We recently redesigned the website of Day & Night Family Dental, located at www.DayAndNightDental.com.

Day & Night Family Dental is a cosmetic and family dentist in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The impetus for the website redesign was to increase the new practice’s patient volume. After putting up a quick, rudimentary website, Day & Night Family Dental sought a more user-friendly, branded solution for its online marketing. They wanted a purposeful web presence that would increase the volume and quality of their new patient leads.

In order to help the practice achieve its goal, we designed and developed a new website that implemented best practices learned from years of experience generating leads for healthcare companies.

We also ran the website through a focus group of potential patients in the practice’s demographic to get feedback and make the website more useful.

Website content was re-architected and re-written to help ensure that visitors can find the website via search engines, and that when they visit the website, they find it relevant and easy to understand.

We paid careful attention to the technical aspects of the project, too.  The website was coded with mobile web visitors in mind. When people visit the website with a tablet or smartphone, the website automatically reformats itself in order to maintain readability and usability.

Day & Night Family Dental is pleased with their new website and the increase in patients resulting from it.  Practice staff are seeing a heavy, steady stream of relevant email and phone leads from the website, which can all be measured with website analytics and phone call tracking.

We recently wrapped up work on a website redesign for the Louisa County, Virginia Department of Economic Development.

Louisa County was ready for a new economic development website that would take the county’s online marketing to the next level.

In addition to a fresh look, the website boasts powerful features that make it easy for businesses and site selection consultants to access key information about the county. These features include:

• an integrated sites & buildings database where prospects can research available real estate
• a custom report builder that allows prospects to choose only the documents they need and instantly generate a PDF to download and share
• a detailed “Companies by Industry” directory that shows industries represented in Louisa County and the companies in each industry sector
• integration with Louisa County’s GIS system to ensure that all critical site selection information is available on the economic development website
• optimization for mobile devices so that the website is still easy to view and use when accessed from a smartphone, tablet or similar device.

The website is also built on a content management system so that economic development staff can easily update and maintain the website in-house.

Check out the website at YesLouisa.com.

You can get a more in-depth review of Louisa County Economic Development’s website redesign by reading the news release at EconDevWebsites.com.

If you’d like to learn more about our economic development marketing work, visit EconDevWebsites.com to read case studies and download our firm profile.

We recently partnered with the Greene County Partnership of Greeneville, Tennessee to redesign their economic development website.

We worked with the Partnership to give them a website that was feature-rich and easy-to-use, and that would effectively market Greene County, Tennessee to site selectors and business consultants.

The website’s new features include:

• A revamped homepage that emphasizes Greene County’s strategic location, available sites and buildings, and quality of life.
• Detailed maps showing the location of roads, rail, airports, industrial parks and other pertinent county information
• Expanded information about demographics and workforce, operating costs, business incentives, transportation and infrastructure, utilities and workforce development.
• Robust commercial real estate listing and mapping system
• Integrated content management system that allows Partnership staff to handle all site updates—including additions to the real estate system—in-house

“We’re committed to helping local businesses thrive and creating jobs in our community. This new website is a step in that direction. Rick Whittington Consulting did a great job articulating our vision. Their knowledge of how economic development organizations work made them a partner, not just a vendor,” said Greene County Partnership’s CEO Tom Ferguson.

Visit the website at GrowInGreene.com.

Do you work for an economic development organization? If you’d like to learn more about our economic development website design work, then visit EconDevWebsites.com to read case studies and download our firm profile.

We’re excited to announce the launch of the website redesign for Timmons Group, an engineering and technology consulting firm that provides civil engineering, environmental, GIS/geospatial technology, landscape architecture and surveying services. Timmons Group has been recognized by Engineering News Record as one of the Top 500 Design Firms in the country.

The website features a minimal, open design. Timmons Group wanted a sleek, modern aesthetic that would separate their website from the “typical” engineering website.

On the homepage, a prominent photo slideshow showcases various projects Timmons Group has completed.

Content is added, edited and organized through a custom content management system (CMS). Timmons Group can update the website completely in-house.

The CMS has also streamlined the process to add new project profiles the firm’s portfolio. Timmons Group can now relate projects to services rendered and to market/industry served, and they can maintain the project portfolio in one place.

