Internet Strategy

The Internet is much more than static pages. It is a vast platform for communication with an ever increasing array of methods for interacting with your audience. In order to use these tools effectively, you need a road map tailored specifically for your business. We will help you develop a strategy that fits the way you do business encompassing the following areas:

  • website and domain name
  • content management systems (CMS) - specializing in WorpPress and Joomla! integration and customization
  • email marketing
  • social networking - Facebook, Twitter
  • video - online streaming, DVD, broadcast
  • e-commerce - shopping cart and payment portal integration
 

Site Workflow - User Interaction Design

This is where all the pieces come together. How you interact with your audience determines how effective you will be at leading them to your desired goal. More specifically, it is making sure all of the pieces of your Internet Strategy are working together. If you send out a email with a "special offer," make sure it sends the user to a "landing page" with information about that offer.

Workflow Diagram for small business website
Workflow Diagram for WordPress blog site
Data Flow Diagram for database driven site with dynamic conent
Site Map for database driven site with dynamic conent
 

Visual Design

Each of the elements in your Internet Strategy should incorporate the look and feel of your brand identity. Visual cohesion is a very important part of the user experience and as the Internet provides more and more ways to reach out to your audience, you need to rise above the rest of the "white noise" of Twitters, texts, and spam by being instantly recognizable.

We begin by presenting our clients with three design variations for review, from which we determine a single direction for two more rounds of revisions. When a final design has been agreed upon, the result is a "style guide" which covers colors, type, layout, and other pertinent details for the current project and future developments.

Design comp example 1
Design comp example 2
Design comp example 3
 

Web Production & Development

With all of the pieces in place, the real work can now begin. A complex project may begin with a working prototype, or it may be as simple as integrating a template into an existing WordPress blog. Production is not complete until the project has been tested on a variety of browsers and operating systems.

Take a look at some of our recent launches.

 
 

Web Hosting

Packages start at just $60 per year with upgrade options to cover nearly every small business application.

Domain Registration

Domains with "private" registration start at $36 per year. "Private" means they are registered with a proxy service in order to keep your personal information secure.

 

... and production and development on sites designed by our friends at Blufish Design in Starkville

 
 

Drop us a line, let us know what we can do for you.

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New WordPress Installation, New Design

The coolest features of our new site are probably not apparent just by viewing in your browser. We taken advantage of the 960 grid system, developed by Nathan Smith, for the layout of the new template. As you can see, the site utilizes a customized WordPress theme. WordPress (currently 2.7) continues to become easier to manage, infinitely flexible, and a lot of fun to design with.

WordPress uses a JavaScript library called jQuery for user interface functionality, so that is what we used when adding “accordion” and tabbed menus to the site. These are fun to play around with, but the real beauty is that the content is separated from the design, handled by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and the interface animation, handled by jQuery. If your browser has JavaScript disabled or cannot read style sheets, the information is all still there in simple easy to read HTML. Why does this matter? Because everyday there are new devices coming out to browse the Internet. You cannot afford to design a site that only works for your 24 inch monitor. Preparing for whatever comes next is essential, and the best way to do that is to keep your content clean and simple.

I’ll go into some detail about these different features in future posts and explain how they can be used to help with your Internet strategy and getting your message out to your audience.

About Longboat Studios

Founded in early 2008, Longboat Studios is a full-service Web design and development shop located in Starkville, Mississippi.,

Longboat in surf

In the days of sailing ships, a vessel would carry several boats for various uses. One would be a longboat... Unlike the dinghy or the cutter, the longboat would have fairly fine lines aft to permit its use in steep waves such as surf or wind against tide where need be.[1] wikipedia.org

About Troy DeRego

View Troy DeRego's profile on LinkedIn

Originally from New Hampshire, Troy received a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early nineties where a passion for music and visual arts proved to be a winning combination as the demand for digital multimedia exploded.Troy began work as a sound designer and composer for interactive media on CD-ROM and the Internet, and quickly developed a focus on user experience design, "the overarching experience a person has as a result of their interactions with a particular product or service, its delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design."[2].wikipedia.org

Troy has explored his user-centered design philosophy at companies such as frogdesign, InfoSeek, and Intel, as well as on numerous independent projects. In the pursuit of creating engaging user experiences, Troy has been recognized with awards in screenwriting, and his short films have screened worldwide.

  1. Wikipedia contributors, "Longboat," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
    (accessed February 27, 2008).
  2. Wikipedia contributors, "User expereince design," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
    (accessed May 26, 2009).