for an international brand or a small presence for a mom and pop store, we're proud of what we produce. The client's wants and needs are what we deliver every time. As far as right and wrong, we feel that our interaction with clients says it all. We price fairly and give quality, individual attention and service. That's why repeat business is not only a cornerstone of our business plan, it's also the reality of our business life. Thank you This milestone wouldn't be possible without the support of our clients and extended team. As our firm continues to grow, know that your success is our success and we look forward to serving you for another ten years.

Welcome, Elliot!

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:55:28 -0500

Relieved mama and proud papa are doing fine. Look at that sweet face! You can follow along with Anna's motherhood odyssey at her pop culture/mommy blog, Mother Popper. Also, be sure to subscribe to their very funny personal podcast, The Delta Park Project.

iPhone Mania

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:43:40 -0500

Many companies and developers are crafting iPhone-specific interfaces for their websites. Why do that when the iPhone perfectly renders their existing page? The aforementioned slowness of the Edge network is one reason. These iPhone specific portals are lightweight and fast, even without Wifi. Many of them also work very hard to replicate the glossy icon based interface on the iPhone, making the website feel like a native application.

iPhone users are early adopters, technically proficient and skew to a younger demographic. If that's a sect you'd like to market to, an iPhone specific website may be a good fit for you. If not, don't worry. iPhone users can see your website just fine.