Nauticus Marina is one of Cape Cod’s most beautiful wedding reception venues and they needed a website to show off that beauty. Built on the WordPress platform, the website takes advantage of the stunning views and phenomenal photos Nauticus has to offer. Every page has large photos to help sell clients on the location.

The site uses JQuery to cycle through the photos and employs the latest search engine optimization techniques to drive would-be brides and grooms to the website.

The Casual Gourmet, Cape Cod’s Foremost Caterer, needed a new look for the start of 2011. They recently redesigned their printed menu and wanted the website to match their new branding style. Marrying the new brand with large photos, The Casual Gourmet’s new look gives a rich, sophisticated feel that shows off some of the caterer’s best work.

In addition to a new design, I added a ‘Wedding Reception Site Map‘ using Google maps to show all of the wedding locations The Casual Gourmet works. Each of those locations came from the company’s wedding location directory where users can rate and review each location.

Previous Site Design

www.thecasualgourmet.com, Search Engine Optimization and Management by Dave Chase

When I initially took over thecasualgourmet.com, it was a mess. Although the design and functionality looked good on the surface, years of multiple webmasters of varying skill levels had taken it’s toll on both the code and organization of the site.

The client’s primary objective was to improve the ranking of the site in Google and other search engines. Although the site showed up on the first three or four pages for each keyword, as “Cape Cod’s Foremost Caterer” the site should have been in the top ten sites for many related keywords.

Search Engine Optimization

My first task was to add some basic html elements that for whatever reason had been forgotten in the site. It had no <p>, <h1>, <h2>, <h3> or image alt tags. Instead the entire site, which looked great, was done using the <span> tag and some very messy CSS.

Once I had cleaned up the content code, I moved on to the design code. The site was originally built using tables and spacer images. I basically replicated the design using XHTML and CSS and migrated the entire site into that new template.

While migrating the site into the new template, I adding appropriate description and title tags to each page’s meta data set and alt tags to each image on the site.

The results were great. The site moved up into the top 10 for it’s primary keywords Cape Cod Wedding & Cape Cod Weddings, two very competitive keywords. The site also moved to the top three for Cape Cod Caterer.

Site Additions

When I took over the site, it’s contact us form had broken down. That was my first change to the site itself.

In order to improve both the search engine optimization and usefulness of the site, the client and I decided to add a blog. Using WordPress, I added a blog with the same site design as the rest of the site with an easy to use administration panel so that the client could update clients on recent events and happenings.

Finally, I handle the day to day changes and additions to the site such as seasonal menus, new event sites and the latest photos from events.

Visit TheStotesburyMansion.com

The Stotesbury Mansion, a new venue for Feastivities Catering, offers a sweeping, elegant design that features full-size rotating images in the background. Built on the WordPress platform, the site uses a vaild XHTML structure and CSS3. The background slideshow and custom scroll bar utilize the latest JQuery library.

Chrisdaviesfordelegate29c.com

Visit Chrisdaviesfordelegate29c.com

The Chris Davies for State Delegate campaign website utilizes the WordPress MU platform to create an easy to update website that can adapt and grow with the needs of a State Delegate campaign. The site includes an integrated online donation system and email marketing system.

Visit Sheilalyons2010.com

The Sheila Lyons for State Senate campaign website utilizes the WordPress MU platform to create an easy to update website that can adapt and grow with the needs of a State Senate campaign. The site includes an integrated online donation system and email marketing system. The site also utlizes MU’s multi site feature to create a sub domain site specifically for events (to take advantage of search listings).

Visit The Casual Gourmet Express Website

The Casual Gourmet Express is the retail brand of The Casual Gourmet. The Casual Gourmet is an upscale catering company and needed a separate and unique brand for their retail locations. The brand had to be different yet still convey the class and elegance of The Casual Gourmet.

To tie the two brands together, ‘the Express’ uses nearly the same logo and is hosted on a sub domain of thecasualgourmet.com.

In addition to the design and branding, I developed the slogan ‘Fast. Fresh. Local’ as well as the tag line for the first marketing campaign ‘Cape Cod’s Choice for Express Dining.’

The Hyannis Youth & Community Center Foundation Website

Visit www.hyannisyouth.org

The Hyannis Youth & Community Center Foundation is the organization that raised more then $26 Million dollars to build a new community center in downtown Hyannis. The new facility will have two ice rinks, a basketball court, conference rooms, a computer lab and a lounge complete with ping pong tables and a Wii! It was a really pleasure to build this website since I use to play hockey in Kennedy Rink, which this new facility is replacing.

The site needed a clean cut professional feel but still had to have a warm community feel to it. It runs on a WordPress content management system and implements the latest search engine optimization standards.

Visit www.thepointnews.com

“Dave’s talent and vision has finally brought The Point News into the 21st century.” -Justin Perry, Editor-in-Chief of The Point News

The Point News is St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s student run newspaper. Until 2008, the paper ran only a print edition and had no online presence whatsoever. Not only did the paper need a website, they need a website that displays content written for print on the web and in a way that appeals to college students.

The answer is a WordPress platform with a number of plugins and tweaks to make it a news portal. Using a series of custom queries on the homepage, the site utilizes WordPress categories as sections of the paper.

Facebook Connect

The Point News has a few unique features that make it perfect for a college newspaper site such as Facebook Connect. By allowing students to connect their Facebook profiles to the site, students become more likely to participate by commenting and to syndicate the articles to their social networks.

Roles to Match Jobs

Student newspapers often struggle to stay organized. However, The Point News website now has membership roles to match the positions within the organization. From editor to writer to subscriber, peoples involvement with the paper matches up with their permissions on the website.

The Patrick M. Butler Charitable Fund's website is built using the Concrete 5 content managment system and with vaild XHTML & CSS

Visit www.patrickmbutler.org

The Patrick M. Butler Charitable Fund is an organization named for Pat Butler, Managing Partner of Nutter, McClennen and Fish’s Hyannis branch, who died on New Years day 2009.

The site is designed to be simple and easy to navigate. Since it will be run by a committee, it also had to be easy to update. As such, I chose to go with the Concrete 5content management system. C5 features in line editing making the editing process incredibly simply, just point, click and edit.

The site also features the latest search engine optimization techniques and pure CSS drop down menu.

ChasePickering.com is a website designed to be a place for Chase Pickering to talk about the projects he is involved with.

Visit www.chasepickering.com

Chase Pickering is a young man dedicated to changing the world. ChasePickering.com is a way for Chase to share his passions and projects with the world. The site is run with a robust content management system that allows for easy updates with no technical experience.

This blog style site takes advantage of tagging and categories to show relevant blog posts under pages that talk about each of Chase’s projects. In addition the site has a professional photo gallery with an easy to use administration panel, which is built into the administration panel for the rest of the site.

Goals for the site:

• Professional design
• Easy to use content management
• Flexible content areas
• Room for growth

Content Management – WordPress

ChasePickering.com runs off of WordPress, a flexible and easy to use content management. This allows the site to be easily updated by someone with no web experience. Using advanced php and custom fields, I took WordPress, which was originally built to be a blogging software and turned it into a full content management system.

Some of the features that I built into ChasePickering.com by adapting WordPress include easily changeable header images and related blog posts under each project page.

If you like ChasePickering.com, request a free quote for your own site!