As the Web world continues to evolve every day, Astek moves right along with it. While we offer a wealth of services related to newer Web strategies and tools such as social media, good old fashioned websites are still alive and strong.

Sometimes it can be hard to know where to begin if you’ve been given the task of redesigning your company’s website. Having been through this process numerous times, I’ve shared some of my own thoughts and good articles I’ve read recently that can help you through the earliest stages of redesigning your website.

Write your Website Redesign RFP (Request for Proposal)

Like most shopping expeditions, you will find the best product or service for you if you know what you’re looking for ahead of time. This starts by drafting a document of your requirements, which are unique to you. This will help you define your objectives and come to the table with a clear roadmap.

I’ve sometimes found myself in the position of helping prospective clients write their RFPs, whether or not we get the work in the end. I’ve been on both sides of this, and find that working through the RFP with someone who has been through it before can help you immensely.

The most important thing your RFP should do is clearly outline all the parameters of the project to structure it for your vendors so that you can align the format of the proposals you receive. The more specific your requirements, the easier it will be for you to compare quotes. Comparing apples to apples will help ensure you’re picking the right vendor for the right reasons.

RFPs take on numerous forms, but the basics should include project overview, goals, services requested, key roles, expected formats, special requirements, technical requirements, existing integration points, submission details and timelines. For extra credit, you can also create a site map, which is a bullet list or flow chart of the expected pages on your website.

Read more about creating a Web RFP from MarketingProfs. (Free account required for full article)

Read Seven Tips for Improving Your Website from Entrepreneur.com’s Daily Dose.

Illustration by Matthias Pfluegner

Choose the Right Partner for You

Not all Web vendors are the same. They range from individuals to large agencies. With so many options, it’s less a distinction of good and bad and more a matter of alignment with your culture, goals, work style, capabilities, and budget. Some Web professionals focus purely on design. Others do design and development and perhaps hosting. As agencies grow larger they tend to offer more services such as strategic marketing and ongoing campaign development. Full-service boutique agencies like Astek are rarer.

Your RFP will help align the formats of the proposals you receive, which will make them easier to compare. If you didn’t get very far with your RFP, never fear. A good Web consulting firm will be able to guide you through the process. It just might take a little longer to get there. Most websites don’t tend to do a whole lot on their own, so you should consider how this will fold into your overall marketing strategy.

Like anything, you’re better off with a firm that is really good at a couple things than okay at a lot of things. Many Web firms have their own content management systems (CMS), like Webany, so you should specify if you want a proprietary or open source CMS. Mobile is becoming essential for websites, along with SEO and social media, where it can be difficult to determine the true level of experience being sold. Ideally you will find all these disciplines under one roof to reduce the amount of time you’ll spend managing multiple vendors.

Always be sure to ask for references with whom you can speak and examples of past work.

Read tips from Scott Robinson about choosing the right web developer.

Read about tips for keeping up with the digital revolution and getting unstuck.

If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to drop us a line. Good luck!

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: How To, Marketing, Web

While I’m a frequent traveler to Austin, TX, for music events and family, this was my first time at South By Southwest Interactive (#SXSWi). SXSW is divided into Interactive, Film, and Music festivals, each world-renowned for the quality of talent, content, and fun.

SXSWi is the height of Tech geekery, mostly focused around Web and mobile apps related to social media, such as Foursquare or Twitter. This is my crowd, for sure, and our social media guru Rachel Yeomans was even more plugged in than me due to her incessant and productive use of Twitter.

I dusted off my Twitter account just for the occasion. While I was one of the first people on it three years ago, I’ve found it difficult to keep up, which is a common issue for our clients to which I can relate! I’m glad I brought it out, though, as much of SXSW takes place on Twitter. This isn’t a surprise considering that Twitter essentially launched at SXSW years ago, but what did surprise me was the advanced and consistent use of hash tags to create interactive audience feedback for every session. Moderators would monitor the Twitter traffic for that session and involve the audience as they could.

Most of the big tech brands were present, as were most of the geek celebrities. A highlight for me was getting to meet a childhood geek hero, Guy Kawasaki, who was there supporting his new book, Enchantment. I fondly remember reading Guy’s column in MacUser magazine in the early 90s. As Chief Evangelist for the Mac when it was first released in 1984, he was there right at the beginning. Now he turns much of his attention to helping entrepreneurs, writing, speaking, and VC’ing. I got to meet him at his book signing, pictured below!

