When a brand or website shows signs of ill health we’re always eager to apply our creative and technological healing hands.

Online E-learning company Maths Doctor literally came knocking at our door last year with a long list of ailments, ranging from a tired brand through to a website suffering from a serious lack of TLC.

Following consultation and diagnosis, we prescribed the following to get the patient back on it’s feet:

• Extensive wireframing to redefine and rationalise the user journey for new registrations
• Total look and feel revamp with a friendly, informal approach better suited to target audience
• Introduction of the “Good Doctor” - an omnipresent, illustrated character to breathe life into the brand
• Thorough surgery of core system architecture to cure inherent flaws
• Ongoing controlled physiotherapy to keep bugs at bay and maintain health.

We’re happy to report that early signs are very good and the patient is fighting fit.

Simon Walsh, MD of Maths Doctor, says: “Thanks to the all the loving care and attention shown by Gravitate Media, I’m confident that Maths Doctor is now ready to face the tough challenges ahead”.

Take a peep at the new Maths Doctor website

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new website and client relationship management (CRM) tool for Sussex based Commercial Property specialist Graves Jenkins.

The front end of the project features a bespoke design with a long list of features including:

• Home page carousel to showcase selected properties
• A user-friendly search facility with powerful on page filtering
• Secure client area to manage alerts, saved properties and searches
• Support for large, multiple property images
• Google Map integration
• Support for embedded video content
• PDF generated property details
• Social Media Integration
• Email Newsletter sign up
• Support for staff profiles and images
• Localised SEO.

At the heart of the website is a centralised, online CRM system, designed and built from the ground up to perform the following:

• Management of property, applicant and client data
• Automated applicant and property database matching
• Fully automated, branded HTML email property alerts
• Instant creation of branded PDF property particulars
• Marketing activity data and reports
• A centralised and scalable solution for simple multi-office networking
• News system to manage website articles and automated email newsletters.

It’s a bit too early to make any big claims, but early anecdotal and statistical indications appear very encouraging. 

Please visit the new Graves Jenkins website.

1. You won’t need to invest all that time-consuming effort of forging a close, working relationship with a web agency that has a vested interest in the success of your business.
2. You no longer need to worry about looking distinct from your competitors. Surely everyone will start using pre-designed templates soon anyway.
3. Intellectual property issues will be a thing of the past. As it’s going to look pretty much identical to a 1000 other websites anyway, does it really matter if you no longer retain ownership of your core branding ingredients?
4. Costly, one-off fees will be a thing of the past. With an indefinite payment plan your capital outlay will be spread thinly. Who cares if it ends up costing far more in the longer run?
5. If the site goes down or you need an urgent update you no longer need to rely on an agency to dig you out of a big black hole. There are plenty of really cheap freelance developers all over the globe who speak reasonably good English and are willing to stay awake for over 24 hours in order to comply with your time zones.
6. No need to grapple with complicated site plans or wire frames. Web agencies always try and over complicate things when trying to deliver the best possible site architecture and user experience. If it’s not right first time, you can always start again.
7. Potential money savings can be ploughed back into site promotion. Why not employ one of those companies who guarantee to get your site to the top of the Google rankings in a matter of days for example.
8. Sleep easy in the knowledge that your website is hosted on a server that is shared with literally 1000s of other customers. There’s safety in numbers surely?
9. Forget about the hassle of developing complicated, bespoke online business tools that apparently make everyone’s life easier and more efficient. A one size fits all may not match your exact requirements but hey, does it really matter when off-the-shelf is so cheap.
10. You don’t need to be a geek and have to worry about boring coding issues. Who really cares if your site does not display correctly or works properly in certain browsers and devices? I’m still using IE6 and most sites don’t work anyway…

Of course, with all this spare time you can impress your friends by performing brain surgery or even offering to re-wire their house! I mean, how hard can it be?

Beauty is more than skin deep they say, and our new website for the Spa PR Company certainly confirms this notion. We naturally believe that it scores highly when it comes to good looks, but delve a little deeper and you’ll discover that it delivers a bit more.

Spa PR are specialists in spa and beauty communications, and deal with a host of industry sectors from health & wellbeing to travel.  The new site needed to not only clearly present the company credentials and sales messages, but also do its part supporting various PR activities on behalf of clients. