“We were impressed with Getting Sites Built’s ability to quickly understand our needs and put together a solution that worked for us. We appreciated Donovan and Canton’s flexibility and responsiveness, which made working with them a pleasure.”

Getting Sites Built was hired to upgrade and update AnswerLab’s existing website, so that it better reflected the honed AnswerLab business model. Working with a third-party designer, we re-engineered their outdated site into a web standards-based site. By facilitating a team environment, through open and detailed communication, we developed a clean-coded infrastructure during the same timeframe that the designer worked on his deliverables, the look and feel of revamped content.

The specifications called for XHTML and CSS. We used these standards to build a stable site structure, ensuring that the resulting site would validate and be well represented in a wide variety of browsers. We also crafted a site that would be simple to update by using ‘include’ files for repeating items such as the footer and various sidebar areas.

Thanks to strong project management, the new and improved website went “live” right on schedule.

We were very pleased with the positive feedback we received from AnswerLab and their in-house beta testers. Thanks to the successful project completion, Getting Sites Built was given an additional contract to turn the AnswerLab client list into a dynamic Flash component. The new website boasts featured client logos that subtly cross-fade, selected from AnswerLab’s notable Fortune 100 clientele.

Now AnswerLab has a modern website that truly represents their innovative work.

We build the website you’ve always wanted.

Here are three examples of the work that Getting Sites Built has done to address their website development needs.

Bringing the exhibit to the web

The Asia Foundation wanted a web-based version of the ‘real world’ Afghanistan Exhibit that was on display in Washington, DC.

Getting Sites Built created a custom Flash-based solution in less than three weeks. An interactive, web-based, Flash timeline now seamlessly displays the text and images from the physical exhibit.

Work Done: Research; Flash production and web staging; version detection; compatibility testing.

Creating In Asia

The Asia Foundation needed a means of sharing weekly news and information outside of the main website.

Getting Sites Built created In Asia. This separate website utilizes RSS feeds and email tools to broadcast content, while keeping the presence and feel of the parent site. Now there is an effective and easy way to disseminate weekly information.

Work Done: Research; Site installation and customization; graphics, training.

Embedding with integrity

The Asia Foundation asked us to solve a problem they were having with the existing Flash video player. The display on the interface of the gallery page only allowed for a small number of videos. The webmaster found the existing Flash-based answer too difficult and time-consuming to be useful.

Getting Sites Built created an elegant solution. We embedded the basic interface of the Flash player directly into the web page, maintaining the integrity of the presentation while addressing the root cause of the problem. It’s simple to add new videos now. The webmaster creates a new page in Dreamweaver and enters the URL to match the new video’s URL. That’s it! No need to jump through hoops just to add more video content.

Work Done: Research; Flash extraction and web staging; version detection; compatibility testing.

We build the website you’ve always wanted.

Some of the subtle details include sidebar graphic elements that change, depending on which page of the site you are viewing. The email links are encoded to avoid spambots from harvesting them, resulting in less spam. FeedBurner handles the RSS feed so that blog subscriber results are easily tracked. Likewise, Google Analytics is installed so that basic site stats are only a click away.

The site was built in less than two weeks. It features nice touches like a FeedBurner RSS feed so that subscriber stats can easily be monitored. There is the Podpress plugin which will allow for easy and elegant podcasting abilities. And, as with all WordPress sites installed by Getting Sites Built, it has a ‘Reports’ plugin which allows the site administrator to quickly see a snapshot of their Google Analytics, revealing important information at a glance about site visitors.

For the site backbone, we decided on WordPress. We build many sites on WordPress since it provides 90% of what most people need. Once our client’s discover the world of WordPress, they get excited at how much time they’ll save updating their site.

One can subscribe to the RSS feed or get updates via email. For this solution, we turned to FeedBurner. I like FeedBurner since it gives my clients easy to read statistics on their subscribers.

There are lots of under the hood modifications going on that differ from a standard WordPress install. That’s what we’re all about at Getting Sites Built. Customizing the solution to meet your needs. In this case, The Asia Foundation had very specific requirements that we were able to implement.

Please visit the new In Asia site and take a look around. We’re very proud of the site and proud to help support the cause that The Asia Foundation is making in this world.

GCI is a contracting company. Avantegarde provides marketing communications expertise.

If you’d like better looking printed pages for your site, contact us.

The Getting Sites Built solution:

Create a MySQL database driven Project Editor which makes it drop dead easy for anyone at Give2Asia to add/edit/delete a project to/from the site, at any time.

How it works:

After logging in to a password protected web page, the user is presented with the option to edit the list of projects. From there, one can do various things, such as add/edit/rename/delete projects by simply filling in a form like the following

Changes made here are automatically reflected on the web site. No HTML coding necessary.

And now that the information for each project is in the database, it’s easy to do other automated things like…

Add a list of all the projects in Pakistan to the Pakistan Earthquake Fund page. With one snippet of code we can have this list generated automatically. And it will also update automatically every time a new project is added to the Pakistan region.

Can your site benefit from this kind of automation as well? You bet it can. Contact us and let us get your site built.