The learning, networking, funning, eating, and yes… drinking, all made for a dense and highly worthwhile experience, starting with legos. When we first arrived at the conference center, I found three huge tables full of legos, which immediately put me in a five-year-old state of mind. Perfect! No, we didn’t spend the whole time there, but it was a good way to get the juices flowing.

Me and my amazing creation…

And our friend Miguel Cano, from JSH&A, working on his own…

Presenter highlights included Chicago friend Jenni Prokopy (ChronicBabe) talking about building better health communities. An interview with publisher Tim O’Reilly gave us a glimpse into the future of digital. I learned about everything from social media metrics to text donations for nonprofits to web typography to mobile optimization to user experience process and more. I did make it one film event — a panel with Rainn Wilson for his new movie, Super. And somewhere in there we even made it to a couple of parties!

The food trucks are a highlight of Austin, particularly in the downtown area. Rachel, Miguel, and I walked until we found one with a short line — Turf N’ Surf Poboys. Yum…

Major sponsor and Foursquare competitor Gowalla was heavily represented, though I stuck to Foursquare personally. And vowel-challenged startup SCVNGR had everyone running around finding things for various types of rewards. All this served as real world preview of what is being largely hailed as the “next big thing” — the gamification of pretty much everything. What’s that? Well, it basically means that technologies with built-in game mechanics are more successful at getting people to actually use the technology. The best app in the world is useless if nobody uses it.

Foursquare, in my opinion, is the most successful example of merging game motivation with real-world advertising. While I’ve been using the mobile app for nearly two years, I’ve never seen such an intense concentration as I did at SXSW. People were checking in to everything, everywhere. Every room, event, party, and sometimes cars. I hit a new week record of 403 points! They released a big update to the app for SXSW, so it now tells you lots of good tidbits related to your own data, such as how long it’s been since you were at that location. This intrigues me since I purposefully choose not to broadcast my location to very many people.

The Foursquare people were everywhere as well. Forty of them came to SXSW, including co-founder Dennis Crowley, who I saw interviewed by Mashable SEO Pete Cashmore. In a particularly humbling moment for Dennis, an enormous print of his GAP ad was brought on stage and offered up to the audience member with the best question.

Dennis spoke about the future of Foursquare, and his vision to help you remember and find that coffee shop your friends were telling you to visit when you go to San Francisco, for instance. I also had a nice chat with Foursquare General Manager Evan Cohen after a smaller discussion he led with Lisa Bradner of Geomentum about the future of geo-related marketing and advertising.

Saving one of the most amazing moments for last, Rachel suggested we check out a live recording of The Nerdist with Chris Hardwick podcast at Esther’s Follies, a really fun local venue with lots of history. Fifteen minutes into the recording, Chris said it was time to bring out their special guest, who was none other than John Oliver from The Daily Show! Rach and I just about fell out of our chairs, as we’re both HUGE fans. We were treated to more than an hour of John hamming it up with the guys.

We’re looking forward to next year! Hope to see you there, too.

 This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles 

 Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet?  Sign up! 

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, Gadget, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web

We’ve reached the end of a significant phase with eMainstay, a client with whom Astek has spent the last three years building the My25 web-based meal-planning software to improve health and reduce management costs for communities housing people with developmental disabilities.

In order to broaden the market for the software, which has proven highly successful in numerous USDA-funded studies, eMainstay approached Astek to develop a robust new My25 prototype for the software and online community development. We chose video as the form to convey our vision for the future of our software and a truly innovative approach to household-oriented meal planning.

The videos below say it better than words. Bon Appetit!

My25 Business Overview

My25 Online Toolkit Intro

Extra special thanks to Vin Design, Kathleen Ermitage, and Sedgwick Productions for their multiple contributions to the ongoing success of this project.

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Marketing, Technology, Web

Remember MySpace? If you’re like most people, you were probably on it three or five years ago, but haven’t looked at it lately.

The thing is that Google still sees it, and therefore so can anyone searching for you. It’s also highly likely that back then you were a bit more liberal about what you posted to social networking sites, since they were shiny and new and you hadn’t gotten burned by those drunken party photos yet.

