Website Design & Development + Search Engine Optimization, SEO

  • WordPress: The Right Fit For Your Company?

    August 4th, 2010

    In our last article, we went through some of the benefits of ExpressionEngine, one content management system (or CMS) that Digital Peabody works with on a regular basis. But for many of our clients, a website built with WordPress as its CMS is a perfect fit for their needs. (Learn more about content management systems, and why your site needs one, here.) Below, we’ll highlight a few areas in which WordPress shines.

    Perhaps WordPress’ biggest advantage is its cost-effectiveness. WordPress is a free platform, eliminating at the outset of any website project the cost of paying for a CMS. Better yet, WordPress isn’t a substandard product by any stretch of the imagination — its content-management capabilities are right in line with many other top CMS competitors, with features like workflow management, multimedia posts, blogs and more.

    WordPress also has an enormous array of so-called “plugins” that allow users to extend their site’s functionality in nearly any way imaginable: e-commerce, social networking, Web analytics and more. Another popular WordPress feature is its support for widgets, which allow users to control the content that appears in the site’s sidebar without needing to make any edits to its code. The widgets that appear on any given page can be customized by page or section — or they can remain constant throughout the site. Among hundreds of others, popular widgets include one that displays upcoming events, another that shows a Twitter feed and another that displays a summary of the most recent post on the site’s blog.

    Redesigning a WordPress site is also relatively fast because of the platform’s use of themes to control design and content presentation. Themes are essentially templates into which content fits. If you think your site needs a new look, our designers can code and upload themes to control its appearance and interface without losing any of the content already on the site. And as a CMS, WordPress is well-known for its ease of use: you don’t need any technical experience to maintain a dynamic, interesting website using WordPress.

    Want to learn more about WordPress and how we can tailor it to your business? Contact Digital Peabody at 303-468-5707, and take a look at our featured sites for more examples.

  • Why Build a Website with ExpressionEngine?

    July 30th, 2010

    We’ve designed and developed all sorts of sites at Digital Peabody — business and e-commerce, real estate, healthcare and more — most of which feature content management systems. (What’s a content management system, and why does my site need one?) Deciding which content management system (or CMS) is right for your company’s website requires knowing what can be done with each option. For many of the companies and organizations we work with, ExpressionEngine, an industry-leading CMS, is the right fit. In this post we’ll highlight the benefits of ExpressionEngine, and follow it up with a post about WordPress.

    To begin with, there is almost no limit to what Digital Peabody can do with ExpressionEngine. One client, Matchstick Productions, needed a site that streams high-definition videos of extreme skiers and that was integrated with a Magento e-commerce system. We built them an ExpressionEngine site that does just that. Another client, THF Realty, needed a way to speed communication with retailers by posting documents for thousands of clients to download. We did that with ExpressionEngine, too. And we helped our friends at HuntFishGuide.com build a site to sort through thousands of hunting and fishing guides across the world, pick one out and book a trip, among other features. ExpressionEngine can provide all of that functionality and more — your imagination truly is the limit.

    ExpressionEngine also has a huge community of creatives and developers all over the world, so that even if something isn’t immediately doable, there are thousands of people working on all sorts of extensions to suit any need a client may have. On its Digital Peabody-designed and -developed website, the St. Louis Jewish Community Center needed a massive calendar that serves over 15 internal departments, with both repeating events and one-off events, so we built in this extension to serve their needs. The Colorado Bankers Association wanted a site with member polls, so we found these two extensions and built them into the site. No matter how specific your web needs are, the vast assortment of ExpressionEngine extensions that are available ensure that your new site will work exactly how you want it to.

    Another notable feature of ExpressionEngine is the ability to create customizable channels for your CMS. In other words, the information you are asked for when you are creating content for your site depends on what type of content you are posting. This allows us to exactly tailor your CMS to your needs.

    ExpressionEngine has also never had a major security breach in over 10 years operating, and is very intuitive and easy to use. We’ll show you how to use your new CMS, and you’ll be keeping up a dynamic, interesting site in no time.

    Want to learn more about ExpressionEngine and what it can do for your business? Contact Digital Peabody at 312-933-3430, and take a look at our featured sites for more examples.

  • Content Management Systems Will Save You Time and Money

    February 18th, 2008

    Your website is a critical connection between you and your clients. And it’s nothing new to learn every successful website includes a strategy for publishing fresh, new content to your website. But we also know that the process can be tedious, an endless back and forth between your content provider and your website management team.  And god help you if you have breaking news, an error to correct quickly, or information that is time-sensitive.  And forget about weekends! 

    Rather than paying a web master or a web design firms to make these updates, you can do it yourself. And not only don’t you have to know HTML, you don’t even have to know what HTML stands for!  A simple content management system allows you to easily maintain and publish content to your website directly, no middleman, no extra charge, no muss, no fuss.

    For companies of all sizes and all budget levels, web design firms like Digital Peabody, offer web-based content management solutions that help you maintain a current, content-rich website. The content management system can be tailored for your organization’s website, creating simple templates for you to fill in, and point and click options that make updating your website as easy as filling in a simple form.

    Your non-technical staff will be empowered with these easy-to-use tools, as basic to operate as Microsoft Word ®. If you can type a letter in Word®, change the font type, size, and alignment then you have all the skills needed to operate a content management system.  And even better, multiple contributors can publish to the website through the content management system so the work does not need to fall on one person’s shoulders.

    You aren’t even limited to just text. You can also add graphics and pictures with the greatest of ease. And once you are comfortable with the system, adding sections and pages is just as easy.

    A content management system can be the solution to most of your website maintenance and publication hassles. Digital Peabody’s team of experienced content management experts can help you best determine which solution can provide the most value for your organization. See how easy it is for yourself – give Digital Peabody a call at 303-468-5707 or send us an email to to request a 5-minute demonstration of a content management system.

 

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