by Bill Rambo | May 2, 2019 | Local News, Projects, Web Marketing, Website Design, Websites
Peggy Ann Bakery, a locally owned business in Greeneville, Tennessee since 1982, has partnered with ITD Interactive to develop their website and help build the brand for their new location in downtown Johnson City, Tennessee.
The owners of Peggy Ann Bakery decided to start with a “soft launch” for their website to offer general information about the new location. The full website will be launched closer to their opening date in Summer 2019.
In addition to general information about the business, ITD Interactive built forms for the site to allow visitors to ask the owners questions, sign up for opening updates, or apply for a job at the new bakery.
We look forward to this partnership with an exciting new local business! The finished site will be shared in the coming months.
If you’re thinking of starting a new local business or want to revamp the web presence of an existing one, get in touch with us! Our team has over 15 years of experience in Johnson City and the rest of the Tri-Cities and we understand our unique growing market.
Visit the Peggy Ann Bakery website
The mobile-friendly view of Peggy Ann Bakery’s website
by Bill Rambo | Apr 20, 2019 | Projects, Website Design, Websites
In April 2019 ITD Interactive developed and launched a brand new mobile-friendly website for The Urology Clinic, a urological health services practice with locations in both Johnson City, Tennessee and Bristol, Tennessee.
The new Urology Clinic website features a comprehensive list and descriptions of services offered by the clinic, downloadable forms for patients to fill out before visits, interactive forms for job applicants and general contact, and profiles of the doctors, surgeons, and physician extenders on staff.
The Urology Clinic was founded in 2000 in Johnson City, Tennessee with their second location opening in Bristol, Tennessee several years later. They offer urological health services to the entire Tri-Cities region.
Contact ITD Interactive today if your medical practice office is in need of a website facelift or SEO services! Our website hosting features a completely free SSL certificate to make ensuring your website is HIPAA compliant simple and painless.
See our work at JCUrology.com.
by Bill Rambo | Mar 18, 2019 | General, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design, Websites
As an entrepreneur, sometimes you’ll have a really great idea that won’t quite fit into the boundaries of a traditional WordPress or eCommerce site. There are many plugins and extensions available for each platform that can help make your ideas work but in some cases something more custom-made is better suited for your needs.
So…Web Design or Web Development?
The terms are often used interchangeably, but for the sake of clarity in this article we’re going to differentiate between the two. Web design typically refers to creating the layout and overall look of your site. Web development refers to the actual nitty-gritty of building a site or app like writing code and making major changes to established frameworks.
At ITD Interactive we primarily do our work on two platforms: WordPress for “normal” websites and Magento for eCommerce sites. Both are open source, secure solutions with a rich support network that make building sites for local businesses efficient and cost-effective. If you’ve got a more complicated idea than a standard WordPress or Magento site, custom development may be a better option.
Web Development Work is Customized for You
Since every client is different, our custom development work is a whole new piece of work for each client. One website might need a custom-made price calculator while another might need a color picker to help customers design buildings.
The great thing about WordPress and Magento is they’re easily adaptable with all kinds of available resources, meaning we have everything we need to make your idea work without breaking your budget.
Custom Web Development is Secure and Efficient
WordPress and Magento are open-source platforms, meaning anyone is free to build “plugins” or “extensions” that add new features to a website. Plugins can be useful to quickly make a site come to life but using too many of them can quickly bog your site down with unnecessary functions. Many plugins can be old and out of date with many vulnerabilities that leave your site open to malicious hackers. Other plugins can be full of added features you don’t even need.
Opting for a custom-built website or plugin means you get only what you need out of your website without any bloated unnecessary features that make your site slower and easier for hackers to break into. When you choose to go the custom development route you get only what you pay for — not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Custom Web Development Gives You Complete Control
Since you’re basically starting from scratch, every single facet of your project is totally up to you from the general look and feel of the site to how it reacts to input from users. We’ll work with you to make sure your site looks just the way you want it and works in a way that will keep your users coming back.
This level of customizability gives you an added benefit in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because we’ll be able to precisely fine-tune it to get you the best results possible without any of the filler that comes in cookie-cutter website templates.
Maybe Web Design is All You Need!
If this all sounds overwhelming and you just need a simple, basic website or eCommerce store, we can certainly help you out with that too! Visit our Web Design services page or read more on our web design and marketing blog for more information.
Your ITD Interactive Project is Yours
Once your site or app is finished by ITD Interactive, it gets turned over to you as the owner whether you’re a web design or full development customer. We don’t retain the rights or hold your site hostage if you decide to move your it to another hosting or maintenance service in the future. Many one-size-fits-all website solutions leave you tied to a contract that means if you stop paying you no longer have a website and have to start from scratch.
With your ideas and our expertise, we can build something together that will make building your brand and business easier than ever before. Ask us how to get started today!
by Bill Rambo | Nov 5, 2018 | Case Study, Marketing ROI, Sales, Website Design
ITD Interactive Website Redesign Case Study: White Construction Company
“The website has been very beneficial for our company! I have seen an increase in leads coming in through our website. I am very pleased with the design and layout of our new website and our new website is more user friendly now. The new design your own building page gives our customers a visual of what color their new building will be. Having an up to date website makes our company stand out above the rest.”– Brandon White, Owner/Manager of White Construction
White Construction is a family-owned business in Johnson City, Tennessee that specializes in the sales and construction of metal roofing and “post frame buildings,” a type of structure that uses heavy wood beams as the frame with a metal roof on top. They approached ITD Interactive about a total site overhaul in early 2017.