I’m also noticing that many old MySpace accounts seem to have little or no privacy on them, which means that nearly everything you posted will be available to prying eyes.

Do yourself a favor. Find your MySpace account or Google yourself to see where it comes up. Delete it or restrict access. Really, what are you going to use it for these days anyway?

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Fun, Social Media, Technology, Web

You may have noticed a new kind of square barcode popping up all over the place, which are most likely QR codes. Actually there are a few different kinds of barcodes, but they all have the same basic purpose – using your smartphone’s camera to access information encoded on anything in the physical world.

I think of this as putting hyperlinks on any surface you see – anywhere. This is huge.

It’s the best thing I’ve seen bridging the real world of signs and paper to the virtual world of Web and mobile. With the right app you can transfer information such as contact data from a name tag or view the trailer for the movie review you’re reading. The possibilities are endless and they aren’t limited to scanning the physical world since you can scan a code on an LCD monitor and take the information with you.

Earlier this week I noticed an otherwise unmarked white cargo truck with QR codes on the back and sides. I didn’t get a chance to scan the code to see if it was a subtle marketing experiment or used for logistics tracking, but I did get the picture below.

In addition to seeing these pop up in magazines recently, I saw one Tuesday night on a Dance Flight program by DanceWorks Chicago, who recently became an Astek client. The link goes to an extended program with videos and other multimedia material you can’t get on paper.

Try scanning the QR code above. I use QuickMark on my iPhone, which works quite well scanning screens and paper. You can download QuickMark here.

Social media writer and consultant Rachel Yeomans recently posted an article spotting a QR code on Facebook for Net-a-Porter’s new mobile site:

For an example of the Microsoft Tag, which I think is a bit too colorful to be practically incorporated into most branding, I scanned an ad from the current issue of Entertainment Weekly (yes, someone else in the office has a guilty pleasure). Scan the code below to view a YouTube trailer for The Green Hornet on your mobile device. You’ll need to download a tag reader free from Microsoft.

If you’re envisioning a world in which we all wander around scanning each other for information, well, you’re probably not too far off. But this is all an interim step until the technology becomes so ubiquitous that we don’t even need our phones to do the scanning. At that point privacy and social concerns will take over the conversation from technology.

You can generate your own QR code to try out the technology. Post a comment if you’ve seen some interesting QR codes out there or think of any great uses for this technology.

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Fun, Gadget, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web

One of the biggest challenges we face when working with bloggers and within Astek is keeping the momentum of the blog going. If you were to look at our blog for the past month, you’d think nothing was going on at Astek, which couldn’t be farther from the truth!

As we get back in the saddle after vacations and various other last ditch efforts to soak up what’s left of the summer’s warmth, it’s a good time to offer some suggestions for keeping your (and our!) blog going.

1. Set a Realistic Schedule. Whether it’s once per week or once per month, set a schedule that you’ll be able to keep. We all get busy once the day starts going and the blog often falls to the bottom of the list. Try committing to writing your blog before you do ANYTHING else on every Tuesday, for example, and see if that helps.

2. KISS (Keep It Short & Simple). One of the things that seems to block a good article is being worried about making it perfect and long. By all means, you want to use proper spelling and grammar, but often the posts that get read the most are the shortest. Post a link and your immediate thoughts if you don’t have more time.

3. Remove Barriers to Publication. Even the act of logging into a website to update your blog can create an excuse not to publish. We recommend MacJournal or WinJournal to write posts quickly and easily from your computer. Programs like this make adding images simpler and save your login information so you can publish with one click.

4. Keep a List of Topics. Find a way to keep a list of all the interesting things you see on Facebook, the Web, or that people send you. I use MacJournal to queue up possible blog topics, but you could use Delicious.com or even a Word doc. If you keep a simple list you’ll never be stumped for a topic. As Andrew Crowe recently discovered, sometimes the list is right under your nose.

5. Be Honest. …with yourself and your audience. Don’t waste time back-filling spans of time without posts. It’s all ancient history by now anyway. Just focus on getting on top of your current schedule and don’t worry about the past.

Keeping a steady publication schedule is important for readers and search engines to know that you’re active. Let me know if these help and if you have some other tips that work for you, please leave a comment.

Comments(2) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media

Mobile marketing has changed a lot in the past couple of years. Geo-targeting uses your smart phone’s GPS to find out where you are, allows you to “check in” to a location, and deliver targeted messages to you based on that information.

