A true sign that someone is gaining a reputation in one’s field is when another professional in the same field tells one of their customers that they need to see you about getting work done.

This was the case for this website. Another web design professional (we’re not competitors… not only is there enough business out there for everybody, but they offer web sites as a side offering to what they normally do) told their client to call me because they wanted things done that they were not equipped to do.

The Keller Interiors website is two websites in one: One for commercial customers and the other for residential clients. Both sides feature their staff and contact information, and both sides are thorough about the company itself. However, that is where the similarity stops.

Residential and Commercial customers have very different needs, and the navigation, while very similar and consistent throughout the site, sends their site visitors to different information, depending on which side of the business they are working with.

This site does include Flash navigation, however, we built it in a way that it doesn’t use a whole lot of system resources, and their customers aren’t using iphones or ipads to look at the site. They are on their computers in their home or in their office, so it doesn’t cause any issues for their business.

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

This is a mantra in the United States Marine Corps.

The most successful businesses operate the same way.

Take, for example, MiLend Mortgage. They find ways to help people get financed to purchase or refinance a home. They look for solutions to problems and have grown well over the past year, when it’s supposed to be hard to sell a home.

Their website is built from the same philosophy. We found solutions for what they were wanting. It also brought in all the capabilities of Website Dave, Inc. It is a good example of all Website Dave building resources coming together at once. We even set up a photo studio in their offices  and took head shot pictures for their staff.

I had met with Dr. Brian Nadolne about building some sites for them and they wanted to think about it for a while. A couple weeks later, I was making some follow-up calls and when I pulled up his website, his website wasn’t there!

The doctor’s entire online presence came to a screeching halt.

About a third of my clients come from situations where they have either had a falling out with their web designer, or worse, they can’t find them at all. This particular time, though, the web designer was an old friend of the doctor, which would either make things easier, or make them worse.

In this case, it was the latter.

It took some work, but we were able to get the doctor back online with a new website in a few days, and soon thereafter, he had ownership of all of his domain names, something that he had not had before.

…and his friend… well, there’s a happy ending there, too. There was nothing hostile involved. It was just a “forgot to update the domain” situation. He was very helpful and cooperative throughout the process. He and the doctor are still friends, and everything is good.

On hot Summer days in Atlanta, going down the  Chattahoochee river with some friends is a popular way to beat the heat.

Urban Currents is a tube and kayak rental outfitting company that also teaches kayak lessons and takes groups down the river.

Chuck Armentrout, owner of Urban Currents, places a lot of importance on using the company to provide experiences for kids who might not normally get the opportunity to take trips like this. So he takes groups of inner city kids tubing, and they have a blast.

Chuck’s website makes it possible to book groups, download and print any applicable waivers and rental agreements and to get all the details so that everyone has a good time. A lot of questions get answered on the site, and he makes himself available to answer questions that the site doesn’t have answered (yet…).

In Cartersville, there is a quickly growing body shop that handles all sorts of work. Their bread and butter is the insurance claim work that they receive day in and day out, but what they really love is restoring classics and customizing bikes.

Collision and Restoration Specialists uses their website to show not only before and after pictures, but also to show a job’s progress. It is another way that a company can use a website and blog combination. They can choose to be very descriptive or very generic in their wording, using the right keywords as applicable.

I’m not sure who had more fun with this website, the client or me. Sometimes the right combination of light-hearted humor and a practical offering make for a website that everybody enjoys.

Alan Irvine started a company called Tangled Wires 2 Go, They install things anywhere from home theaters to campus security systems and also provide some smaller services, like setting up computers and installing hardware (which can be a frustrating experience if you don’t do it pretty often).

Although the website is a simple one, we combined a lot of concepts to make it happen. We had to develop a logo, and the idea of construction caution tape came up during our discussions. Working within the idea, we developed a logo that a lot of people could identify with quickly: someone holding a bunch of cables trying to figure out what to do with them.

We kept that idea playing through the beginning of the site and it has worked out well for our client. We keep hearing that he wants to start up a blog, but he’s being kept too busy!

When Judith Kolberg of FileHeads.net and I sat down, I was truly amazed at the amount of homework she had done before we met. She already had a really good idea of what she wanted and the meeting was very efficient.