White Construction’s existing website was built around 2007 and hadn’t changed much in the ten years since. It mainly served as a place to put contact information, general details about the business, and photos of completed construction projects. They wanted a new site with a more modern look that would be mobile-friendly, easy to update in-house and offer more content for potential customers to see. During the planning phase co-owner Brandon White also had an idea – what if there was a way for customers to visualize what their building might look like with their hundreds of color combinations?
The process began with a new brand for White Construction including a logo and color scheme. ITDi then developed a clean layout for the site with a consolidated navigation menu that organized the site’s content in a more user-friendly way that would also work well on mobile. A call to action was placed in a convenient location on appropriate pages to make it easy for customers to request quotes for their projects. We also visited White Construction’s location to take photos of their office and warehouse as well as building materials to use as textures on the page.
Creating a “Design Your Own Building” Page
Once the site was up and running, we began working on a solution for a building design tool customers could use to customize their project. Working from a high-resolution photo of a White Construction building we took, we created a Javascript-based tool that allows the user to select from any combination of the 17 colors of metal White Construction can offer for roofs, siding and trim. The photo of the building updates in real-time based on the options the user selects. Click here to see the White Construction building designer in action.
The Results of White Construction’s Redesign
Brandon White says they’ve noticed a marked increase in leads coming from their new website. Many users have noted the ease of using the site, as well as the how convenient the custom color tool is when deciding what colors to choose for their building. On launch we showed Brandon how he can use Google’s Real-Time Analytics tool to watch how traffic reacts on his website after one of the company’s commercials airs on local television stations to monitor what pages they’re visiting the most, which allowed us to retool the front page for an easier user experience.
Statistically the site is doing very well a year and a half after launch. There has been a steady increase of new visitors and the average user spends over three minutes on the site with the Gallery, Design Your Building and Contact Us for a Quote pages being among the most-visited on the site, offering an easy path for users to learn who White Construction is, what they do, and how to get started on a new project.
Does your website need a facelift or a total overhaul? Contact ITD Interactive today and get these kinds of results for your business! We’ll work with you to develop the perfect site to fit your business model and increase your bottom line.
by Bill Rambo | Oct 15, 2018 | Search Engine Optimization, Security, Uncategorized, Website Design, Website Maintenance
Why Does My Website Say ‘Not Secure’?
If you’re a Google Chrome user, you might have noticed your updated browser is now telling you that some sites are “Not Secure” in big red letters. If you’re a business owner with your own website that’s being flagged this might be even more concerning to you. If you’re wondering what this means and how you can fix it, read on for the full story about SSL and You!
Google announced in early 2018 that starting in July their Chrome browser, the most-used desktop browser by a wide margin, would start flagging unsecure sites that aren’t using HTTPS encryption. HTTPS in plain English is the secure version of HTTP, which is one of the basic ways websites are accessed on the internet. HTTPS normally uses SSL for encryption, one type of security certificate that keeps private information transmitted on your site safe from snooping middlemen.
Think about it this way: imagine HTTP is the front door of your business and it has a standard doorknob with a regular old lock on it that you keep locked after hours just in case. HTTPS is that same door but with extra deadbolts added on to beef up your security and keep criminals out.
That’s not to say that any site without HTTPS encryption is automatically in danger of door-kicking hackers! If your site isn’t using outdated contact forms to send private information such as Social Security Numbers, financial information, etc., your site and its users probably aren’t in any real immediate danger without an SSL certificate protecting your site. The reason Google is enforcing this new rule is to encourage site owners to make the switch to HTTPS to create a more secure web with secure and encrypted sites being the default, not the other way around. It’s a great idea in theory, but the only problem with that is many security certificates can be expensive and difficult to install and maintain, many requiring yearly renewals.
If you’re a small business owner who needs a website and you’re scratching your head about all of this, that’s where ITD Interactive comes in! Our standard hosting package for WordPress sites includes a 100% free SSL certificate that we install and maintain for you. You’ll be automatically upgraded to an HTTPS site without any hassle or yearly renewal fees. Your site will be more secure and your users who visit your site in Google Chrome won’t get that annoying message that implies that your site is not safe to visit. We can also offer more heavyweight worry-free SSL certificates for eCommerce and medical websites that need added protection for an added cost.
If you’ve already got a website you’re happy with, you can still take advantage of this offer. Switch to ITD Interactive hosting and we’ll move an exact copy of your WordPress site to our ultra-secure servers and get your free SSL certificate up and running in minutes. Click here for pricing and more information.
by Marcus Ledbetter | Sep 24, 2014 | Inbound Marketing, Website Design, Website Maintenance
Photo by Anne Thornlley / Flickr
If you are looking for the interweb’s most complete listing of ways for updating a website, you’ve hit the jackpot. Here are 23 ideas with in-depth descriptions (from guys who update websites for a living) and lots of links to live examples to get you moving. (more…)