Leaders in the geo-targeting space include Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt (plus LooptStar). They are similar in many ways, but each offers a different twist on an increasingly familiar theme. They enable local businesses to find and attract consumers in new ways, such as offering coupons or special offers to regulars based on how many times they’ve come in. Like many start-ups, none have mastered the monetization aspect of mobile marketing, but there are clearly endless opportunities here.

In order to give people incentive to use the apps, various forms of social “rewards” are used that essentially turn exploring your city into a game. We are social creatures, and while some of these rewards may seem meaningless or frivolous, there is an attraction to them as they create an element of social status within communities. A large part of the appeal to people in large cities with lots of friends is to make sure you never miss the action, but I believe the jury is still out as to the real social value of this once the initial allure wears off a bit.

While this isn’t intended to be an in-depth review, I’ll discuss some interesting distinctions of each:

Foursquare – I’ve been on Foursquare for about a year now. It’s been amazing to watch the database of local places grow since it depended on the community to enter locations. Now it’s rare that I go somewhere that isn’t already there. The person who frequents a location the most becomes the “mayor” and some establishments give benefits for that position. You collect virtual badges for achieving certain things, like being in a place with at least 50 other people (Swarm) or hitting 4 clubs in one night (Crunked). You get the idea. Foursquare made a gamble by creating a new database of locations and friends, but it seems to have paid off. The most compelling thing about this is the special offers that are based on your location. When you check in somewhere, the app will tell you if there is a nearby special, or one at the place you are (a free drink for 10 check-ins for example). While Foursquare has exploded in the past year, I haven’t seen a congruent explosion of the specials offered by businesses.

LooptStar is a spinoff of Loopt, which was historically a more informational type of app. Their new entry enters the “rewards” space more heavily. The thing that LooptStar does that I believe will give it an advantage is use Facebook Connect to leverage the largest existing social network rather than wait for everyone to find their friends on yet another new one. They were later to the game, but I believe this will give them an edge in the long run. In LooptStar you become a “boss” rather than a “mayor.” But the rewards look to be more tangible than FourSquare.

Gowalla benefits from being on all major mobile smart platforms, including Blackberry and Palm. They also rely on partnerships with existing travel-related services to offer “trips” and share those with your friends. While Foursquare provides community tips based on your location, Gowalla focuses more on directly exploring your friends’ favorite locations to learn more about what they like rather than the community at large.

All of these apps feature basic sharing with your Twitter and Facebook feeds to let people know what you’re up to. Yelp has entered the space by adding check-in to its feature set and you can bet that Google is going to be all over this with its massive business database and Android mobile platform. The problem these sites have is that they have established brand and culture that make it harder to break into new areas.

While this space is fascinating to watch, it still has a long way to go. The apps depend largely upon smart phones such as iPhone and Android, which represent the minority of the mobile market. Also, I feel that any app that requires you to actively check in to a location rather than simply knowing where you are is going to appeal more to geeks and early adopters than the majority of people. It can be very distracting to interrupt your social experience. “Wait guys… I have to check in here first…”

What’s the alternative? Remember Minority Report, when Tom Cruise’s retinas were scanned everywhere he went? In that version of the future, you didn’t even need a device to tell the network where you were. Cameras were so ubiquitous that they knew anyway. Scary? A bit. Possible? You bet.

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter | Other ePiphany Articles

Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet? Sign up!

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, Gadget, Marketing, Social Media, Technology

My great and talented friend, Aarti Sequeira, proves that social media can help make your dreams come true. She turned her homemade YouTube-based cooking-variety show, Aarti Paarti, into a spot on The Next Food Network Star, premiering this Sunday, June 6, at 9p/8c on the Food Network.

Aarti’s show features original how-to recipes with distinct India influences that just about anyone can make. I was fortunate to interview Aarti and learned a few things I didn’t know about her fantastic journey from laptop to living room. Enjoy!

What first inspired you to create Aarti Paarti in early 2009?

I was floundering at the time — my career in journalism had evaporated, and I hadn’t had that fire in my belly to chase it. I had just finished co-producing Sand and Sorrow, one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life; I’d had the chance to work on a story that really impacts our humanity, for a Peabody Award-winning director, narrated by George Clooney and eventually bought by HBO. How can you top that?! I tried to find more documentary work, but that was right as the economy was shrinking, so there wasn’t money or interest in doing “another Africa documentary.” Isn’t that sad?