“We needed top-notch design, but we also needed great functionality and a seamless, easy-to-use CMS,” said Tim Asimos, Corporate Marketing Manager at Timmons Group. “We got that.”

Visit the website at Timmons.com

We’re thrilled to announce that Shannon Sullivan has joined our team as a Content Specialist.  Shannon is an incredibly talented writer who’s already making an impact after 2 short days on the job.

Before joining us, Shannon was the Director of Internet Marketing at Key Web Concepts.  She earned her B.A. degree in English (with honors) from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Some other fun facts about Shannon:

• She’s a “fashionista.”  Her minor at VCU was in Fashion Merchandising.
• She’s part Aussie.  Shannon has dual citizenship for the U.S. and Australia.
• She likes flying into Aukland Airport in New Zealand. It’s a family tradition to take a photo on the bridge over a central water feature when she travels there.
• Her fiancé Matt is a web designer, and she’s looking forward to getting married in March.

Shannon, we’re glad you’re here!

We’re happy to announce the website redesign for Filtrona Porous Technologies, a global B2B company that designs and manufactures custom fluid-handling components. These components can be found in everyday products, including printer cartridges, wound care dressings, writing instruments, make-up applicators and so much more.

The website features a much cleaner, professional design that is in keeping with newly-established corporate brand standards and sales materials. We improved navigation, streamlined content and built the website around a content management system that allows FPT staff to update the website in-house.

Because Filtrona Porous Technologies is a global company with a global audience, the website includes full translations in English, German, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.

We also created several product animations that demonstrate how the components work in everyday products.

Visit the new Filtrona Porous Technologies website

The Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development (TJPED) website, which we launched in 2010, recently received an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Economic Development Award in the category of General Purpose Website for communities with populations of 200,000 – 500,000.

The honor was presented at the International Economic Development Council’s annual meeting and is our second IEDC award for a client.

Read more about this honor on our economic development website.

We’re happy to announce the launch of a website for our economic development and tourism practice, www.EconDevWebsites.com.

After three years and eight economic development clients, we decided to create a special website to showcase these projects and explain our capabilities that are suited for economic development website design.

The website was launched before the 2011 International Economic Development Council (IEDC) Annual Conference.

The site itself has some newer technology that we’ve been working on. It’s built on the same content management system we build client projects on, and the website automatically resizes itself to fit multiple mobile device formats, eliminating the need for a separate mobile version.

See the website at www.EconDevWebsites.com.

Combine an orthodontist with a uniquely fun personality and a website design firm with creative flair and you get GardnerGrins.com, our newest website launch.

Working with SEO firm Your Search Advisor, we created a website for Dr. Gardner’s orthodontic practice that embodies the experience of visiting their office and is optimized to grow the practice.

We started by taking dozens of photographs of the inside of Dr. Gardner’s Richmond office, then incorporating the images into a cohesive interface. The result is a website that mimics Dr. Gardner’s fun personality and the experience of being in the office.

Visit the GardnerGrins.com website

We’re excited about the launch of WarShotsBook.com, a companion to the book written by Richmond author Charles “Chip” Jones.  The book was released earlier this week, and the website went live the week after Christmas.

The website features exclusive video interview clips and photographs from the private collection of Norman T. Hatch, the Marine combat cameraman that is the book is written about.  You can also watch “With the Marines at Tarawa,” the documentary that won the 1944 Academy Award for short subjects.  The footage Hatch took of dead and dying Marines was so graphic it had to be approved for public release by President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself, and revealed how adept the Japanese actually were at fighting (Americans at the time underestimated the fighting abilities of the Japanese).

“Rick Whittington Consulting helped me see outside the box of my written work, and to see the potential for creating a dynamic, colorful Web-based platform. Rick and his team saw the potential for positioning my book online,” Jones said about the website we designed and developed.

To learn more, read the press release or visit WarShotsBook.com, where you can purchase the book.  You can also pick up an autographed copy of the book at Fountain Bookstore in Shockoe Slip right here in Richmond.

We’re pleased to announce that Communication Arts has selected the Greater Richmond Partnership website as today’s “Webpick of the Day.” The website’s purpose is to help attract businesses and companies to Richmond, Virginia. Because of its rich functionality and superior graphic design, the site has already won several awards.

CommArts selects websites with the finest design daily, and commonly selects sites from some of the world’s best and brightest design firms and ad agencies. Read more at the CommArts website or visit the featured website at www.grpva.com.

