Corporate Case Study

pdf

Primary Goals

  • Creation of dynamic new website as part of marketing plan
  • Delivery of email newsletters highlighting announcements, events, etc.
  • Monitoring of website analytics to track marketing campaigns and sales leads
  • Focus on company's products, press, and industry influence

Technologies

  • W3C standards compliant code
  • XHTML (markup), CSS (style sheets)
  • Open source technology
  • PHP (programming)
  • MySQL (database)
  • MultiMedia
  • Flash, Quicktime
  • Advanced web metrics

Theory

  • Site Code
    • Separation of content from design (visual design elements reside in one or two files), thus site-wide updates (to design, navigation, etc.) are quickly made
    • Content stored in a database, and styled on-the-fly to build dynamic pages, and optionally target specific browser formats (web, print, mobile device, etc.)
  • Site Structure
    • Simple menu navigation
    • More links in page content where applicable
    • Pull visitors to popular and updated content
  • Site Features
    • Site search engine
    • Contact info on each page
  • Site Design
    • Consistent user interface
    • Adapts to any amount of content
    • Related content always in sidebar
  • Search engine friendly
    • Site structure, URLs, etc. optimized
  • Email Newsletters
    • Sent as announcements occur (no set schedule)

Development Process

To begin this project, we had several meetings with the marketing team, during which we:

  • analyzed the current website analytics in detail, determining popular content, and content to which we wished to drive visitors
  • compared competing website designs and functionality, listing features we liked, and ones we disliked
  • discussed layout, look and feel, multimedia elements, product download registration, and other features of the new site

We then setup a project site on our server for development purposes, including a content management system, so that page content could be edited by nontechnical team members while we were building the site. The project site recorded all notable updates made to the site on a day-by-day basis. Responding to feedback, we refined and tested the site, and continued adding content. The site went live about two months after our initial meetings (this time also went towards copy creation and revision).