Anyway, at that time, cooking had grown into a real passion in my life. I had completed a part-time cooking program, interned at a James Beard Award-winning restaurant (Lucques, helmed by Suzanne Goin) and realised that restaurant life was not for me. I was totally stumped about what I supposed to do with my life, and it was depressing me. Here I was, a Northwestern graduate, a former CNN employee, a documentary filmmaker… with no drive to do anything but make dinner. Finally, one day, my friend said, “You need to do a cooking show, a cool one, where there’s someone in the kitchen with you and you’re chatting through the whole cooking process.”

My husband, Brendan, ran with the idea, and within a day, had written a complete one-sheet with a solid concept for a show called “aarti paarti”, where I would be cooking for a bunch of my friends, who we’d cut away to as the food simmered or roasted — since all my friends are actors/performers, they’d be doing something amazing. We shot it one day, and we got 13 hours of footage. It was unrealistic to try to put that together into a pilot by ourselves, so months later, I got so frustrated that I just picked up the camera and shot a quick 10-minute episode myself. My husband shot the next episode and we started incorporating the variety show angle, which I just love. And the rest is history! We’ve shot over 30 episodes so far, featuring everything from a uke-strumming juggling clown to singing puppets to a belly dancer!

(I made a cameo [4:20] in this episode, which for some strange reason has more views than any other…)

What equipment/knowledge/materials does someone need to produce a show like this?

We borrow the camera, a Panasonic dvx100, an older model that still shoots beautifully, but not in HD. It’s our dream to upgrade to an HD camera — can you imagine how good the food will look in HD?! Those cameras don’t cost more than a few hundred dollars these days, but you need a good cameraman to shoot, which normally is pretty expensive. Luckily, I’m married to one! Tape is pretty cheap, $100 for a box of 64-minute tapes. We also borrow mics whenever we can, because good sound psychologically makes your visuals look better.

I edit the show on my Macbook Pro, using Final Cut Pro, which is pretty expensive but wonderful. I taught myself how to use Final Cut by using the classes at lynda.com, which is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20 a month. Food costs are pretty low, about $50 per episode, and we get to eat it afterwards!

What advice would you pass on to someone starting their own YouTube show?

Make your show look good — get someone who can really shoot, who’s got a steady hand, who can shoot from different angles. I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve seen where the cooking show host is just facing the camera head on for the entire video. So boring! And stuffy! Make your show as fluid as possible.

Also, make sure you get close-ups of all the food and action, and capture any natural sound too — they make for nice breaks in the action, just like a little breath. And speak normally, in regular English… don’t try to be anything you aren’t. The more you try to fancy yourself up, the stiffer you’re going to come across.

How long was the show posted before it started to get attention?

At first, my videos got about 100 views, and that stayed pretty steady until I started doing videos for Goodbite.com a couple of months into it. Then the numbers rose to somewhere in the 300-400 region. I realised that when naming my videos, I had to include words/phrases that people would be searching for. For example, my samosa episode got about 1000 views, probably because people were searching for a good samosa recipe. Now that the Food Network Show is about to start, I assume I’ll get somewhere in the region of 10,000 views, fingers crossed!

(Great SEO instincts, Aarti! Learn more about SEO)

Is it difficult to keep up with the schedule and come up with new ideas? What keeps you motivated?

It *is* hard to stay motivated. Toward the end of each season, I inevitably feel like I don’t have any energy or ideas left. But having your husband as your producer is good (and bad!!) for that, because he pushes me when I don’t feel like I have anything left to give. Every season, we try to have the recipes and the variety acts planned out before we start shooting, so I’m not scrambling at the last minute. But, that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes the ideas for recipes come effortlessly. Sometimes it’s much harder. Usually that’s when I’m overthinking it. And Bren is great at coming up with the variety acts.

What other social media tools/sites/channels do you use to promote the show? Are these critical to its success?

I update my Twitter and Facebook accounts when a new video is up. I also created a fan page for Aarti Paarti on Facebook, and I put the video up on that page first. And, I send out an email to over 500 people with a link to the video. Oh! And of course! I write out the recipe with a back story on my blog, aartipaarti.com.