Judith is one of the world’s most prominent experts on chronic disorganization. She speaks all over the world, helping people with solutions to their individual cases and helping doctors and therapists understand the issues involved more thoroughly.

When we went through all the details of what she wanted, it was clear that she knew what she wanted the site to do, but wasn’t as clear as to how she wanted it to look. Sometimes in cases like this, we will look at some template sites to help brainstorm ideas. During this brainstorm, Judith found a layout template that she really liked… although it was going to take a lot of customization and tweaking in order to make it hers.

Tweaking a template site can be simple to do, but when there are so many layout needs within one website, they can be just as tricky – requiring a whole lot of planning and organization on paper before even starting on the computer.

The first thing we had to do was reorganize the information that would be used on the site into an easy to use format for the visitors… not an easy task, because there were so many different categories to begin with.

Judith and I worked very closely together, especially during this part of the project. She had been published in many different publications over several years and large number of those articles had been archived.

We got everything tracked down and over a few more brainstorming sessions, we got Judith the website that she wanted. We got together for a few training sessions to make sure that she had the hang of it, and Judith has been making things happen on her website ever since!

Cirrus Aerospace is one of the top sellers of jet engines in the airline industry. Their reputation precedes them, and everyone in their industry knows who they are.

However, they found that their international clients prefer to look online on see what is available, so they decided that it was time to build a website.

They needed a simple site, one that didn’t come across as a sales pitch and with some very specific design needs. Their website is very straightforward, and the company’s reputation simply speaks for itself.

This could have easily become another over designed piece, but we agreed that less was certainly more in this case.

That was the start of the conversation with the operator of Southeast Aquariums as we began talking about what he wanted form his website.

The ability to switch and add photos for his galleries was very important. When they installed a new system or upgraded another, they wanted to get pictures up very quickly. I showed him a simple system of doing so, and we put together a beautiful site that shows off their beautiful work that they can keep up to date without having to wait for a web designer to get around to making the changes,

Tom in Kenosha asks:
What is your favorite website that you did not build?

One day, I’m going to make this answer into a video. I love videos and I’m really excited about playing with them here in the very near future. Anyway, on to your question… I’ll list my top five favorites…

#5 Big Island Eco Adventures
Zip line tours are becoming more and more popular and new ones are cropping up all the time. This site does just about anything a tour destination website could ask for. The only notes I have for it are to not have the video start playing automatically and improve the social media presence.

#4 Atlanta Reef Club
This is what an online hobbyist community website should be. It is well designed without a whole bunch of bells and whistles, but plenty of interactivity and tools… lots and lots of tools that make the site an online resource as well as a buyers/sellers post with hobbyists who have forgotten more about saltwater fish than I will ever know. It is aggressively moderated, so the quality of the posts is always kept high.

#3 PowerCore Members Blog
Yes. This is a simple WordPress Blog with a simple WordPress Theme. It is also a powerful tool that brings PowerCore a lot of attention and builds loyalty within its users. PowerCore is a close-referral-networking group with a single goal: to create opportunities for members to refer business to each other. The President of the company, Wendy Kinney, puts out a question once a week and members of the organization answer the question as it applies to their respective businesses. It is kept spam-free and all of the discussions are very respectful. Wendy has show how to use a simple tool, like a blog, to create additional brand loyalty, and always keeps it stocked with good information, because Content is King.

#2 I Can Has Cheezburger
If there is a funny picture on the internet, it has probably been on this website… or should I say collection of sites? Cute cats, dogs and kids start headline this parade, leading through weird outfits that people wear to “creative” home fix-it jobs and into the not-so-edifying failblog and after dark. This site offers lots of interactive opportunities, including the ability to create and submit your own funny picture. Sure, it’s a whole bunch of cute and funny pictures, but take a look at how many major companies pay to advertise on the website.

#1 Pure Hypnosis
Sean Wheeler is a clinical hypnotherapist here in Atlanta. He has been featured in Fitness Magazine, Nancy Grace’s Real Justice on Court TV and is most known here locally for helping one of the city’s most popular morning radio personalities to quit smoking. Sean makes extensive use of videos and audio tracks to share what he does with visitors. He won’t make you go around clucking like a chicken (and even goes into why you won’t cluck like a chicken on his site. Note: I recently became involved with this site developing an MP3 sales shop.