A Web Design With Style & Simplicity
During the early project discussions it was clear that we wanted to bring a stronger style to the Simonson’s website.  Finding the balance between elegance and approachable was important.

Simplicity was a driving factor to make the website easier to use all around.  Clear navigation, focused services, content areas and new features combined to make the website easy to interact with for the user.

Simonson’s also is engaging with customers on social media channels like Twitter and Facebook.  You’ll notice the emphasis we put into letting website visitors know they can further connect with Simonson’s via social media.

Location, Location, Location
It’s no secret that the goal is getting customers in the door.  We put a strong focus on the Simonson’s four locations by making it the first item left in the main navigation, prominent footer information (see below) and the detailed page of each location.

Below is the website footer that displays a photo, phone and address of each location on every page.  These are also clickable to the location detail page.

The location detail page, like this one below for Plymouth, features the address, contact information, photo gallery, online appointments, store hours,  interactive Google map and other helpful links.

Finding the Right Stylist or Technician
Simonson’s has an experienced and talented staff and knows that their people make the biggest difference.  We created an easy to use search and filter tool for users to find the right stylist or technician for their needs.  If you’re looking for a stylist, specializing in red hair in Maple Grove, you’ll find it!

Recap of This Web Design Project
As you can see from the details above on a few features, a lot went into this web redesign in both form and function.  Here are a few more areas to hit upon in closing that we engaged in:

• Custom web design
• Content management with the SMC
• Custom blog design
• Search engine optimization & local search
• Salon & Spa Team search filter
• Enhanced location pages
• First time guest feature to market to new customers
• Online gift card purchase
• Online store integration
• Online appointment integration
• Prominent social media channel placement

We enjoyed the web design project, the great team collaborating together and the final outcome.

Check it out: http://www.simonsons.com

A Complete Web Application
Rear Window Media runs their business right from their website.  The back-end is a web application that allows advertisers to manage their ad(s) showing, their ad budget and other campaign details.  This application (screenshot below) is the hub of their client interaction and gives complete control to their advertising clients.

Incredible Tracking
RWM advertisers also get to view detailed maps on just exactly where there ads are showing.  How’s that for tracking?  By integrating Google maps with their web application, an advertiser can see what block in downtown Minneapolis thier ad appeared or what mile market on Interstate 35W.  Real time advertising, real time tracking.

Here is a screenshot of the map tracking report.

Web Design Project Overall
Five completed the front end of the web design and as well for their marketing interface.  This project really shows our ability to handle both the marketing front of a project and the complex web application backend, far past our great CMS features.

This project included:

• Web design
• Search Engine Friendly build
• Custom WordPress blog for RWM news
• Advertiser account & log-in
• Web application management for advertising
• Custom Google maps reporting
• Content management platform (SMC)

If you haven’t yet, visit the site:  http://www.rearwindowmedia.com

WCCO doesn’t offer a video embed, click here for the video.

Five Technology worked with Rear Window Media’s President Jessica Netter and created both the web design and an extensive web application that runs the Rear Window advertising management.  Rear Window clients can manage ad rotations, budget and track their advertising with GPS mapping right from an online account. We’ll post more on the Rear Window Project in a future blog post.

How valuable for an advertiser to know exactly what spot on Interstate 94 or what block in downtown Minneapolis their ad was displayed? Sounds like smarter marketing to me.

Check out the video, you’ll see the Five Technology logo in a few shots as we have some ads on their network.

Regardless of the service being controversial or not, Rear Window has seen a significant spike in both drivers wanting to use the service and advertisers for their network since the story aired. Any publicity is often good publicity, no matter how the story is spun.

Congrats Rear Window!  http://www.rearwindowmedia.com

Ranchline Network is a national real estate listing website, focusing on high-end land and ranches for sale. The website features hundreds of listings from brokers and agents all across the US and even Internationally.

Ranchline was founded by real estate broker Paul Taylor III who has achieved incredible success in the industry.  Paul and the Ranchline team saw a great opportunity to bring their marketing and Internet success to others in the Real Estate industry as a tool for them to market their properties and homes for sale as well.

Ranchline Network – A Better Website
At the core of the Ranchline Network website is a focus on making real estate research easy for the consumer.  The website offers the ability for a user to create an account to save properties and searches.  The layout is clean and offers clear navigation in multiple formats for any user to find their desired property.  These include:

• Type Navigation like Ranches For Sale, Land For Sale & Waterfront For Sale
• By State Navigation like Montana For Sale, New Mexico For Sale, Texas For Sale
• Search filters for land type, location, price range, listing ID# or keyword
• Visual map search with listing population numbers by state (see below)

In moving through the real estate listings users are presented with both strong visuals, clear navigation and over property details. Once into an exact listing the page consists of a variety of images, content, details, maps and more.

