Just finished another non-profit site last night… the Diablo Rod and Gun Club based in Concord California. This non-profit has over 1,500 active members and being Californians… Northern Californians in fact, having 1,500 members means 1,500 different opinions. I’m hoping to get more positive reviews than negative… and we’re off to a good start with all positive reviews in early commenting. I was fortunate to be contacted by the group’s web coordinator – for a project this large there has to be a dedicated and patient project manager on the NPO side.

Diablo was trying to build a new site from scratch after loosing their last site. They needed to ask lots and lots of questions and they looked at web design firms that offered prices between $200 and $10,000. Unfortunately none of them was able to spend much time answering the questions. Many of them actually could not answer web design questions – lol. So to work with Web Design WorkPlace was a perfect fit. We answer any and all questions.

There were almost a hundred previous newsletters that we wanted to incorporate into the site and there were 15 different areas. I offered a number of layouts and the club picked the StudioPress BackCountry Theme as a base. It took around 80 hours from the initial email to getting the project launched so starting with a solid Theme and the Genesis Framework for WordPress, it saved a lot of time.

We used NextGen Galleries for the photos with the CoolIIris slideshow feature. LiveShare is the parent company that makes the CoollIris feature used by NextGen and they are really pushing the boundaries with photo sharing and web experience… check out this video:

Here is what their main photo page looks like with a big NextGen Gallery…

And when you click the link “View with PicLens” you get into the CoolIris slideshow that is really popular for WordPress websites. This slideshow automatically re-sizes images on the fly and it can be set to go full screen to make a real crowd pleaser.

Besides this main photo gallery we are building 15 additional galleries for the different activities the club has. The site launched with around 100 photos but it might grow to thousands. This is a great website and it was fun working with their great Project Manager Matt.

Our 16 years of web design experience gives us technical depth and a focus that can’t be matched by the larger legal marketing providers. Remember the big brand companies all started out as book publishers. They only switched to building websites when they faced extinction because their business model didn’t work. We started out making websites and getting them ranking on Google and Yahoo when the internet and search engines were in their infant stages. And building websites and getting them ranking is all we’ve ever done.

We’ve worked with hundreds of law firms and lawyers over the years.

After building websites since 1996, Web Design WorkPlace now only sells law firm websites. We decided to stay exclusively in this genre because we stood out from the rest of the field in the legal marketplace.

The Big Box legal marketing providers are book publishers.

The “Big Box” vendors in the legal marketplace became giants in book publishing long before computers took over. They made their own “legal directories” and sold them to attorneys who used them mostly for business to business. And those companies have struggled to stay alive as the books and directories they published became obsolete with old data even before their pages were printed. So they started to phase in building websites. Web Design WorkPlace started building websites right from the beginning and we don’t have thousands of employees left over from the publishing years generating huge overhead costs. Those huge overhead costs at big name legal marketing companies are transferred directly to you – the client – when you buy a website from them.

Do you want to pay their sales person’s salary on top of buying a website and SEO package?

In most cases their salespeople are on commission or even full commission which means they only care about selling you the highest dollar amount they can. They have a laundry list as long as your arm when it comes to what they call “up sells” or added services that they will try to push on you that you may or may not need. That’s what commissioned sales people do. Web Design WorkPlace has a lot more integrity than they every will. We won’t nickle and dime you on anything ever. We make our money providing the best possible products and services for a select group of distinguished clients. We are proud of our customer satisfaction level. We have 100% client retention on 2nd year support contracts. A figure the big box providers will only dream about.

I’ve been a paid I.T. Professional since 1985 and I’ve passed along boatloads of recommended links and a few discounts along the way. I’m using this web page to put up recommended sites – some of which offer discounts and some are just so darn good I have to suggest them. So to all my friends who are web developers and to anyone else who may be so inclined, feel free to use this page as a resource from time to time.

I highly recommend StudioPress Themes and I’ve purchased 3 developer licenses from them since 2008.

http://StudioPress.com

I also have a developer license for Gravity Forms. I’ve used Contract Form 7 on about  50 sites but the captcha on Gravity Forms is better as is the setup.

Gravity Forms: http://www.gravityforms.com/

I’ve purchased about 5 themes from Woo Themes at: http://www.woothemes.com/

I’ve also used ThemeForest twice and I recommend checking them out at: http://themeforest.net/

I’ve also had a developer license for Elegant Themes for 3 year and I’ve rolled out a couple of their Themes on production sites. Check them out at: http://www.elegantthemes.com/

For all my attorney friends looking at the Big Box offerings… here are links to their portfolio sites. This is great food for thought if you’re a developer or you’re looking for ideas for your own site:

Paper Street     http://www.paperstreet.com/portfolio.php
LexisNexis    http://lawlinks.com/our-work/
Justia    http://www.justia.com/web-site-portfolio.html
Einstein    http://www.einsteinlaw.com/html/showroom.html
Scorpion    http://www.scorpiondesign.com/Our_Portfolio.aspx
Findlaw New Portfolio    http://www.findlawdesign.com/#/work/
Findlaw Personal Injury     http://www.personalinjury-websites.com/
Findlaw Criminal Defense     http://www.criminallaw-websites.com/

At Web Design WorkPlace, we focus on building you a valuable internet reputation while generating more business and more revenue for your firm. That being said, our clients remain clients because of the unparalleled support. Our service and support is quite possibly the best you’ve ever experienced with any product. “I cannot adequately express my level of satisfaction with the work done by Mal Milligan. The quality of product exceeded my expectations. The immediate support was beyond any customer service I’ve ever received.” Attorney Cody L. Cofer, Counselor at Law.

Our genres include: attorneys – lawyers – law firms, embassy – consulates – government organizations, non-profit organizations, and business.

Our sites look stunning, they rank well on Google, and clients can add content easily using the power of WordPress.

We take websites that were originally purchased for $30,000 and we convert them to superior WordPress sites for prices starting at $2,500. And we host them and maintain them for a fraction of what the big brand “big box” vendors charge. Our custom designs feature the “design and challenge” process you would expect from a world class and supremely experienced web artist. We encourage you to entertain the big box vendors for a price quote to see how they propose to inflate your costs with their over head maintenance inefficiencies… and remember, you are paying their salesperson’s commission based salary.

Web Design Workplace can move your business into a state-of-the-art WordPress website that your staff can add / change / or delete pages from at prices that will make your accounting department happy. All of our websites are professionally tuned for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We have a variety of products and service levels to fit the needs of any firm. Call today to speak with the founder, Mal Milligan. With 25 years of experience from being a Wall Street Senior Technical Officer for several of the top Investment Banks in the United States, to a world class web developer and Google ranking expert, Mal has your answer.