CASE STUDY: Carson Tahoe Dental

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Carson Tahoe Website Design

This dental practice has been running for over 40 years, and has an excellent word of mouth reputation in the area. But, they had no web presence and decided it was time to reach out to their market on the web.

Requirements:

  • Rebrand to capture the spirit of the practice: laid back but professional, fun and friendly
  • Mobile friendly website design for families on the go
  • Reach out to younger demographic
  • Meet the needs of both new and existing patients

Starting from scratch

Carson-Tahoe-logo-color

We started with the end goals of the project and worked backward, building a strategy. The Digital Marketing Plan was created to guide the creation of the site, its architecture and the plan to market the practice over the web. Along the way, we created a new logo, choosing typography and colors to express the brand story. We worked to pick a name that best met the goals of the practice: Carson-Tahoe Family Dental Care. We designed every aspect of each page to support the end goals.

Dental Client Photo

Photography is critical for most of our website designs, so we flew to their location (Carson City, NV) for the shoot. The photos let people know that they are dealing with fun professionals who desire a real relationship with their patients.

It will take a few months to realize the full benefit of the Search Engine Optimization work we did, but the visual results speak for themselves. Carson-Tahoe Dental now has a website designed with intent that conveys a clear message: This isn’t your typical dentist. Check it out and let us know what you think! Also observe the speed and the way the site looks on mobile phones and tablets.

CASE STUDY: Imtakt USA

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Imtakt-LogoImtakt USA is a Portland-based company that sells chromatography columns. It’s ok if you don’t know what that means, we didn’t either until they explained it. Basically, it’s a scientific instrument that is used in a variety of chemical and pharmaceutical research. Imtakt USA has a strong existing customer base, who have been using an aged, unfriendly site to find important articles and make purchases. They asked us to build out a website in WordPress with the following requirements to meet their marketing objectives:

  • Custom WordPress theme per supplied design
  • E-commerce functionality for 1000+ products over 16 product lines
  • Advanced search functions for technical library of 750+ scientific papers
  • Seamless URL transition for customers who relied on information from old site
Imtakt-Hero

We are seeing about an 80% increase in online sales and probably double the amount of technical requests. – Robert Puryear, COO

 

Front End Website Design

The design mockups they supplied were great, with clear page layouts and easy navigation. They also included robust product data sections for their target market of PhD wielding scientists. We built out the custom theme and loaded it onto a WordPress install. Next we needed to set up the E-commerce functionality.

Woocommerce was an easy choice for the shopping cart, as it could handle the complex product requirements and would be easy for the client to use down the road. We built a selection grid and linked it to the product database where you can pick out the specific size of product you want to buy. There are even tabs for higher pressure applications that feature addition SKUs.

Pricing-Matrix
Search-Boxes

Back End Design

Since Imtakt works directly with scientists, the search functionality had to be top notch. We exported their existing database, then rebuilt it to modernize the structure and speed it up. The results are pretty cool. The first box is an autocomplete text box of over 1000 compounds. The second box is a category list. And the third box is product line specific.

Analyte-Dropdown
These can be used stand alone, or combined with each other to refine the search. It is possible to see all of the application notes for say, amino acids, but filter by the ones you can run on the column you already own. Now you can read all about “Use of the Intrada Amino Acid column along with tandem mass spectrometry allows for separation and detection of all 20 standard amino acids in under 20 minutes.”

Even if you don’t want to read any of the papers, you should still swing by and check out Imtakt USA!

Bad Design 2: The Homepage

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Imagine I invite you to my house, we barely know each other. You come over, ring the doorbell, and I open the door. Standing just beyond the swing of the door, is my wife, children, dog, neighborhood cat, and a pile of stuff that you can’t readily identify. I say “hey, come on in”, and you take 1 step into the house, being unable to go farther because everyone is blocking the way.

ClutterNow that you’ve “come in” I start introducing you to everyone and everything, telling you fluffy’s life story, and how bobby the neighbor boy just broke his arm at the local playground. At this point, you might be feeling a little bit awkward, and saying to yourself “why am I here”, and “when can I leave”.

Does that sound like a fun experience? Then why would you want to treat guests to your homepage the same way? A good homepage is welcoming, clearly identifies why they’ve come, and invites them in to explore.

An ugly, cluttered, confusing home page will cause users to flee, reflected in a high bounce rate. The best way to reduce your bounce rate is to implement a clean and clear design that speaks to your target audience and makes it easy for them to find what they want.

Vegan-Free Gluten, An East-Bank Food Search

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WSausagee just moved to the Eastbank Commerce Center, on Water ave, and even though we can almost see our old office across the river, as far as food options go, it’s like we’ve moved to another city fifty years ago. From the previous office, we were right around the block from a slew of food carts. (Oh how we miss you Sonny Bowl) There were also tons of other vegan / gluten free options within easy walking distance.

I’Friesve discovered why the east bank is referred to as the “industrial” district. It’s clearly a reference to the size of the deep fryers at the brew pubs littering the area. Imagine going from 6 great vegan options at one food cart, to 6 options within a couple blocks, and three of those are actually deep fried. And really, can you even count a side of tots as an option?

There is hoGreen smoothiepe though, veganism appears to be sprouting and sending out gluten free shoots in the area. A Kure juicing company has opened across the street, and I discovered Cookies Cupcakes and more, which opened a few weeks ago under the hawthorne bridge. The more includes a fairly robust menu of vegetarian options. and if you get at least 3 flavors of cupcakes, that makes a complete meal, right?

 

Bad Design 1: Navigation Bar

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While we like to show off great websites that we’ve created, I often have to wade through the internets shady back alley of design in the name of research. So, I thought maybe I should share some gems that epitomize what NOT to do. Run, no, Run Screaming, if someone tries to sell you on a site with design like this.Menu Bar

 

 

 

I stumbled upon this site while checking out a clients competitors. I always like to know what we’re up against. In this case, I spent several minutes exploring this site, for the same reason people have ugly sweater parties. The picture above is the navigation bar at the top of the site:

Let’s break this puppy down.

  • First off, there are a lot of menu options, so much that it takes 3 rows to fit it all. I’m already confused, and I haven’t even read them yet.
  • It gets worse! Yes, these are actually drop downs, under many of the headings, there are additional options! This must be the most complicated dental practice ever!
  • Argh!, it gets even worse! Unbelievably, several of the drop down menu items have a sub-menu. That’s 3 levels of menu, on top of the already excessive 3 rows!

So, what’s wrong with having a comprehensive menu?

  • If you think your visitors are going to go through 50+ pages, I’ve got a bridge to sell you…
  • I’m not even sure what “Endodontics” is, let alone if I need something that’s encompassed in the sub menus.
  • Confusing your customers is never a good business model (unless you’re a magician)
  • Your menu is a powerful conversion tool, this one doesn’t give me a clear call to action.

This practice would almost be better off with a website that said “Have teeth? Call us!”, as it’s only content. All joking aside, I can’t imagine who would click “contact” based on the website. That represents a real, tangible, loss of sales dollars for this business.