Why did you go with YouTube over other video sites?

I wanted to put them up on ONE venue so that I wasn’t splitting viewers between sites. I much prefer the video quality and layout of Vimeo, and the cool community of artists gathered there, but I found that some people’s computers couldn’t play their high-quality videos. I also wanted to garner the most eyeballs possible, and since YouTube is still the biggest outlet for videos, I figured that when people want to see online cooking videos, they’d go to YouTube before they went to Vimeo.

How much professional cooking experience/training have you had, and is that more or less important than just getting right to the experiments?

I trained at the New School of Cooking — I find that essential in understanding the science behind cooking, so that when I want to make food with particular flavours and textures, I know how to get there. It shortens the experimentation process. My journalism training definitely helps me write on my blog and stay comfortable on camera.

How important is collaboration for your show?

I couldn’t do my show without collaboration. Full stop. My husband is just as vital to the show as I am. And I couldn’t do it without all the artists who perform on my show!

Did Aarti Paarti help you get selected by The Food Network?

Aarti Paarti gave me weekly practice at my dream job for about a year! Every week, I got a little more comfortable talking to camera, whilst preparing food, which is a little bit like rubbing your tummy whilst tapping your head. That meant, by the time I sent in my application video to the Food Network, I had gotten pretty good at letting my personality and my food style shine through. Being on camera is much harder than you think!

Check out Aarti on The Next Food Network Star premiere this Sunday on The Food Network at 9p/8c, Sunday, June 6.

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter | Other ePiphany Articles

Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet? Sign up!

Comments(2) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, Marketing, Social Media, Web

The right CMS allows you to focus on your website content rather than the tools that run it. Numerous options meet the demands of countless websites. Astek designed Webany for you.

By now you should know why you need a CMS and how you can use a Content Management System to keep your website up to date. I wanted to share some tips about choosing the right CMS to make your Web life easier and more productive.

There are four basic types of CMS:

1. Open source applications that require configuration from a Web professional
2. Boxed desktop software that allow you to edit your website from one computer
3. “Boxed” hosted software that requires configuration from a Web professional
4. Hosted software as a service (SAAS) applications that relieve you from the burden of worrying about the backend

Here is some more info on each type of CMS to help you make the right decision:

1. Open source means that the code used to create the software is publicly available and takes advantage of a huge pool of resources (programmers) to develop. There are advantages and disadvantages to open source software. Since development is not regulated by a single entity, it also means that version-control isn’t 100% predictable or reliable. Typically this weighs on the side of advantage since there are a number of passionate, dedicated developers to fix problems that arise.

Open source developers create add-on modules or plug-ins to provide extended capabilities including forums, blog, wiki, web-stores, photo-galleries, contact-management, e-commerce, etc. It can be time-consuming to find the right plug-in, verify it works with your website and does what you need it to do, but chances are there is a solution out there for you. You will typically need to work with a developer to install, configure, and develop an open source CMS for you to use.

We like to use WordPress for blogs, which is an open source CMS for publishing. For blogs it’s nearly perfect, but we find that for creating more complex websites it has some limitations that inspired us to create Webany.

2. You can purchase boxed CMS desktop software like you would a word processor and run it from your computer. Adobe Contribute is a fairly capable desktop-based CMS. Typically these are designed for one person to manage one or more websites from one computer. While they can sometimes handle multiple users, this gets expensive quickly since you have to purchase additional licenses of the software for each person.

Some boxed CMS products are far more expensive and do offer a greater array of features. These also require set-up from a knowledgeable professional and rarely work perfectly “out-of-the-box” as their packaging might suggest. Again, these products are usually not designed to handle highly complex websites like our solution.

3. There are a few “boxed” hosted solutions out there that are not open source, but may still offer a suitable range of options for your Web needs. These are “boxed” solutions in that they are purchased as a single license, but are not designed as do-it-yourself products. You will need the help of a Web developer to install and configure these products on your Web server, as well as train you to use them. Telerik’s Sitefinity is a good example.

4. That leaves us with SAAS or hosted Web CMS. These have a big advantage in saving you time and money with set-up since they are maintained by the company who provides the service, which means you don’t have to worry about it! Some hosted CMS’ have pre-made templates for you to use, and only a few allow you to use a custom design.

