The first project was to design a weekly newsletter and a method of distributing it. Geoff Matheson Design did all of the newsletter design plus the basic HTML programming.

The newsletter needed to be graphically appealing, so it therefore needed to be designed using HTML. Writing the HTML for a newsletter is very challenging because there are a lot of popular mail applications, each of which display the HTML differently. To limit our updating the HTML, we needed to test the design on all popular mail applications throughout the development process.

When creating a newsletter you must not only create a flexible design, you must also be able to code that design in a very basic type of HTML.

Once the design was coded in HTML, we needed to setup an area where the client could generate each week’s newsletter. Our client needed to type the name and the content for the newsletter and have all of the HTML generated. This was done by creating a simple custom admin area that will generate the newsletter’s HTML each week.

The last part was figuring out the best way to distribute the newsletter. After trying several methods, we ended up using Mail Chimp for newsletter mangement and distribution. Mail Chimp has a free plan: up to 2,000 subscribers; send up to 12,000 emails per month.

The next project was also a HTML email newsletter. We were used as subcontractors by Cause Design.

The problem was that the HTML would not display properly on all major email applications. We used email newsletter testing matrices to show us how the HTML would display on different mail applications.

After viewing the original matrix, we realized the HTML needed a complete rewrite. The reason is that certain mail applications do not recognize style driven design. After going through 11 revisions, we were able to create HTML that gave us a consistent look on all major email applications.

Our piece of the puzzle was solely website design and web development. There were also certain elements of graphic design that were required of us, but the design and concept was done by Rodd at Cause Design.

This project was a rapidly paced project which moved quickly. We met with Rodd and he supplied us with the entire design and concept in Photoshop. We then translated this design into a web based format. Geoff from Geoff Matheson Design helped with CSS and graphic work. His work was invaluable in getting the design tweaked just right.

For this project we used WordPress as our CMS. WordPress is a superior user friendly CMS and is designed for SEO and other internet web standards.

For all of our websites that use WordPress, we design the WordPress theme from the ground up. Our theme is loosely based on the best parts of the current recommended 2010 design. We start with a stripped down 2010 theme + some of our own default goodies. A customized theme and layout is then created from this default. This is where we then build our CSS and XHTML code. Since we have such an in depth knowledge of WordPress, we can use built in WordPress functions at times, and then either use our own custom written PHP functions or create our own. The combination allows us to create anything and everything possible, while giving the site owner complete control over their site.

Other features of this website are:
1. A JQuery Cycle based home page splash. JQuery Cycle is very cool because it allows you to use JavaScript with regular XHTML & CSS. It is incredibly flexible and really easy to use.

2. Lots of WordPress Post customization. We use WordPress Posts as custom taxonomies which power pieces of the site, like the Testimonials. The site owner can then add and edit these Posts and all of the information will appear in the correct sections of the website.

3. Recent Blog posts on the home page use PHPThumb to display thumbnails of larger images. PHPThumb is one of the coolest scripts we’ve found in awhile. It allows runtime thumbnails to be created & their file size adjusted proportionately. This means that the site owner can upload any image & our script can crop this image however we tell it to. Super Cool!!

4. TypeKit fonts used for the website’s font.

5. Social Media Optimization and collaboration. Each of the Blog posts on the website have their subject and URL automatically posted on The Game Within’s Twitter feed. Once the tweet is done, it is automatically posted on The Game Within FaceBook page and then finally automatically posted on Christo’s Linked In page.

So check out the website today!

Surprisingly enough, Wilmington Delaware ranks #10 on the top 10 Tweets by businesspeople. The Fall 2010 Social Media report by netprospex (linked here) shows that a high number of businesspeople in the city use Twitter. The metrics take into consideration the number of users, number of tweets, number of followers, and number of users following the account.

Wilmington, Delaware ranked #45 in the “most social businesspeople” list. It is sandwiched between Pittsburgh PA and Oklahoma City, OK, 2 MUCH bigger cities. So #45 is not bad, considering Wilmington is a city of about 70,000 people. Additionally, Philadelphia ranked at #15 on the most social businesspeople list. Philadelphia was not ranked on the active Twitter users list.

We have been explaining the value of Twitter to our clients so we hope to help increase the Wilmington Delaware and Philadelphia rankings!

Geoff and EJHost decided we would try to finish the entire website in the 2 week project plan. It was a very aggressive schedule, and we needed to have an open channel of communication with the client. Throughout this development process the Preservation Delaware representatives clearly defined when their availability and we were able to keep the project on schedule this way.

In the initial version of the site, we were able to provide much of the functionality Preservation Delaware was looking for.

We used WordPress as the CMS using a custom designed theme. We wrote several custom functions within WordPress which provided the functionality we were looking for. One of the examples is that we wrote code to allow a visitor to submit an endangered site form, have the administrator approve that form, and then that information immediately appear on the website. All of the information is stored in WordPress and made easy to update and modify any of the information on the website.

We were really excited to present this website today to the Preservation Delaware Board Members and give them an overview of some of the capabilities. We would like to thank the entire Preservation Delaware organization, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, Delaware Secretary of State, Jeff Bollock and everyone else who attended today.

EJHost continues to work mainly with Philadelphia and Wilmington Delaware area businesses and organizations. If you or your business has any graphic, website, or application development work that needs to be done, please feel free to contact us. We provide free estimates on any proposal & can help your business take off online. From Website Design and Hosting to Search Engine Optimization to Re-branding and logo design to Custom Application development to Social Media Marketing, we have several authorities and Subject Matter Experts (SME) available to work with your business. Check out our recent projects page for examples of our work.

Currently in various stages of the project life cycle are the following projects:

Current EJ Host open projects include:

NOTE:
Preservation Delaware’s website will be launched this Saturday, September 25th, 2010. This will coincide with a press conference with the Secretary of State and the Governor of Delaware.

Check back Saturday on the Preservation Delaware website for the new website! (we’ll post another story at that time too!)

Prior version of Play Therapy Delaware

New Play Therapy Delaware Website

Play Therapy Delaware

Play Therapy Delaware was recently relaunched with its new brand and look of the website. Carol Bouzoukis contacted EJHost regarding increasing both the traffic to her website and her number of clients. Her old website needed a complete makeover + it needed to be optimized for Search Engine Optimization. The project included creation of a new logotype for her site, minor updates to copy writing, proper html and image tagging, increasing the depth of her content, addition of a blog, and keyword targeting for SEO optimization. The budget for this project was under $1,000, so most of the development time was spent on design, properly tagging her site and html optimization. WordPress was used as the CMS and a custom theme was designed. After the completion of the project, PLay Therapy Delaware is now positioned for an advertising / marketing campaign with Google AdWords or another PPC program.

Geoff Matheson Design took care of the graphic design for this WordPress site, EJHost did all of the keyword research. proper tagging, and other elements of SEO for the site.