Located in Southside Virginia about an hour south of Richmond is MAMaC, a 1,545-acre industrial site that could bring a large company to the area.  To publicize the “megasite,” we worked with a top engineering firm and Greensville County to develop a website.

“Our goal was to create a website that relayed a lot of vital information in an easy-to-find format,” said Natalie Slate, Deputy Administrator for Greensville County and MAMaC’s project lead.

“Rick Whittington Consulting has become known for exceptional design work that meets the customer’s needs. The end product is a clean, attractive and user friendly site.”

MAMaC is unique because it is the only megasite in Virginia, Maryland or North Carolina certified by McCallum Sweeney Consulting, an economic development consulting firm.  Sale of this megasite could potentially bring more than $1 billion in investment and create more than 1,000 jobs for the area.

We worked with our client to understand the significance of this certification and help articulate it to the website’s audience.

“RWC met all our goals in a quick and timely manner. Their copywriter worked one on one to make sure the website portrayed exactly what we wanted. Their graphic designer listened to detailed comments until the logo was perfect,” commented Slate. “RWC was quick to respond to any task. The site looks great and has received a lot of compliments since going live.”

Having interviewed economic development consultants for past projects, we were uniquely positioned to develop the MAMaC website.  The website has been optimized to speak directly to site selection consultants and companies that might be planning to develop a large manufacturing facility.

“Everyone is pleased with the ease of maneuvering through the new website. The information is easy to find, the graphics are eye catching and portray vital information, and the logo is recognizable. This site will be invaluable as a marketing tool for MAMaC.”

Visit the MAMaC website

The Greater Richmond Partnership website, which we redesigned and launched in 2009, has just won two web design awards.

The first award was an SEDC Communications Award – Superior for GRPVA.com for the Web Sites: Local, State or Regional Economic Development Organizations category.  It was presented to the Partnership at the Southern Economic Development Council Development (SEDC) Annual Conference in August.

“The competition was stiff this year with over 120 entries, as economic development organizations throughout our region submitted expertly prepared materials,” said SEDC President Gene Stinson.  “The entries submitted by the Greater Richmond Partnership were outstanding and captured the attention of the judges to garner their awards.”  All entries were judged on graphic appeal, clarity and appropriateness of message, positioning, differentiation and content.

Second, the Partnership website won Honorable Mention for Excellence in Economic Development for the GRPVA.com Redesign in the category of General Purpose Website.  The honor was given in the category for communities with populations of greater than 500,000.  The award was accepted at the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) at their annual meeting in September.

“We recognize the Greater Richmond Partnership, Inc. for providing successful strategies to promote new paradigms in economic development in this period of global recovery,” said William Best, IEDC chair.  “Our awards honor organizations and individuals for their efforts in creating positive change in communities. The Greater Richmond Partnership, Inc. is showing that they are at the forefront of the economic development profession and are using innovative and effective practices that can be replicated in other communities.”

Since the website launched a little over a year ago, the Partnership has seen exceptional results.  Web analytics show the site is more effective for visitors. The Average Time on the Site is up 52%, Page Views is up 159% and Pages Visited is up 33%. Site visits are up 95% and GRP continues to receive positive feedback from its target audience and peers.

Economic development organizations face the interesting challenge of presenting compelling data for consultants while showcasing a region’s vibrant lifestyle for companies and their employees.

The Henrico County Economic Development Authority needed to do just that, while creating a friendly browsing experience. Toney Hall, Henrico County EDA’s Director of Marketing, recalls their challenge. “We wanted to totally refresh our website, making it more appealing, exciting and user-friendly. It was our main goal to do a better job of telling the Henrico story by not only focusing on key business elements and our strategic location in the world, but also by highlighting the county’s quality of place and life.”

Having done audience research for other economic development consulting jobs, we instantly understood the challenge and had ideas to present both critical data andHenrico County’s way of life in an engaging way. “Economic development experience gave Rick Whittington Consulting the edge over the other consultants we considered,” said Hall.

We decided to focus on improving visitor engagement, knowing that the longer visitors interacted with content on the site, the more likely they would be to consider HenricoCounty for their company’s relocation or expansion. “Rick Whittington Consulting was able to create a much better balance between the mounds of site selection data embedded in our website and the county’s lifestyle and cultural offerings.”

