Tim took me on a tour. First we looked at the end product, tons of crystal ranging from flutes, crystal slippers, various awards for Fortune 500 Companies to large one of a kind crystal pieces that someone has had Crystal Signatures design to be in a certain area of their home. The craftsmanship is really impressive, consider the detail on the following piece. How does one even begin to do that with crystal? I found the level of detail on the pieces to be amazing.

We then toured the rest of the facility which is 22,000 square feet. Very interesting and cool, a huge machine shop that has been tweaked out to work with crystal and glass. Machines never intended for working with crystal have been modified to do so. I asked Rob who runs most of the equipment how they figured out all this. “We went through a lot of crystal!” was the reply. The effort and patience has been well worth it as Tim explained the production capabilities. Almost all supplies are purchased locally in the state of Pennsylvania. They leverage their investments in machinery and technology to work smart. When it came to the website redesign the same idea applied. Make the website an arm of Crystal Signatures sales force. With that in mind the following were the key objectives of the new website:

1. Create a website that really shows off the work and craftsmanship of Crystal Signatures. Plenty of galleries/pictures and the ability for site visitors to easily access and view this work as well as several online catalogs including a shopping cart for creating a “wishlist cart”. Site needs to be rich in content not only for search engine optimization but also to educate users.
2.  Create a website that is optimized for search engines and will rank well in organic listings with Google, Yahoo and others.
3. Create a site that can be easily managed by Crystal Signatures internal staff including ability to easily add galleries, products to the catalog, general content pages, news and more.
4. Have solid statistics for the site so we know what traffic the site is getting and from where. If we are going to do all of this work we must be able to measure results.

The site just went live the other day so it will take a little time before we reap the rewards of the SEO work that was done but the 1st, 3rd and 4th objectives have been nailed. The site is CSS/XHTML (tableless design) running on an IBM Domino Server. The site itself is contained within a Domino/Notes database that has a robust web based content management system. Staff can easily manage all facets of the site including search engine optimization settings. CKEditor was used for the rich text editor in the content management system hence it is extremely easy for staff to maintain content. As you can see from the screen cap below adding and formatting content, adding pictures, links, etc. is very easy to do:

They now have complete control over their site and can add pages on the fly which will automatically be added to the site navigation. All Search Engine Optimization settings such as Window Titles, H1 Tags, Meta Description/Keywords, URL names and more are controlled via the Content Management System. Durkan Consulting Group is pleased to have Crystal Signatures on board as a client. This redesign is just the first step towards helping them leverage the web to increase sales and serve customers.

1. Allow customers to easily sign up for camps, travel teams and tournaments and pay online.
2. Have a custom registration process to include custom waivers/agreements and would generate team rosters, etc.
3. Have a robust content management system that would allow coaches/key contacts of the various travel teams to easily manage their own teams content including coach profiles, photos, rosters, etc.
4. Include the ability for site owners to easily email people based on the list of team to which they belong.

As is often the case BlackBear could not find an online solution that fullfilled all their needs. What they looked at often did about 60% of what they needed and could not be customized or the price was prohibitive. This is where Durkan Consulting Group comes in, we work with the client to understand their requirements, provide a high level of service and implement a custom website that does exactly what they need. Below is a screen cap of the new design, check it out. Props go to Clinton, DCG’s Design, CSS/XHTML, ECommerce and PHP guru.

Website for Sports Camps, Travel Teams and more

Adrian is who DCG uses for all websites requiring custom photography. He rules, his work is reasonably priced and it is top notch. I used to think there wasn’t all that much to photography. Just grab a camera and start snapping pics right? That was until I saw Adrian’s work. I have used him on Duffers, Penns Table Restaurant and G & G Cigars sites. Check out Adrian’s site for more info. A few of his shots from the G&G shoot: