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Web Site Services
Web Site Services
Web Site Services
"90% of site selection begins on the Internet"
"The Internet is THE preferred method of contact with corporate site selectors"
"Economic Development web sites are about communication, not marketing"
ED Solutions, Inc. has dedicated a large measure of our services to helping economic development organizations create effective web site strategies. We do this through web site reviews, RFP development, web firm selection services and ongoing web design advisory services.
In our experience, all too often economic development organizations engage a web firm and give them general direction about what they want/need on their site. And then after the site launches, invariably, new ideas, or new functionality is needed and either the economic development organizations constantly works to get the site where they want it (is it soup YET?), or they have to pay the web firm for new functionality, etc.
ED Solutions, Inc. has been called the architect for economic development web sites. Contact Us to see how we might be of assistance to you and your organization.
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- ED Web Site Primer
- Post Launch Marketing
- Web Design Advisory Services
- RFP Development
Recognizing the need to capture years of web reviews and having helped create hundreds of economic development websites, we figured we better write some of this stuff down to help those organizations with which we have not been able to
come in direct contact.
So, we have written the Building an Economic Development Website primer!
The primer is written from the metephor of building a web site is alot like building a house...and we have cartoons smattered throughout to carry this theme forward.
Props to Maury Forman, Managing Director, International Trade and Economic Development, Washington's CTED, who served as coauthor on the latest version. It is better because of his work!
While this primer is not yet available to the general public, we distribute it through agreements with large regional, utility or state-based economic development organizations. These groups buy the rights from ED Solutions, Inc. to distribute the publication within their region at will for up to a period of a year. They also get consulting time from ED Solutions, Inc. to 'localize' the primer for their audience.
If you're interested in making this publication available to your communities, please Contact Us!
| Introduction | Search Engine Optimization |
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| Creating the Blueprints | Interactivity | |
| Navigation | Functionlaity |
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| --The navigation bar | Social Media | |
| --Location, location, location | Tips for Success | |
| --Text versus pictures | --Traffic reports | |
| Visual Design | --Contracting out -- hiring a Web design firm | |
| --Top 10 tips for successful visual design | The Grand Opening | |
| Content |  |
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| --The importance of data | ||
| --Format | ||
| Laying the Foundation | ||
| --GIS | ||
| --Maps | ||
| --Desirability | ||
| --Salesforce | ||
| --Testimonials | ||
| --Case studies | ||
| --Links | ||
| "Economic Develoment Web Sites are about communication, not marketing." |
Following ED Solutions, Inc's golden rule above, we spend valuable time with clients helping them build their site with communication in mind. Once a site is constructed, a number of critical marketing activities which should be undertaken. These include:
- Search engine optimization
-A reciprocal linking campaign
- Direct contact
- Use of social media to upgrade awareness/buzz
- User testing
-Submitting the site for awards/recognition
-Creating local news events/demonstrations
-Benchmark web metrics
ED Solutions, Inc. helps clients make sure the investment made in their websites is marketed to the audiences important to the organization. Please let us know how we can help your organization maximize the investment in your economic development website!
| Over 60% of our clients for whom we review an economic development web site or construct an RFP also hire us to provide support during the site's construction. |
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Understanding both the economic development profession and the web design process (we speak geek!) enables us to serve as the advocate for economic development practitioners during the design or redesign of their economic development web site.
We can provide a range of services from full project management to simply 'touching' the project at critical path elements. Check out our portfolio page to get links to some of our projects. We can't promise all will win a national or regional award...but a number of them certainly have! Contact Us today to see how we can help. |
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One of the best ways to ensure the success of your economic development web design project is to hire the right web design firm. And one of the best ways to ensure you hire the right web design firm is to construct a detailed, industry-specific request for proposal (RFP).
ED Solutions, Inc. is accomplished at creating quality RFP's for the economic development profession. Among other things. our RFP's include:
- Goals for the project
- Sample navigation structure for the site (helps the firm count pages and provide 'tighter' estimates)
- Programming issues
- Timeline (a calendar is a blessed thing!)
- Ownership of code issues
We also include a detailed response reply form, which will really help you compare and contrast proposals.
If you couple this service with a web review, we include these in the RFP as well...creating an incredibly strong package to help ensure your economic development web site design project is a success!
Contact Us to get started!