Tag Archives: Content Management System

Ed Martin for Congress

Ed Martin for Congress is website for a political campaign. The client had a wide variety of potential needs for their website as the campaign unfolds. The challenge was to develop a site that was highly flexible and extensible to adapt to new online opportunities.

The site is the hub of a larger online effort that includes a comprehensive social media strategy including Facebook, YouTube, Email, Blogging and Twitter. Goals include voter and constituent outreach, name recognition and communicating the candidate’s policy positions. I have been monitoring activity and both suggesting and making adjustments to the frequency and timing of communication efforts.

There is steady, organic growth in Twitter followers, Facebook fans and unique visitors to the site, surpassing in many cases incumbent and challenger statistics. Running in a district historically held by the opposing party, these efforts have been recognized as an early indicator of the competitiveness of the candidate.

Key Features

Featured Content Navigation – From the home page users are presented with a dynamic slide show & navigation tool that features content on which the campaign wants to focus.

Online Video – The candidate posts video of himself as well as interesting videos from other sources that serve top make points of benefit to the campaign message.

Social Media – The campaign makes very effective use of social media tools, including email, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to drive traffic to the website and increase the width of the net being cast for the campaign message. It is further used to accept feedback and questions to engage constituents.

Content Managed – The site is running on a content management system that allows the quick posting of routine updates as well as the safe deployment of new features.

RSS SEO – I have deployed Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to the site to provide state and local news relevant to the campaign. The added benefit is that search crawlers find a large volume of relevant keywords that update regularly.

Medicine Shoppe International

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I served as Webmaster for three years at Medicine Shoppe International (MSI). MSI offered two separate franchise brands, Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy and Medicap Pharmacy Stores. When I arrived, MSI’s web presences were running on a very outdated content management systems. While the franchise offered individualized web sites for each store, they were very time-consuming to update and maintain.

The key challenge was to develop a comprehensive web strategy, then select the web technology and staff resources to maintain it. The deployment of an up-to-date web site for both the franchise and franchisees was only the first step among many that included search engine optimization, localizing the franchisee’s web page and providing content from a national and local level. Additional efforts included Google Adwords campaigns, email marketing and social media.

After reviewing a series of proposals, we selected a vendor – Habanero – to develop and execute the installation and population of a content management system. We deployed SiteCore CMS. SiteCore was selected for its capacity to manage multiple domains, run on a .NET platform and high-level of flexibility in its template system.

Franchisee interest in using the web as part of the marketing mix varied widely. Many wanted a highly localized and customized web pages. Others were content with an online business card. Over time we developed a series of features that allowed franchisees to quickly and easily select various promotions and apply them to their scrolling navigation. Other options allowed the franchisee to include special RSS feeds, customized pages and the addition of images from their store.

Franchisees adopted their new websites, and made excellent suggestions for new features. As part of a program of continuous improvement, we developed and launched these new features, adding them to the stable of online marketing tools.

The improvements were an unqualified success. Ancillary work to drive traffic by managing Google’s Local Business Center and engaging vendors to update and maintain our franchisee’s online directories helped local users find their business. Many franchisees noted that people were impressed with the quality of the site and that it figured in the decision to stop by. The improvements of the marketing web in turn improved the relationship between franchisor and franchisee. The success of these efforts prompted international franchisors to adopt both SiteCore and the broad elements of the web marketing program.

Thompson Coburn LLP

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This is the marketing website of Thompson Coburn LLP, one of the largest law firms in the United Sates. I was webmaster at TC for seven years primarily responsible for this site, but working on other projects as well, such as a customer relationship management system.

The current site is the last iteration that I worked on and has been in place largely unchanged since 2006. The focus of the site is to maximize the availability of information specific to practice areas an attorneys and to present the firm as a leader in premier legal services.

Key Features:

Clean Design – The design and layout was developed by a very talented artist at Thompson Coburn and translated into a flexible web layout that performs well in multiple browsers and window sizes.

The site is spare and modern in part to aid cross-browser compatibility as many corporate clients still use legacy browsers such as Internet Explorer 6. The site “degrades” gracefully and is still very functional if the user selects larger text for their own legibility.

Attorney Indices – These indexes are dynamically generated allowing users to sort alphabetically by first and last name, by practice and by office. This addresses the key visibility goal of allowing users to find attorneys with minimal information . Visitors can review the site, locate an attorney and print and download their resume iin Acrobat. Clients regularly used these features to select determine that Thompson Coburn had the legal experience to meet their legal challenge.

Special Content – I illustrated and programmed two Flash presentations to inform the user about issues when purchasing commercial property. The “Virtual Walk Around” presentations demonstrated the expertise of Thompson Coburn’s commercial real estate practice in helping firms purchase warehouse and restaurant property.

Endodontics South LTD

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Endodontics South LTD is a dental practice in Jefferson County Missouri specializing in performing root canal therapy. As you can imagine, promoting root canal therapy is a unique challenge.

The majority of Endodontics South’s clientele are women, either as patients or making appointments for their family. I also learned that fellow dentists would likely use the website as part of a vetting process before referring a patient to the practice. These two market segmentation realities would inform the design decisions.

For fellow professionals, we determined that membership in professional organizations would be an important promotional matter.

We reviewed the websites of other endodontic practices as part of our development process. This look at professional colleagues around the country provided ideas and direction. I helped develop an information architecture that separated information offered to professionals and patients, giving each a particular path to follow from the home page.

During the selection of a design the client consulted with women who were either family or colleagues at work. The client provided some very attractive images that were used in the featured content scroller on the home page. These images serve to soften the website and lend visual interest to the site. Clicking on these images will lead the user to specific content providing an additional navigational path to content the client deems most important.

Within the site are links, biographies and curriculum vitae for the doctors of the practice as well as images and short bios for staff members. I spent a few hours at their office taking shots that are used on the site. An RSS feed from a prominent journal in the endodontics is providing periodic keyword-specific updates on the site providing search engine optimization.

Finally, the site is running on a WordPress content management system. This empowers the doctors or their delegates to maintain and update their own site on their own terms.

Please visit the site EndoSouthLTD.com, and see your dentist.