While content on the website is displayed in many ways, the interactive map we built was one way to improve engagement and present information differently. The map pinpoints different business and lifestyle features and landmarks in the County, and serves as a foundation for future development.

The display of content was of critical importance, as was the ability to measure results of the website redesign. We implemented analytics to give Henrico EDA staff a way to not only analyze common metrics like visits and search engine traffic trends, but also built ways to measure site feature usage, see what companies are visiting the website and track phone calls and e-mail prospects originating from the website.

“Rick was very responsive and results-driven in an aplomb manner. Rick put our needs first and seemed to have the right balance between technical development and creative layout. I liked it that he told us new things about the redesign process that we could actually apply,” said Hall.

To date, results of the website redesign are positive. “Based on preliminary analytics, visitors are spending much more time on the site and visiting a variety of pages.”

Porter Realty has been a pillar of the Richmond, Virginia business community since 1965. Forty-five years later, the family-owned company still embodies its founding principles of market knowledge, vision, creative thinking and an optimistic outlook toward the future. The Porter brothers deserved a website that reflects nearly a century of experience in the Richmond industrial and commercial real estate market.

Our initial meetings with the Porters and Liz Greving, their IT & Marketing Manager, uncovered their vision for the project. “We wanted the site to be informative and user-friendly with an updated, professional look. We initiated this project with the idea of a complete overhaul of our firm’s website, specifically with the intention to streamline and to modernize the look and feel of the size and to improve the functionality in terms of listing searches, news release publication, and integration of client testimonials,” said Greving.

“We became familiar with Rick Whittington Consulting’s work on other industry sites and after a preliminary interview process, elected to move forward with RWC. We immediately felt that Rick was the most responsive of the vendors we met with, and the most capable of translating our ideas into a finished product.”

Our process involved using an in-depth knowledge of how people use commercial real estate websites combined with Porter’s know-how and experience serving their clients. “RWC was able to distill our project goals into a clear development plan and was a tremendous resource in helping us to understand current trends and options in terms of both design and development. In terms of both look and functionality, the new site will allow us to showcase our capabilities, services and past successes with greater ease and broader reach.”

The finished product is a fast-loading site that the firm can update themselves and keep up-to-date. We also expect that going forward, Porter Realty will receive new business leads from their website like never before.

“RWC was patient and persistent in helping us to organize our ideas for the site into a polished finished product. Rick was receptive to our thoughts throughout the design and implementation process, and was always extremely responsive to our inquiries and suggestions. We are looking forward to working with Rick on additional projects in the future!”

Visit the Porter Realty web site

When we were approached by Virginia Urology, their web site had a dated, brochure-like look.

Their ultimate goal was to improve the website by giving it an updated look, making it more interactive and user friendly. This goal is critical to their business as more patients are searching the web for health care resources. The web site also needed to be a tool for their physicians to use with their patients.

Additionally, Virginia Urology needed to be able to manage the content in-house, including adding videos, news items and more.

Virginia Urology

Penny Durrett, Director of Community Education at Virginia Urology said, “We interviewed several companies and we selected Rick Whittington Consulting because we liked Rick’s business manner. Rick listened to what our needs were and offered suggestions that would help us achieve our goals. We know that as a client, we change frequently change our minds and have to have someone who is very flexible and accommodating. Rick was able to deliver a thorough proposal that met all of our needs within our budget.”

“Rick has been a pleasure to work with. He has been an incredible resource for us in this process. He is always upbeat and eager to make things work,” added Durrett.

“Our physicians have been impressed with the new look of our site. They are also appreciative of the effort that went into achieving an interactive site for patients to use. Staff members have found the site to be a great customer service resource. Features such as location maps and directions are helpful, and so is being able to easily find the ‘appointment request’ feature.”

Virginia Urology for Women

We were also commissioned to design and launch a sister web site for female urological issues called Virginia Urology for Women.This site specializes in information and physicians/staff that treat women’s urological issues. We built this site so that both the Virginia Urology web site and the Virginia Urology for Women web site could be managed via a single web login. The sites can share information so that it doesn’t have to be entered twice, saving Virginia Urology time.