You may still need the skills of a Web professional, especially if you are custom-designing a website to match your brand and specific needs. Astek specializes in this type of development, but we were consistently disappointed with CMS solutions that sacrificed features for ease-of-use, or packed in so many features that that they became cumbersome to use. Rather than settle for another solution, we decided to make one that meets our ideal for a CMS.

Webany is just right. She offers more flexibility than you’re likely to need while maintaining an intuitive design that makes managing your website a snap. You can update anything from words to photos to movies to custom forms without any knowledge of HTML. Use a custom design from Astek or anyone else.

Most importantly, Webany makes sure that your updates won’t counteract the effort and money you put into creating a custom-tailored look and feel. Auto-archiving and user workflow ensure a painless approach to website maintenance.

If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us for a Webany demo.

 This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles 

 Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet?  Sign up! 

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Technology, Web

Corporate blogs benefit greatly from a collaborative effort to produce and maintain. While it’s easy for anyone to start a personal blog in seconds, a company blog takes considerably more thought and planning to execute.

We are fortunate to have talented and engaged clients and want to highlight a couple of our most successful blog launches for The Alter Group and Bliss PR, which each benefit from multiple contributors. These projects engaged talented designers and thought leaders outside Astek who were essential to the end results. Both blogs run on custom installations of WordPress.

Astek’s focus on helping our clients produce blogs over the past few years is especially rewarding since the client has so much influence over the life of the end product, which changes nearly daily.

Case Study #1
Alter NOW and ALTER+CARE Inspire blogs featuring podcasts
Business Focus: One of the nation’s preeminent corporate real estate development firms.
Blog Focus: Corporate Real Estate, Finance, Economy, Healthcare
Approx. Combined Monthly Visitors: 4,800+
Original launch: April 10, 2008
Redesign and ALTER+CARE Inspire launch: April 6, 2009
Featured in: Alltop.com

Astek worked closely with The Alter Group team over several months to hone the voice and focus of the blog, identify and train contributors on software, design the feature set needed, and deploy a flexible platform for growth. The initial budget was low to make sure appropriate resources could be committed consistently and to prove ROI before “going big.” Once the process and message proved stable, we engaged a designer to add the finishing touches that make the blog what it is today.

Dramatic color and imagery set Alter NOW apart from other blogs:

Consistent and careful use of relevant imagery in each article pulls the reader in:

The footer of each article features a ShareThis link for easy distribution across email and other web sites (important for viral growth to reach new readers), the author photo, name, relevant categories and tags, and a link to leave a comment, which invites readers to become part of the ongoing conversation blogs present. This article also features a link to the corresponding podcast on the subject.

The sidebar features easy subscription links, quick links to the podcasts, and prioritized standard blog features such as search and recent posts:

Both blogs are featured prominently on The Alter Group home page for easy access:

Case Study #2
B2B Bliss » PR for Thought Leaders blog
Business Focus: Business-to-business strategic media relations and marketing communications
Blog Focus: B2B marketing, public relations, professional services, financial services, and healthcare

Working with BlissPR to design and launch their blog was, well, blissful! They had been planning this launch for some time so the overall strategy and content development were in good shape. BlissPR primarily needed a partner to help with design, production, and blog deployment and integration strategy.

BlissPR wanted to integrate the new blog into their existing Web site, which presented a unique set of design opportunities and challenges. The new design features a prominent masthead for the blog with subscription links and a search box. Each article on the home page is clearly delineated with a green title bar, photo of the author, and crafted abstract leading to the full story. The “Share” link has plenty of room to breathe, highlighting the importance of this word of mouth feature.

The side bar focuses on the people behind the blog to provide context to visitors. A brief description of BlissPR is immediately followed by photos linking to bios of all the authors. This is a great way to add personality to your blog. The sidebar is followed by standard blog elements like tag cloud and recent posts.

We’re very proud of our clients’ ongoing success with these publications. Please check them out and remember to leave a comment!

Alter NOW and ALTER+CARE Inspire
B2B Bliss » PR for Thought Leaders

Here’s a succinct list of five things you can do to improve your corporate blog. The three blogs featured above stand as testimony to these recommended tactics.

 This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles 

 Haven’t experienced an ePiphany yet?  Sign up! 

Comments(0) - Join the Conversation

Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Social Media, Web