recent work
BILD Awards Show Website
When BILD (the Building Industry and Land Development Industry association) decided that they needed a dedicated website to promote and facilitate their premier event of the year – the home builder awards show - they told us that it was time to shed their corporate look and take it in a different direction. That’s music to a designer’s ear and our response was to let loose, and turn the glam up to 11!
Behind the requisite event details and ticket information is a complete nominations submission engine that allows members to complete their submissions including uploading supporting documents and an administration panel that allows BILD to manage accounts and download the submissions and data.
Attracting roughly 800 members annually, the site sets the stage for another great party!
Ellis Insurance
When Boston area insurance firm, Ellis Insurance, hired us to produce their first website nearly 10 years ago, who knew it would stand the ultimate test of time in the ever changing web world? Hailed by industry magazines and competitors alike as a first-class example of assisting clients at the brokerage level, we’ve given their customer friendly advice a new life with a user-friendly, up-to-the minute design.
For Ellis that means building on their vast library of informative and interesting articles that explain in plain English the ins and outs of all kinds of different types of insurance from Auto Insurance 101 to (can you believe it?) wine insurance and to a bevy of commercial insurance products for many industries.
The strategy of providing good old fashioned advice to ensure you have what you need – and no more – to illustrate the agency’s history of excellent customer service, has now been married with an SEO friendly design and superior organization/navigation to ensure that the good people of Massachusetts will not only find Mr. Ellis and his team, but quickly find the answers to their questions!
Urbanation.ca
If you have anything do with the active condominium industry in the Greater Toronto Area, chances are you subscribe to Urbanation. This quarterly report lists every suite of every building – even resales – right down to the fixtures! As you can imagine, it’s a massive database. We have recently redeveloped this website to take this incredibly complex data set and make it easy to understand, dynamic, readable, sortable, exportable, searchable (all the ‘ables’!) based on a huge variety of variables. Over a year later Jane Renwick of Urbanation reports that she continues to receive rave reviews from her clients who range from major banks, to developers and sales and marketing companies.
Avanti
When we were introduced to Avanti’s Stephen McWilliams we quickly learned that producing complex software for printers is a competitive marketplace and with that in mind, Avanti’s new site needed to be as search engine friendly as possible.
The site audit and planning stages of this project were critical. With nearly 30 software components distributed over 4 main modules, servicing different types of companies and printing hardware, content organization was paramount. Through meticulous planning and a design that focussed on organization, Avanti’s stats shot through the roof.
Mr. McWilliams enthusiastically reported back several months later that tradeshow participants were making their way to their booth the applaud their new online efforts, traffic was up – way up – as were page views and all-important lead generation.
BILD
BILD is the largest home building association in Canada with a membership numbering in the thousands and a stakeholder community many, many times greater. They are a great example of our work with Associations.
We are fortunate enough to have worked with the good folks at BILD long enough to have designed and built a couple of iterations of their family of sites. Strategy – namely creating different websites for very different audiences – and technical know-how have been the foundation of a successful partnership with BILD.
Today we manage 3 distinct websites for their members (bildgta.ca), homebuyers in the Greater Toronto Area (newhomes.org) and the RENOMARK project (RENOMARK.ca). RENOMARK began as a Toronto area project to assist homeowners in finding a reliable renovator. It was so successful, it was later adopted by the Canadian Home Builders' Association and is now being franchised to locals nation-wide.
In addition to a CMS, integration of a legacy membership database driving several dynamic content areas over their sites, and private content areas for members, we have also constructed several custom applications to accommodate member searches, awards show entries management, and implemented an in-house e-newsletter application solution.
BILD is a prime example of an association that understands the critical importance of its websites as the foundation of their communication efforts to their stakeholders. We are proud to work in partnership with BILD to provide innovative ideas to constantly improve communication and functionality and provide timely assistance.
services used
Confederation Log Homes
As one of, if not the, leading log home company in North America, CLH’s amazing website traffic is indicative of their popularity in the log home market.
Shipping their magnificent log homes pre-cut according to a vast array of plans across North America and literally around the world, creating a search engine friendly site is imperative. We designed a new (and our second) version of their site a couple of years ago incorporating segments of video produced for an infomercial into their site to complement specific information and provide video testimonials of the many happy CLH homeowners.
Organizing a wealth of helpful information was key to the ongoing success of the site. The site is clean, inspiring and easy to use. Today we continue to tweak the site for SEO, building a custom login application for dealer-only content and managing their newsletter emails.
Polyair Inter Pack
Long time client, Polyair Inter Pack is a publicly traded company that produces bubble wrap and other protective packaging products and distributes it across North America.
This is the second version of their corporate website we’ve built for Polyair in addition to several other product-specific websites. The goal in the latest iteration was to really simplify the organization of their vast array of products to make comparisons and product searches as simple as possible and to drive leads and support sales.
The re-branding of Polyair drove the need for a new site and we worked closely with their agency to ensure the new look and feel translated seamlessly to their online presence.
Metracon Travel
Metracon travel is a relatively new venture for owner, John Crowe. Over the past few years, Metracon has evolved into an incentive travel company organizing exciting trips for individuals and groups for the likes of Rogers, Scotiabank, FIDO, Pepsi and other corporate giants.
Working with a startup is exciting as anything is possible and challenging as that blank slate is, well, blank! We assisted Metracon with everything from their logo and look and feel to an entire, purpose built database application that allowed administrators and clients to login, book and manage travel.
Port 32
The residential community of Port 32 situated in the beautiful village of Bobcaygeon, Ontario in the Kawartha Lakes district is anyone’s idea of idyllic retirement for the active retiree.
We constructed this site to promote not only the uniquely fabulous community, but also to introduce the visitor to one of Ontario’s best cottage country haunts. We incorporated galleries throughout the site because where Port 32 is concerned, a picture really is worth a thousand words.
Sales staff report that the website drives traffic and receives rave reviews from prospective homebuyers.