w3sights

Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School

hschiller — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:31:09 +0000

w3sights recently redesigned the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School’s web site. Check it out! The home page was laid out using a grid, the school’s red color, and great photographs taken by parent photographers. Because the page is composed of WordPress Widget areas, there is a lot of flexibility and responsiveness built right into the design. The overall result is vibrant, as one visitor recently commented.

Internet Blackout

hschiller — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:49:02 +0000

Many websites, personal blogs to Wikipedia, are blacked out today, JANUARY 18, 2012, to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

24 Ways

hschiller — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 21:35:45 +0000

Last day of 24 Ways – the advent calendar for web geeks. Each day throughout December a daily dose of web design and development goodness is published to bring those who like this sort of thing a little Christmas cheer. It’s a blog I look forward to reading each year…. and that I go to throughout the year.

What and why of RSS?

hschiller — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:40:13 +0000

I’m often asked – What exactly is RSS?

So, here’s the answer – RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. More recent browsers support RSS subscription. Otherwise, you can use an RSS reader, such as Google Reader. View this engaging video by commoncraft for an explanation of what exactly an RSS Feed is.

Now that you know what RSS is, you can probably see why EVERY website should have an RSS feed – it makes it easy for everyone to share your content! And sharing your content is what you want — to ultimately drive more traffic to your site.

Contact Helen @ w3sights.com if you need help creating an RSS feed for your site.

Power of Social Media

hschiller — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:38:17 +0000

‘United Breaks Guitars’ is an example, albeit from over two years ago, of the power of social media. If you don’t know the story – United Airlines passenger Dave Carroll had his guitar, happened to be a Taylor guitar, broken by the airline’s baggage handlers during a flight. When he repeatedly contacted United aobut this, they repeatedly declined to reimburse him for the damage. He then wrote a now-famous song and video decrying their customer service and their brand. The YouTube video was posted on July 6, 2009. It amassed 150,000 views within one day, prompting United to contact Carroll saying it hoped to right the wrong. I just saw on Youtube that the video has gotten over 10 million views now. It’s a good example of how powerful social media can be in spreading a message and in impacting business, whether it’s your business or someone else’s business.

Lauray of Salisbury

hschiller — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:14:54 +0000

w3sights has put up a new Lauray of Salisbury site! I’ve updated the colors and layout of the site and of course kept it in WordPress. What I’d really like to do is add photos of all of the beautiful plants Judy has in her greenhouse – Orchids to Cacti – in one New England Greenhouse! So, check out the Lauray of Salisbury now and then come back to it soon!

Log In

hschiller — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:04:56 +0000

What? You can’t remember the name of your mother’s maiden’s pet? Log In by Christoph Niemann. To see more great pieces, go to www.christophniemann.com

Can search engines read images?

hschiller — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:44:12 +0000

If you’ve got a web site with a lot of images, as artists do, how can search engines read those images? Here are some techniques for optimizing image based web sites from Matt Cutts, at Google. w3sights would be happy to implement these techniques for you on your web site!

Great Barrington Waldorf High School

hschiller — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:00:02 +0000

I’m very happy to say that the Great Barrington Waldorf High School, where my son Harry is finishing his freshman year, has a new web site designed around the school’s colors and logo. The site has been using WordPress for a number of years, so redesigning was a matter of selecting a new theme and customizing that theme. I selected the Education Child theme in the Genesis Framework from StudioPress which I love working with! The site also has a number of new features, I’ve added a school calendar and am using a widget which displays today’s and upcoming events, in the sidebar. I’ll be adding more features, making some information handy and readily available to parents, both current and prospective, as well as students, and definitely more photos throughout the site.

Robin Leech Real Estate

hschiller — Sun, 29 May 2011 11:43:06 +0000

I’m pleased to announce my newest website launch! The Robin Leech Real Estate web site was ready for a redesign and I have enjoyed the whole creative process from looking at other real estate agent web sites to developing the new site using WordPress…. and now to the debut. The site’s home page has a spot, front and center, for Featured Properties with more properties underneath. I made having properties on the home page, immediately viewable, one of my top priorities with the new site. Using WordPress means it is very easy to keep the information on the site up to date, another priority. (I love WordPress!)

The site also has a specialized Search which allows visitors to look at properties, by property type – residential, land, commercial, and rental, as well as by location and even to limit the search results by price or number of bedrooms. Each property has an unique web site id assigned to it and can be looked up in the Search by that id. On the individual property page, a gallery of photos is viewable along with the pertinent information and features of the property.

Check out this latest web site by w3sights! I’d love to hear what you think! Maybe you’ll be compelled to call Robin and see… and buy… one of the many magnificent houses on the market in the beautiful northwest corner of Connecticut.