Content Management System To The Extreme
Our web platform is extremely flexible, scalable and capable of some great custom features. This project offered us the chance to program some great features for the updating and adding of listings.  The back-end offers a great feature and tool set including:

• Online creation of client accounts
• Online payment of one-time advertising & membership fees
• Uploading of listings, data, photos, video and more
• Listing statistics for agents to view stats on searches, impressions, views, clicks & contacts
• XML feed capabilities to automate listing population & updating process

Overall Website Project Details
The Ranchline Network project was a very expansive project and the client is not engaged in online marketing strategies with Five as well.  As an overview, the web design project involved:

• Custom web design
• Content management system integration
• User accounts and agent accounts
• E-commerce & merchant account
• Multiple search & filter features
• Banner ad network
• Photo gallery features
• Google maps
• Various XML data feeds
• Search engine optimization
• Pay per click marketing
• Web analytics

Check it all out for yourself, we’re proud to work with Ranchline as part of their team and business success.

Visit the website: http://www.ranchlinenetwork.com

MotorSportsGearUSA.com

The Motorsports USA Gear site is the flagship of this e-commerce network of sites.  The initial release of the site only lists snowmobile gear for sale, but will eventually offer ATV, Motocross and more.

Brand Focused Websites
The other aspect to this site is that we are producing product line focused websites.  The first one we produced is focused on Klim snowmobile clothing and gear.  The main site will feed product information to each of the brand focused websites.

E-commerce Website Features
These e-commerce sites feature the following:

• Custom e-commerce design (we also made the site easy to re-skin for the brand focused websites to follow)
• Product catalog & shopping cart
• Multiple navigation locations for category, brand & search
• Product preview & product detail pages
• HTML sitemap & product sitemap
• On-page SEO
• Product options & product codes
• Authorize.Net merchant account

We’re excited to release these new e-commerce web designs and make winter a little more fun.

• View http://www.motorsportsgearusa.com
• View http://www.sledgearusa.com

Our web redesign aimed to capture the beauty of Wild Marsh and it’s surrounding nature, while making it easy for interested golfers to get all the golf course information they needed to make a tee time.

This web design project involved:

• Custom web design
• Built on the SMC for full content management
• Online gift card purchase
• Events calendar
• Course photo gallery
• Integrated weather feed for current & 5 day forecast
• Printable golf web specials
• Search engine optimization
• Email marketing

We incorporated drop-down navigation for the website that displays both 2nd and 3rd level navigation to maximize the website’s usability.  The drop down menu is also customized with a background image involving elements of the Wild Marsh logo (bottom).

The printable golf coupons & specials page:

We have celebrated the release of the new Wild Marsh web design with a respectful golf clap in the Five Technology offices.  Twin Cities golfers looking for a great course at a great value will have to put this golf course on their list to play.

Website:  http://www.wildmarsh.com

MHAM works to meet the needs of the mental health community, respond to those needs, and work to make positive changes in the lives of individuals and in public policy.  The organization had utilized a web presence for the past 10 years, but the old website lacked many features and usability.

This Non-profit Web Design Project Included:

• Custom web design based on their new logo & colors
• SMC platform for full website content management
• Blog component for news & updates from MHAM
• Improved content structure & usability
• Search engine friendly design & search engine optimization
• User account management for interactive & communication features
• Discussion board integration
• 3rd Party donation solution

One of MHAM’s biggest desires was to create an easy to use interface/account for their community to interact with each other and become aware of the organization’s offerings.  Five created myMHAM and gave users the ability to easily create an account that allows them to interact on the message board, comment on mental health blog posts, select email list inclusions and receive the MHAM newsletter (mailed).

We’re excited about the new web design, the platform and the website features we put together in working with the MHAM staff.  We have no doubt that this new marketing and communication tool will contribute to their continued success and work within the mental health community.

• http://www.mentalhealthmn.org

Bringing Social Interaction To The Duck Blind
The guys behind The Hunting Authority came to us with the goal of being the best website an avid hunter and outdoors person could find.  Great design, great content, great features and most of all, a voice for the hunter.

We jumped at the challenge to build user profiles so that visitors to the site could create their own profile and interact with each other.

Here are some of the social features we built into the website:

• Account creation with screen name
• Ability to add/edit a bio
• Ability to designate hunting interests, areas and the ability to search other members with similar interests
• Status area to announce what you’re up to
• Bulletin board to leave comments on other members profiles
• Photo gallery to add your own hunting photos
• Ability to embed YouTube or other 3rd party video players
• Ability to write your own blog articles and comment/respond
• Ability to rate and review guides, outfitters and gear
• Ability to show your favorite web links

We packed a ton of great interaction and community tools into the initial launch of the website and already have more features slated as the website takes off.  We built out all of these features on our content management platform.

Hunting Blog
The site features a hunting blog that already is packed with great hunting info, wild game recipes, dog training tips and more.

Setting up a custom blog design isn’t a big deal for us, but the fact we integrated the profile account creation and log-in with the blog was pretty great.  This made the user profile creation just a single log-in for the site and simplified their ability to comment on blog articles.  It’s nice to have your CMS and WordPress play together so nicely, for everyone’s benefits.

