We established a hard budget with the client during the estimation and proposal process. To stay under budget while producing a high quality product, efficiency was even more important than usual. One of the main pieces that was removed was lack of design concepts and lack of revisions. We needed to get this one right the first time!
Read more about working within a hard budget here.

We felt confident using this method of development since we had excellent communication with the site owner. We understood his expectations and felt like we were on the same page with him. Conceptually, we shared his vision and understood that he needed the site done quickly.

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Excerpt

The Wayward Roots website was developed using a custom WordPress theme loosely based on the 2010 theme. This is our typical method of WordPress development, we start with a stripped down custom theme and build upon it.

We used our set of custom WordPress functions to handle some of the sidebar and SEO items on the site.

From there we setup Posts categories and custom fields to manage News, Music, and Home page images. This allows the site owner to easily manage these lists.

The last pieces were using JQuery cycle and PHPThumb to manage the home page images. PHPThumb takes the full sizer image and does a zoom crop + maximum resize to display the image within the home page’s frame.

We had a lot of fun doing this site and check out Wayward Roots music

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!

Original article about the complaints about the city of Raleigh’s website design here.

Rehoboth Beach Bodywork needed their content moved into a CMS so we chose WordPress for its ease of use and shorter learning curve for the user. Additionally we custom wrote a couple of web applications to handle the specific types of content, including massage types. We also did analysis of keyword density per page, and came up with improvements to the existing content. We also implemented some other Search Engine Optimization tricks within the site to increase traffic.

The project turned out to be very successful for both the client and us.

Please check out the Rehoboth Beach Bodywork website as a great example of a superior site done on a limited budget.

Woodin was designed using our favorite Content Management System, WordPress + custom programming. This gave us the effect we were looking for and were able to create a custom projects area where Woodin can display all of their current and past projects.

SO check it out and feel free to give us any constructive (or complimentary) feedback about the site!!

WordPress was used to power the CMS (Content Management System) and a custom designed theme was developed for the design. We wrote several custom functions within WordPress which provided the functionality Preservation Delaware was looking for. One of the examples is that we wrote code to allow a visitor to submit an endangered site form, have an internal workflow to publish the endangered site, and then that information immediately appear on the website. All of the site information is stored in WordPress and a mysql database. A simple GUI makes controlling all aspects of the site easy. Preservation Delaware can update and modify any of the information on the website.

We were really excited to present this website 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 the press conference.

The Preservation Delaware website can be found by following this link.

Web applications are one of the greatest revelations of the Internet. It’s a development that is largely specific to the Web 2.0 era, but their significance will be in effect for generations.

The web app is a signifier of a fundamental shift in computing. It’s representative of the cloud and our newfound ability to decentralize our technical lives and spread ourselves across desktop computers, mobile devices and pretty much anything else connected to the Internet.

But web apps are driven by trends, and trends move fast. So if you’re slaving away on a mobile app, here are four trends that

More of the original article at Mashable here

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.