When Brickhouse approached the Savy Agency team, they had been locked out of their existing html website, weren’t granted control of the domain from the site’s original developer and had no way, even if they did have control, to edit their site, add new specials or menu items, update their wine list or announce upcoming events at the restaurant – not a good thing in a world where on the web content is king. Today’s restaurants should be updating their sites and keeping in touch with locals on specials and events. Brickhouse came to the right place.

A Quick, SEO Friendly Web Solution

Although Brickhouse is still battling to get control of their web domain, The Savy Agency’s web development team moved quick and developed Brickhouse a completely new, feature-enhanced, search engine optimized website with a built-in blogging portal for them to post restaurant pictures, news and events, and a fully dynamic wine and dinner menu that they could continue to grow as their restaurant does. The site is soon to launch once Brickhouse gets the keys to take their old site down, so check back with them shortly to enjoy a new, fully dynamic Brickhouse Bend and Redmond website.

Website | launching soon. Look for it for Bend and Redmond.

“When you’re active, the last thing you want to worry about is sweat. It’s bothersome and it burns when it gets into your eyes.” This passively secured, sweat absorbing and moisture wicking helmet liner for use inside ventilated helmets such as cycling helmets, climbing helmets or for industrial use.

SweatHawg is One Thirty Beast. And it’s soon to wick heads everywhere.

We named the product. Designed the brand, tags and website, for starters, so we love the product and are pretty sure you will, too.

Website and brand | launching soon. Look for it at Pole Pedal Paddle in Bend this weekend.

Redesigning an Old Website

Michael Scannell of Woodcraft knew it was time to move to a more dynamic website that performed better in search and allowed him to update the site himself, add new articles and blog posts and integrate with social media. Fortunately, we had the tools to help.

Why Have Us Design Your Website?

When Michael approached Savy, he wanted to know why we were different and why the technology, and of course our design skills, would benefit him so that his company’s website performed well in the search engines and was a benefit to his business.
Here’s what we said:

The Way We Build Websites …

Google Just “Likes”

Due to the platform we use to build websites, our sites rank very well in Google search results, even in competitive markets.

Provides SEO Benefits

The way our sites are built help you increase your web content and fast. All that content adds to your keywords quickly and if you build your post content correctly, can be a broad “net” for inbound search traffic.

The websites we build are also easy to crawl by the search engines, which help you get indexed properly and appear well in broad and granular search results.

Uses a Blogging Platform to Help Rankings

The websites we build are also structured to use a blogging platform. This means our clients’ posts receive lift in rankings once they’re written and published. This works because it’s new and fresh content which is noteworthy and rewarded by the search engines.

The websites we build also use pings, comments and trackbacks to allow other blogs and individuals share and link to your site, creating inbound links and web traffic.

The new website will be live | next week

For decades we’ve been developing business and eCommerce websites, designing award winning brand identities and creating and managing marketing campaigns of all sizes.

As an agency our work “works” because we employ  a lean approach to our processes that leave little room for error. In fact, we stand behind our processes to such a degree that we’ll sometimes decline work if our lean approach to creative development isn’t a fit for one client or another. We need to be able to function effectively as an agency – and in doing so we’re able to retain the reasons that our clients love working with us:

We’re fast. We’re effective. We’re price competitive. We’re nimble. We’re experts in the industry. We’re a little geeky. And a lot creative.

As The Savy Agency’s Creative Director, Christina Brown, is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Auditor, it’s in our background to come at our projects from an “on-budget, on-time” approach.

One of our differentiators is our focus on the 5s system of lean:

Sort – To remove what is not needed and keep what is needed.
Straighten – Place things in such a way that they can be easily reached whenever they are needed.
Shine – Keep things clean and polished; no trash or dirt in the workplace.
Standardize – Maintain cleanliness after cleaning – perpetual cleaning
Sustain – Commitment to inspire pride and adherence to standards established for the four components

With quality control, we’re able to remove the wastes of waiting (process), looking (systems) or creating variation (workflow),

by eliminating the unnecessary and optimizing what remains. As such, we follow Web Development Best Practices and Quality Control Guidelines with our creative staff and contractors that keep everyone on the team on-time, on-point and moving ahead.

We’re happy to share our web development quality control standards, as we feel it’s important our clients are confident that we’re managing every aspect of the their web design and development projects in the best interest of quality.

Layout

1. All images, positions and layouts are consistent; see psd
2. Navigation is consistent and functions as intended; see hovers in psd
3. Footer includes copyright, company and ‘web design’ as hyperlink and agency as text
4. Displays without horizontal scrolling at 1024×768 and higher resolutions
5. Homepage downloads within 10 seconds on dial-up and without delay on high speed

Code

1. Where posts are used for functionality like featured/home slides, those are excluded from visible categories like on the blog
2. No JavaScript errors or scripts are visible in slideshows or other
3. Plugin use is kept to a minimum. Unnecessary plugins are deactivated and removed.
4. Bold, italic, bullet and left/center/right align have been defined
5. Line spacing has been set
6. Htags have been defined (1-6)
7. Styles are defined for 404 and archives pages
8. Images and link styling are set and function as intended; see psd
9. Hyperlinks are coded to use hover and inactive states (styles)

Compatibility

1. Displays on Internet Explorer (8+)
2. Displays on Firefox (5+)
3. Displays on of Opera (10+)
4. Display on Safari (both Mac and Windows)