Last week, we launched the newly re-designed Greater Richmond Partnership web site. The Greater Richmond Partnership is a smart group of people that are very important to the area economy and job market. Their purpose is to attract domestic and international businesses that are expanding or relocating. Once businesses relocate or expand here, the GRP has a great retention program to keep businesses thriving. They represent the City of Richmond and the surrounding counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico.

In mid-2008, we performed a web site assessment for the GRP to help them identify ways to make their site more effective. We compiled an exhaustive snapshot of what similar economic development firms were doing on the web, we tested the web site with real clients from around the country, identified their core audience segments and brainstormed ways to change the site to make it easier to navigate and plan for future expansion.

Having constructed a roadmap for success, we designed the site to be vibrant, forward-looking and appeal to all core audience segments. The challenge in doing this was that the core audiences seek very different information, and the site needs to keep all audiences’ attention.

For some audiences, we sought to show personality and vibrance of the Greater Richmond area. For others, we had to create intelligent tools to allow them to collect just the data they need.

The result is what you see at grpva.com. From the Visual Visit that invites you to thumb through photos of the area to videos of businesspersons talking about the region, to a technically-advanced blog to social media integration, to a report builder that collects any or all data the Partnership has to offer and print or save it as a PDF.

The site was completely re-architected to make information easy to find. Related content is displayed throughout the site to keep the reader engaged.

The site runs on a completely custom Expression Engine installation. This content management system allows GRP staff to update and access the parts of the site that they are responsible for.

The News & Publications area provides one single repository for news items, company announcements, press releases and industry news that can be used to dynamically feed data to multiple web sites that the GRP operates. The area also generates an RSS feed to keep readers notified of news and updates that occur.

• Visit the Greater Richmond Partnership web site
• Read GRP’s press release posted on their web site
  

Last week, the new Monif C. Plus Sizes e-commerce site went live. Monif C. is a fashion designer in New York City, and her creations have been featured in Essence, TLC’s What Not To Wear, Ebony, Glamour and BET.com, just to name a few.

Completed in just about 6 short weeks, this e-commerce site runs on a customized Magento platform. Some of the best customer-facing features are the ability to browse the site in multiple currencies, a one-page AJAX checkout process, the ability to share your wishlist with others (so they buy you the right gift the first time) and cross-selling at the product level. Customers can create an account to store order history and track orders, manage an address book and check their gift certificate balance. To give customers the most options, they can either check out as a guest (without registering) or with their stored account information.

Behind the scenes, the site features the ability to process both web, store and phone transactions, full inventory control and much more.

See the site in action at http://www.monifc.com.

Back in January, we re-launched the Virginia Favorites web site. Virginia Favorites sells Virginia peanuts and other gourmet items from our wonderful state. I developed their first web site in 1997 — my first foray into e-commerce. It was redesigned again on the Yahoo Merchant Services platform in 2002, and the 2009 iteration is built on a new e-commerce system.

In addition to totally redesigning the visual appeal of the web site, we added many new features to improve functionality and customer service.

• Better coupon codes
  Virginia Favorites can now offer a variety of coupon codes and easily control expiration, overlapping codes and more.
• “My Account”
  Loyal customers no longer have to enter all of their information in at checkout — most personal information is stored securely on the site, including a catalog of commonly-used addresses for shipping.
• Order status and tracking
  After a customer places an order, they can instantly find out the status of their order, and if it has shipped, can get a direct link to track the package while in transit.
• Streamlined checkout flow
  Checking out is a 2-step process, and cleaning up the process and shortening it has led to big increases in conversion rate.
• Recently viewed items
  If a customer clicks away from a product and wants to go back, the site stores the three most recently viewed items for easy access.

You can see the new web site (and buy something) at VaPeanuts.com.

Last week, we launched the new Thalhimer web site. For those not in Virginia, Morton G. Thalhimer, Inc. is a commercial real estate company based in Richmond, VA with multiple offices across the state. We redesigned and redeveloped their web site.

The process started with a full web site assessment. We analyzed how their target audience used their web site by conducting usability studies and examining web analytics. We used all of this information to complete a full visual redesign of the web site, and we redeveloped the site to make it easier for customers on both traditional screens and on mobile devices to use. The site is also easier to update — they don’t have to involve the IT group to make changes or add content.

The site uses Expression Engine to control most site content, and integrates with internal databases as well.

See the site at thalhimer.com.