Posts from: 7/2008

• Important Aspects of Good Web Design

  Jul 28, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Design, Web Marketing | Comments (0)

  BusinessWeek recently published a good article called the 10 Commandments of Web Design. The article outlines the aspects of design that keep a website attractive, yet functional. Too often, firms without a good understanding of how to design for the web try to put up sites that are not optimized for the medium. I've whittled BusinessWeek's top 10 down to the top three items from the article that we hold dearest to our hearts when we design a new website.

  1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash - We have never built a fully flash site. They're hard to navigate and horrible for Search Engines. Flash can definitely enhance certain elements of a site, but we feel that we can achieve most of the same effects through use of Javascript and other languages that make it easier for Search Engines to spider. We use Flash at times, but are very careful to not abuse it and to focus more on creating a functional and navigable site.
  2. Thou shalt not clutter - One of our top priorities is to streamline a site's layout, making it easy to navigate and get information quickly. This is especially helpful with political campaign websites, as voters come to the site wanting to quickly be able to understand a candidate and their issue stances. We aim to keep all over layouts clutter-free and easy to navigate.
  3. Thou shalt create immersive experiences - We aim to ensure that each of our sites is extremely engaging to visitors. We accomplish this by giving our clients the ability to easily edit content, create unlimited pages, manage unlimited photo galleries, build contact forms, host videos, and much more through our powerful content management system. By being able to manage and scale out your site, visitors will become engaged, frequently visit the site, and generate more page views.

  We're perpetual students of great design and new technology, and we help each of our clients launch sites that are consistent with the best on the web.

• Kansas Campaign Features Innovative Online Tactics

  Jul 20, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Politics, Web Marketing | Comments (0)

  Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in Kansas. He currently works as an Information Architect for a company in Johnson County, Kansas, and he formerly founded a successful Internet company. So, it's no surprise that he launched an attractive and innovative campaign site when he decided to run for State Representative. The site has a web 2.0 feel with smooth drop down navigation, a frequently updated blog, a host of social networking options, and an overall web-friendly design.
  
  However, his site still isn't too out of the norm of most good campaign websites being launched in today's political environment. Where Tevis really set himself apart was with his cartoon to drive traffic to his site. The cartoon is an extremely funny take on today's political environment that tends to heavily favor incumbents and big fundraisers only. After making the reader laugh through the cartoon, Tevis places his call to action by asking readers to support his campaign.
  
  The state record in Kansas for most donations to a State Rep campaign is 644, but Tevis sets the auspicious goal of gathering 3,000 small pledges of $8.34. The humorous slant on political marketing resulted in the cartoon going viral and Tevis reaching his goal of 3,000 donations in just 37.25 hours! The campaign has now raised money from over 5,000 contributors. Amazing!
  
  Tevis is an excellent job of how creating content and driving visitors to it, especially if it is innovative and funny, can help a campaign site break through the mold and be really successful. Congrats again to Sean.
  
  Clay Schossow - cschossow@newmediacampaigns.com
  

• Another Tar Heel Joins the Team

  Jul 1, 2008 by Joel Sutherland | Filed in: New Media Campaigns | Comments (0)

  New Media Campaigns is happy to announce the addition of Josh Lockhart to our web design and marketing team. Josh joins the NMC team as a web developer and project manager. Josh has extensive experience in programming and client relations. Josh formerly ran his own consulting firm at joshlockhart.com, and focused on RapidWeaver theme templates and custom development.
  
  We're very happy to add such a talent as Josh to our team, but more importantly, he increases the lead of Tar Heels vs. Dukies working in our office (no wonder we've done several web projects for the UNC-system, but none for the folks from Durham). We see his addition as the next great step in the war of good against evil, and also are extremely excited for him to bring his high caliber of work and attention to detail on board. Be sure to send Josh a warm welcome to our team.

  Preferred Raleigh, North Carolina Website Designer at WebsiteDesignersList.com