I know it’s self-promoting fluff, but it’s always nice to receive a bit recognition. I was notified yesterday that Sirius Media was awarded the Best of Portland Award in the category of Web Design and Development by the Best of Portland Awards. This means I am eligible to purchase a lovely wall plaque or free-standing crystal award for my already overcrowded desk. They even put out a press-release on it, even though it says way more
However, I must say I’m very proud of work done in this past year. We gained two new non-profit clients, GLOBIO.org and ChimfunshiUSA.org. Both of which are projects I’m extremely proud of. I got to work with one of my favorite UX mavens, Liz Bacon, on her reboot of DeviseConsulting.com, and helped Elizabeth Higgins recover and rebuild her website full of glorious artwork. Another creative professional is newly published author Dana Brown, whose book “Single Is as Single Does” has just hit the stacks at Amazon.
Another Year in Site Recovery
Unfortunately, this year also included restoring several clients sites who had been hacked due to lack of regular maintenance. I encourage anyone with a WordPress site to sign up for regular Site Maintenance plans, which we now offer. Invest in a little peace of mind this year by signing up for one of our affordable plans. Your site will always be backed up, secure, up-to-date, and running efficiently.
If you want a cookie cutter website you can find them elsewhere. Each Sirius Media website is hand crafted to tell your story in the most effective way possible. Our sites are finely tuned to engage your web visitors and convert them into customers. It’s both an art and a science. Here’s how we do it.
The Interview
We’ll meet in person or over the phone to learn about your business, your goals and gather information. You’ll learn about similar Sirius Media projects, and explore new possibilities. Ask questions — we’ll answer them! This in depth consultation and estimate is free to the customer.
Get a Bid
Bids are created in modules, so projects can be phased in as budgets allow. Work begins after the contract is signed and a 25% deposit is made. Once your deposit is made, your project is in production.
Review and Research
A look at your current site, analytics and your competition helps us know what has worked, what hasn’t and why.
Dig into Design
Can range from extensive custom design work with 3 layout options to choose from to selecting a standard WordPress theme to customize with colors and fonts. Includes information architecture and site mapping.
Collect Content
Gather information available and decide what needs to be written, which images are needed, or video to be recorded, based on site design and clients brands.
Time to Review and Refine
Review and Revise
Each step has two rounds of review built into the estimate. Additional changes will be charged by the standard hourly rate.
Interaction Maximization
Now’s the time to add custom forms, private content, embedded media, or ecommerce elements. Time for all the interaction bells and whistles!
Going Beta
Every site gets a pre-launch run through to make sure it works on all modern browsers and mobile devices.
Let's Launch
10, 9, 8….. we now have lift off! We carefully connect your domain name to the site, and make sure your emails are all working. Repointing the domain can take as little as 30 minutes to up to 2 days to complete.
The Sirius Extra Value: WordPress Training
We believe in empowering our clients to use WordPress to maintain their websites and provide each client a Website Guide with step-by-step instructions on how to do simple site updates, including all the security information to maintain the site.
You get going with what you can afford and, unless you’re a startup with angel investors, you make do until there’s some money actually coming in. Once business starts rolling along, it’s easy to forget about the website that got you launched.
Often, your first website is pretty basic. Maybe there wasn’t a budget to put it together, or a design student did it for peanuts, or a free website builder was used. Your site works, and may even look okay, but traffic has stalled. It’s time for a change.
It’s time to consider a new website if…
It’s been more than 3 years since you redesigned.
Your website uses Flash animations. Adobe’s animation darling is quickly becoming a faded flower.
The site is difficult to maintain, which results in outdated, missing, or incorrect content. Out of date content detracts from your search ranking.
It’s not friendly to mobile devices such as tablets or smart phones.
Your site doesn’t have an SSL certificate. This is a feature modern browsers require and it’s a help with search optimization, too.
Website doesn’t match current marketing campaigns. Branding consistency is so important. If your site doesn’t showcase your new logo, use your colors or displays an old tagline, then it’s working against you, 24/7.
You’re not collecting new email contacts for marketing. Take advantage of email marketing by growing your email list.
Feeling insecure? Hacking and malware attacks are omnipresent. If your site is running the latest security package, it’s vulnerable to the bad guys.
Social share buttons are missing, or connections to your social media pages are absent.
Your content is out of date. Google looks for content that has been updated or is new. Adding video, slideshows or podcasts are great ways to increase online engagement and dynamically tell your business’s story.
Business contact info, hours or location is hard to find, or the contact page is missing. Hidden contact information is lost business. Make sure your phone, email, office location and business hours are clear and easy to find.
Site traffic is not being measured with Google Analytics. It’s free, easy to install and a must for monitoring any website health.
Recently, the venerable community blog Metafilter redesigned after getting feedback from Google that their decade old site design made the content look out of date and unreliable. Website design can affect not just your branding, but also the perception of reliability, and search engine visibility. Even Google likes to see something new now and then.
If your website meets 3 or more of the above criteria, it’s time to consider an upgrade.
Sirius Media is an expert in guiding clients through the upgrade process. We know what is working for businesses like yours, can recommend restyles that work on all devices, provide graphic design services, advise on SEO decisions, and install the analytics tools to monitor your site and measure success.
With a fresh new website built on the popular and robust WordPress platform, you’ll be able to easily take over site updates while being ready to do site improvements and upgrades in the future.
Take your business website to the next level. Get Sirius today!
I hope you know how pleased we are with your work. It’s been such a pleasure collaborating with you. Thanks for all your hard work, skill, patience, expertise, flexibility, and good humor.
Derrick Martin-CampbellProject Access NOW
Working with Fellene on my new website was a delight. She patiently and professionally guided me through the easy and the hard parts. She has great design sense as well as excellent web coding skills—a rare combination. I especially appreciated that she was on top of every detail, responded quickly to my requests, and was unflappable when I changed my mind.
I may be your sister but I’m still your biggest fan. I know you’re a fabulous designer. I applaud your ambition to follow your dream! Love you always.
Susan FergusonPresident Miracle MaintenanceSchaumburg, IL
I am very pleased with the site updates. Thank you so much!
David WatsonSonoma Jazz
I greatly appreciate your professional and organized approach to collaboratively co-creating my website! You kept us on time and on task, gracefully, I am thrilled with the finished product!
Sirus Media created my website in record time. Fellene Gaylord not only created a BEAUTIFUL website, she seemed to intuit on some grand level exactly what I was visioning. The process was so painless and her follow-up help so handy, that if I needed multiple sites, Sirius would be my go to for sure!
Thanks so much for the great attention to detail and making sure all these small but critical things are working as they should! This is what separates the men from the boys in consulting work! Sorry to use such a sexist analogy, but it is so apt.
At the end of the project she topped it off with a great training session build around a wonderful guide with everything I need to know to maintain the site. For companies, especially small one, who want a site that looks like it costs a lot, but want great value for a reasonable price, contact Fellene.
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