Navigation

1. Navigation is structured in an unordered list (accessibility)
2. All navigation links work — are not broken — and load to existing pages/posts

Color/Graphics

1. Graphics are optimized and do not significantly slow download, yet are exported high enough for maximum clarity

Multimedia

1. Any video players used are iPhone, iPad and Android compatible, e.g. no flash players

Content

1. Web safe fonts are used, or no more than one web font used with font kit
2. Fonts, font sizes, and font colors are consistent; see psd
3. Any copy added or created using hyperlinks avoids the use of “Click here”

Functionality

3. If provided, any internal hyperlinks work
4. All forms function as intended and return email html has been setup and tested

Accessibility

1. If images are used in the navigation, clear text links are in the footer of the page
2. Navigation is structured in an unordered list
3. To assist screen readers configure the html element’s lang and xml:lang attribute to indicate the spoken language of the page
4. Custom permalinks have been set

Did we miss anything. What else would you add?
We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Have fun out there –The Savy Agency Team

We do this because A. we love them. B. we’ve been at it for a long time, and C. because we follow a few key rules. By using a comprehensive management process, not to mention the newest, best-in-class tools available, we’re able to employ successful projects that make clients happy — and their products and services a success.

In the initial project kickoff phase, good ideas, complicated technologies and complex functionality all add complexity. Often simple projects can simply become unmanageable within the timeline or project budget.  Then what?

The Savy Agency comes at it from an on-time, on-budget and lean approach to getting things done to everyone’s satisfaction.

While every project leader has a preferred style that seems to work and get the project done – just as every client has a unique set of challenges and needs, here are a few tips to help move your next project towards success:

1. Ensure you’ve identified “success.” and will be able to benchmark that at the project’s completion.

2. Ensure that size and scope fall within the resources available. Are wing serve a full course meal on a cheeseburger budget. We need to be realistic and practical and build the best possible within the project scope.

3. Elegant simplicity. Getting launched in a beta phase is often one of the best decisions you can make. Simple sites are cleaner and easy to build from the get go so long as you’re using up-to-date technology.

4. Always under-promise and over-deliver.

5. Always win. It’s better to walk away from a project before its kickoff then to fail half way through, both for the client and the team.

6. Use online services for file sharing when possible. This has been a great benefit and time saver for us in moving large files and expedites the process when needing to review and approve drafts.

The landscape is competitive, and it takes many players to bring together a marketable product or service.

When we work with clients, open communication is important for planning and executing finished products.  We always remain available to assist with our client’s questions and concerns.

Lash Day Spa approach Savy in need of a way to keep in touch with past clients with spa specials and upcoming events. They didn’t have much time to manage a complicated email program or “learn the ropes” from scratch with one of the common template-based email marketing providers, such as Constant Contact or MailChimp. Lash was looking for a design that was beachy and true to its Santa Barbara roots yet that was classic, clean and easy to read, print and share. Lash had been communicating with past and potential customers via email and would have to manually type up invoices and receipts versus an immediate ‘get it now’-type button that captures interest when it’s piqued.

Solution

Savy’s design and email marketing folks teamed up with the Lash Day Spa team to design an email marketing template that reflected the Lash brand yet brought in some calming and relaxing colors and imagery. We designed a nails + toes ad that couldn’t be beat, was easy to share and like on Facebook and, most importantly, was easy to signup.
Lash was happy and there were several pretty toes and feet out and about Santa Barbara.

Lash Day Spa eNews

Savy’s creative team designed and developed Local Joe a content management system-based, dynamic website that freshened up his brand. Upgrades included newer photography, videos and radio spots, and updates to all the social media profiles, including Facebook, Twitter and a custom YouTube page. We also included a built-in blog for announcing promotions and highlighting new fashion trends.

Local Joe is happy, his website is now well-performing and his brand looks more like his applauded fashions. Thanks Local Joe.

Visit Local Joe Jeans to see the real thing and to find your “perfect fit”.

As a second year sponsor of the Sustainability Awards (Savy partnered with the Environmental Center to design the event’s inaugural collateral, including the logo and color scheme), Savy is happy to partner with like-minded organizations and events.

So who were this year’s winners? Individual: Matt Shinderman, Small Business: Pacific Crest Affordable Housing, Large Business: NorthWest Crossing (West Bend Property Company), Organization: Bend-La Pine Schools, Innovation: Sara Bella* Upcycled and BendBroadband Vault. Looking forward to next year!

The owners of the Sister’s Barclay Estate approached Savy to build them a dynamic, SEO-friendly website to help sell their estate on their own. No brokers, no fees, no middleman. They also didn’t want the hassle of another FSBO-type service, and knew their estate was priced below market value enough that it could move with the right marketing tools. Perfect. We had the tools to help.

Solution

Since the estate is nestled on 3.92 usable acres with barn, riding arena and was home to Sisters’ first rodeo, Savy’s creative and web development teams designed a brand mark for the estate resembling those used on working cattle ranches. The site was built in a full-frame, sophisticated style to highlight the estate’s best assets: Cascade views, wide open land and abundant greenery. We setup trainings on using and updating the site, best practices on the use of the built in blog to schedule property showings and highlight property details, and even helped the owners list the estate on CraigsList and launch a targeted Facebook campaign to help sell their home. The project was a success, the clients were happy and the estate tells its own story at its new website:

SistersBarclayEstate

Contact Rob at 541-306-0264 or rob@savyagency.com for details.