Guides & Gear: Give Your Review
Once registered, the website users have the ability to add, rate and review outfitters, hunting guides and the hunting gear they use to hunt with. Users can search for hunting guides and outfitters by searching states or Canadian provinces and then view detailed information.

Working Footer
Lately we have voiced our thoughts on website footers being important.  On this website we put both first, second and even some deeper levels of links and pages into the footer.  You’ll see more of this as we feel its a great usability feature.

Success In The Crosshairs
As you can see, this web design project was no small creation.  The website has many more features than what we touched on here.  If you are a hunter, we encourage you to check out TheHuntingAuthority.com and create a profile. We enjoyed the challenge of the project and look forward to continuing to build out more great features.

We can vouch that these guys are dedicated to having the best hunting website on the Interweb.  Great content, great features and giving those with the passion and knowledge a voice; that’s what The Hunting Authority is about.

During the last decade, millions of websites were released year after year.  In a great trend for all involved, user experience became the dominant focus. Social media is now skyrocketing in nearly every sector for every audience. Websites are now being used on mobile phones and devices. Desktop applications are interacting with websites. Businesses are integrating a large amount of their operations into web-based platforms.

The trend in web design during the last decade resembles that of the 1960s and 70s in the advertising industry, often referred to as “The Golden Age of Advertising”. A time when great, original ideas were continuously rolling off the tables at agencies, and new technologies had enabled conceptual wizards to push the envelope with out-of-the-box ideas. Like then, we have had agencies and individuals all over the world pushing the envelope for the last decade to make the internet the best it can be.

Has anyone considered we may be in the golden age of web design? Some observations I have on this are below:

• Larger companies are re-investing in great design and technology regularly to retain and attract users. Smaller companies are biting off as much website as they can chew when facing overhauls and brand updates. Most companies are representing a growing interest in SEO, analytics, social media, marketing strategies and usability.
• Advancement of web application technologies – Web 2.0 methodology and technologies have swept the premium web marketplace and is here to stay.
• A threshold in interactive web design. While interactive & animation technologies continue heavy development, the majority of websites stay relatively limited with those features – particularly utilizing Adobe Flash, embedded video and JavaScript frameworks lightly.
• There has been an unprecedented drop in the releases of base website languages. From 1995 to 2001 there were 6 official version releases of HTML in 5 1/2 years. From 1996 to 1998 two versions of CSS were released. Now we stand around 10 years later with the next generations of each still pending – which are XHTML 2.0,  CSS 3, and XHTML/HTML 5.0.

Summing it all up:
Utilizing the tools we have today, web designers and developers have not required major advancements in technology to pump out robust, user-oriented, interactive websites. As much as anything, the ideas and approach has evolved.

The marketplace has also shifted to deliver stronger websites to smaller businesses at lower costs. In addition many businesses are going green and utilizing web technologies as cost-efficient marketing channels. Wikipedia is now the local library for many average citizens; Facebook, the schoolyard; Google, the everything.

We know it will continue to get better from here, but what I’m getting at is where we may be on the web technology curve.

Sounds like the golden age of web design to me.

Are you in need of a website redesign? Here are some points that might be telling you it’s time.

+ Time
If you want to consider timeframe as one rule, an industry average is every 2 to 4 years. Design evolves, your competitors improve their website, your brand grows and you need to keep things fresh. If you haven’t touched the visual interface of your site in 5 years, please seek help!

+ Functionality & Features
Many companies are looking to add features and better functions to their website. This is a perfect time to give the site a fresh coat of paint as well as roll out new tools. It might be the need to move to a content management system or to integrate specific functions like e-commerce or user profile accounts. Whatever the technical need is, a redesign can be more than just a visual touch-up.

+ Usability Issues
Some sites lack an easy to use navigation structure or have simply become larger than they were designed for. A redesign can incorporate an improved structure, utilize drop down navigation and other elements to make the site easier to use and convert more business. I’m always amazed, but there are still so many sites out there with random navigation features on every page. Yikes!

+ Search Engine Optimization
If you are lacking traffic from Google and Yahoo, then a redesign combined with proper coding and content structure can help. A site designed the right way and coded the right way can attract search engine traffic the right way.

+ Drab, Boring, Unprofessional
Sure this one is obvious. Just plain looking better is a great reason. Many websites are too basic as they were built to get something “up and out there”, have gone untouched for years and they have become old news. A redesign can freshen up your look, brand you apart from your competitors and show your dedication to future success and more. There are so many incredible web design and layout techniques we can employ in today’s world of web design to make you stand out!

The best part is while just one reason above may be driving your website redesign needs, you can address multiple deficiencies or challenges during your redesign. This can allow you to get more value and bang for the buck. If you are wanting a few more signals on when to redesign this post has 11 Signs on time for a website redesign.