Don’t worry I’m getting to something that will relate to my blog. But as I’m watching him toss and turn it reminds me as marketers what we go thru on a regular basis to try and think of new and innovative ideas. A few weeks ago, I was searching and searching my brain for an idea for a client and nothing was coming. So I did what anyone would do, I took a mini nap. Yup that’s right! I hit the office sofa for 20 minute snooze! And when I woke up an idea popped in my head! I was so thankful! And especially thankful for the office couch!

By the way, writing this blog from my phone….is actually pretty easy. I really do appreciate that I just hit my app and start typing!

Ryan’s Rants will have it’s own responsive website that will be similar to MorningStar but with a little bit more of me!  Part of the process of designing a responsive design is to plan how the website will adapt to various internet devices, from the desktop, to tablet, and to mobile.  So what does that mean?  Well it’s probably easier to show you:

Once you click on the image above, you can have a closer look at each size.  From left to right, it’s designed for, desktop, big tablet, small tablet, mobile device.  Thoughts on my new look?

]]> http://www.morningstarmediagroup.com/ryans_rants/responsive-design-process-and-sneak-peek/feed/ 0 http://www.morningstarmediagroup.com/ryans_rants/orthopedic-total-web-replacement/ http://www.morningstarmediagroup.com/ryans_rants/orthopedic-total-web-replacement/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:00:53 +0000 Ryan http://www.morningstarmediagroup.com/ryans_rants/?p=729 Don’t you just love a good before and after?!  It’s one of the great pleasures of my job.  One of my favorite transformations is a website that we did for an orthopedic practice in New Jersey.

Here’s the old website (you can click on it to see a bigger version):

And now the “After” result:

The design overhaul instantly improved the performance of the website as measured by google analytics and internal office systems.  Shortly after the site was launched video profiles were added throughout the website, from physician profiles to patient testimonials.

So if you are on a physician page or a service page, you always have a video option.

The video was repurposed for YouTube and Facebook.  Shortly after the videos were placed on the website, traffic to the website increased and overall time on website increased.  Ultimately the key stat that increased was “Request an Appointment”.  For the complete website, be sure to check out www.hunterdonorthopedic.com

I’ve been monitoring the weekly reports and love to watch: people making phone calls, filling out the online become a patient form, contact us for more information.  All great forms of watching ad dollars being converted into new patients.

But here is the icing on the cake, check out the overview of the google analytics.  This is comparing the current time period that we’ve been marketing in to the same time period last year that we did not have a targeted campaign running.

To a certain degree, the growth of smartphones reminds me of the growth of high speed internet.  In the beginning, we used to be handicapped in our design and building by the amount of people on dial-up.  I remember letting out a big “woohoo” when I saw the stats for high-speed cross over the 50% mark.  I knew that the death of dial-up wouldn’t be far behind at that point.  (If you want to be a web geek like me, just for kicks, look at your google analytics for dial-up usage).  We could now open up the doors and start using Flash in our development.  And Flash was great for a few years….until Apple said not so fast Flash.  Apple basically killed Flash by saying we won’t allow that to be viewed on our Iphones and Ipads.  So Flash largely went by the way of dial up.

And now we know this:

Almost 50% of all U.S. consumers have a smart phone, and nearly 20% own a tablet.

More than 91 million U.S. consumers use the internet through their mobile device at least monthly.

And 35% of all mobile device users say they use their computers less often or never since acquiring their smart phone or tablet.

With that information in hand, I know without a doubt that web has made another major leap forward.  Now more than ever, websites need to be developed cross-platform and be easily viewed on any device.  The additional challenge comes with, how do you keep all of these different “sites” (desktop, mobile, tablet) up to date in a time efficient manner.  I believe the answer is to build a responsive website.  In a nutshell, a responsive website is one that adapts to fit the screen it’s on, without sacrificing content.    Having a responsive website also eliminates the need for multiple sites and makes updating content much easier.

I’m curious to learn what happens next!

So I thought I would share some of my tweets from my week:

As I mentioned in my last rant, this cobbler finally got his new shoes.  Although my “shoes” comes in the shiny form of the new MorningStar website.

When I started this process, I had thought white background with big colorful images of our work.  But I elected to do something different, I turned over the website completely (well almost) to my entire team to develop.  I had to step back and be the client and not the driver.  I discussed the navigation and some portfolio content suggestions, but the majority of what you see…I can take no credit for.  Everyone at MorningStar contributed to the website.  And I couldn’t possibly be happier with the new website!

A few of my favorite elements of the new site:

It’s Responsive!  In simple terms, the website conforms to the technology that it is viewed on.  So whether you are on a mobile device, a tablet device, a desktop, or just about anything that has internet, you will get the best version of the MorningStar website for your screensize.

Tablet size

Mobile Size

Second, the “Troupe” or staff section turned out amazing.  Everyone did a great job with their “role” from Dan working on the Titanic, to Ellie as our Fearless Leader, everyone did a great job.  And a special shout out to Jeff for the amazing photography.

And here is a shot of me that ended up on the cutting room floor (((well almost cutting room…its on my facebook page)))

On that, I promise more rants to come, and stay tuned for a revised Ryan’s Rants blog and an all new MorningStar blog in the new year!

I know, I know it’s tough to get a true flavor from that shot.  But I’m in a giving mood so here’s another:

I know I know you want more!!!

Okay that’s enough for now, this kid has to get back to work on his new “shoes”!

Well, it’s been just over a year since our company made a decision to jump feet first into WordPress, an open sourced CMS platform, and we haven’t looked back since. Last year I attended Wordcamp in San Francisco 2011 as a newb. I managed to keep up and bring back some gems for the crew back here at Morningstar.

Like youngsters, we had to learn to walk before we could run, stumbling over new features, plugins, and themes. We made mistakes along the way but, we managed to learn from them, and in one year’s time we were able to put out 30+ custom themes, (five of which were responsive) and even developed a custom plugin, which we submitted and is now available on the WordPress plugin directory. fancytabs

While still inspirational and exciting, this years Wordcamp was a completely different experience. Rather than try to keep up and grasp ideas, I was able to follow along, participate and see the “big picture”. Entering Wordcamp San Francisco 2012 with this past years work under my belt provided me with confidence. What was once “how do I do this?” is now, “How do we do this better?” .

Speed and efficiency are always a focus in our business, whether its’ about our processes here in the office, or how well our sites run across all browsers, speed is always in the foreground. I was excited to find talks at Wordcamp SF2012 focused on improving performance overall. The always-amazing Chis Coyier of css-tricks.com touched on a few plugins to cache elements as well as utilizing GZip to minimize load time. Sara Canon of ran.ge spoke specifically about preparing ourselves for retina displays.

I had the pleasure or hearing “The State of the Word” which is given every year at Wordcamp SF. At which we got a sneak peak of WordPress 3.5. There was talk of retina display support as well as faster/better media handling. This is quite forward thinking considering Retina is not necessarily the current standard, but moving there quickly.

It was also nice to see we were doing a few things right. I sat through a talk about advanced custom post types and their relationships to others, and found we have been on the right track for some time.

We were also given the opportunity rub elbows with some pretty amazing people at the Developer Hack Day. The focus: contribute to WordPress core. Make the tool we are utilizing day to day, better.  Wordpress core developers walked us through the steps to write a patch to improve WordPress. Patches are a large part of how Wordpres constantly improves itself. Users are able to improve code via a ticket system. Once a patch is approved, it will be incorporated into the next release of Wordpres. My co-worker Gustave and I were able to write a patch and submit it by the end of the day. Pretty amazing experience. We even managed to make it into Matt Mullenweg’s photo blog. (Me-very front left.  Gus- bearded))

Overall the trip absolutely confirmed my allegiance to WordPress and it’s community, I once again found that this community is full of  altruistic individuals that want to be a part of something meaningful, and that is exactly how I feel about my experience.

Oh yeah! I also saw the most amazing Sparkly lion is full of sparkles!

Can’t Wait till next year! Cheers