Blog New Website Launches Nielsen Builders - New Website Launch
Nielsen Builders - New Website Launch
Written by Jase Clamp Tuesday, 15 June 2010 19:00
WinWorld recently worked with Nielsen Builders, a Harrisonburg, VA based construction company on their new website.
Nielsen is a 100 year old construction company they have 130 employees and serve the Piedmont and Valley Regions of Virginia. According to the pictures on their site, they've constructed many of the buildings in Harrisonburg and we like their work. It was a priviledge to be able to "construct" their website.
Some key objectives of the project were:
- A new upgraded design - a way to showcase their products and services in a manner that demonstrates quality.
- A site that can be more of a marketing tool and a way for subcontractors to communicate with them.
- A way to present their business as an established/trusted vendor in their industry.
Their target audience consists of decision makers in the following industries: churches, schools, universities, senior living, warehousing, office, multi-use and multi-living. They needed to convey to these audiences quickly and effectively, who they are, what they do and why they should hire Nielsen.
They did not want their home page to be too busy, using light and neutral colorings as a key driving factor with accents drawn from their brand colors.
When ever we do a design with any company we ask them to fill out our design questionnaire. We often find referencing other designs is helpful in
being able to target the desired look and feel. Nielsen Builders were able to reference other sites in various professional and corporate sectors
that served as valuable guides for the new look and feel they were persuing. The navigation system and fader were influenced by some of these design
references. They wanted the site not to just be about buildings but to inlcude information on their history, events and employees.
A few key components of the site are the project gallery and the contractor login.
The project gallery is based on normal content management system pages but it contains a left hand automated navigation and also an automated footer navigation. They have 100s of projects they are highlighting and having a navigation system for those projects that is maintained in one place but shown globally through the whole projects portfolio is a time saver. We also used our CMS's ability to include page layouts as a time saving mechanism. To create a new project listing, all they have to do is drop a template layout on a page and fill it in with content.
Nielsen also wanted an easy way to protect content with a password and then be able to provide sub-contractors a password to access this content for bidding purposes. We were happy to provide an ultra-simple solution. For those pages and content they want to protect, all they have to do is include a code such as {password 123456} on the page. Our CMS picks up that code when rendering the page to the public and password protects it with that password. The only way to gain access is to know the password the content creator setup.
We really enjoy working with companies in the construction industry because we feel that our website construction process is somewhat similar to what they do. It may be simpler and faster but the process is similar. We discuss, brainstorm, plan, design, revise, build, review, and then open the doors to the public.
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