Comm-Unity Festival was a production of KAZI 88.7FM and KOOP 91.7FM radio stations in Austin, Texas as a free-to-the-public event during SXSW2017. This site was put up quickly to draw attention to the event at Kenny Dorham’s Backyard, the artists appearing, and to generate sponsorships. Going forward the site will be used to publish the next Comm-Unity event and showcase past successful events.
WhiteShirtBook.com
The White Shirt: Find Your Ideal Career with the Secrets Hidden in This Ancient Story is a book written by Micheal Alan Tate. The book was published in late December 2016 and required a companion website that had a “Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Design Your One-Page Career Strategy in One Week”. The project involved translating the look, feel, and utility of the book to a digital platform.
WhiteShirtBook.com was created on a WordPress platform to be responsive and enable the visitor to find out what the book is about, how the process works, and after registration use the strategies and downloads to help users along the path outlined in the book. We also did some video production and I participated in the PR strategy and social media for the book roll out and promotion.
Mike decided in the spring of 2020 to switch to another digital media firm that specializes in podcasting.
Harbuck Keith & Holmes
This project was a total redesign of a law firm’s web site. Harbuck Keith & Holmes was formed in early 2016 and at that time had a static HTML website built. Several months later they had already outgrown their website and wanted to revisit their branding. I was brought in to do a redesign starting from defining needs and wants for their digital presence to the complete and launched website. The content included attorney profiles, practice areas, blog, and events.
The site is fully responsive and built on a WordPress platform. The staff at the firm will be able make edits and additions to the content as they wish.
I have also helped the firm move from a previous provider to MailChimp for their email marketing requirements. This included developing branded templates and special email content.
Bonnie Plants Video SEO
Bonnie Plants hired me in April of 2015 to begin a SEO project for their YouTube channel. I helped them optimize all the videos previously posted and those that they produced during the project term. I also curated their playlists and created a few more to showcase popular content and show the content diversity. The project continued until June of 2016 when Bonnie Plants was bought by Scotts Miracle-Gro and these activities were brought in-house.
The results of this project were very impressive. Comparing the first six months of 2016 to 2015 there was a 2,021% increase in sessions and new users were up 2,360%. The bounce rate on YouTube videos decreased 14%. Traffic to Bonnie Plants YouTube videos increased from most all sources including suggested videos, external sources, YouTube Search and playlists.
I also helped them optimize their Vimeo channel and it too saw improvements in plays, finishes, and likes YOY.
“In the year that Gayle worked on the Bonnie Plants YouTube channel (GrowBonniePlants), we saw views, view time, and engagement increase significantly. She did a fantastic job organizing and optimizing every single video on our channel, and continued to do updates, improvements, and behind-the-scenes work after that. Not only is the Bonnie Plants channel now performing better, but it’s much better organized and easier to navigate. Gayle is also patient and flexible, and did a wonderful job of educating the Bonnie team. I would hire her again in a heartbeat.” ~ Su Reid-St. John, former Marketing Producer for Bonnie Plants
Workhorse Service
WorkhorseService.com is a new site constructed after the owner had been hacked. The former site had been built on WordPress but it was not secured and maintained so hackers exploited vulnerabilities and the owner was wary of the platform. After explaining the problems with the former installation, I built a new, optimized site that has a catalog of parts (that can be ecommerce enabled, if desired). I also helped him with his domains and email on a Linux server. A responsive design, a blog, and geo-location information add to site findability and credibility. I helped them with the G+ social profile as well.
The new site has resulted in numerous contacts from web searches and an increased ability for customers to find his physical location.
The Retreat at Mountain Brook
RetreatatMountainBrook.net was designed on a WordPress platform with integrated forms hosted on a real estate management portal for resident and prospect generation. The site had to be responsive and beautifully showcase the luxury apartments and amenities of The Retreat at Mountain Brook.
This project required SEO, image optimization, and several social media channel setups. I also have helped with various promotions requiring Facebook tabs and specialized coding.
The folks at Panorama Life & Style PR and Arlington Properties were great and I look forward to further developments with this ongoing project.
The Gentlemen Nerds
Who are the Gentlemen Nerds? Well, they’re four guys who know each other from various media endeavors, getting together to talk about geeky and nerdy things, mostly in the vein of entertainment…and they’re gentlemen about it.
The Gents are producing a sort of weekly podcast and asked me to help them with a web site that would showcase their work and publish it to the web, iTunes, and anybody interested in subscribing via RSS. It was really fun to set this up for them and we hope it grows like The Blob.
Hungate Cases Email Template
Concurrent with other marketing efforts surrounding SXSW2015, this responsive email template was created for client Hungate Cases. The template was deployed multiple times using MailChimp after the SXSW2015 Gear Expo in Austin. The template can be populated with content and deployed for future marketing and communication efforts.
Granny Hester’s Fine Foods
Granny Hester’s Sweet Potato Biscuits can be found in over 1000 stores nationwide and is opening new accounts with fine grocers everywhere. They had an out-dated HTML website and needed to update and improve their web presence.
This project included web design, SEO, information architecture, graphic design, and domain/email management.
GrannyHesters.com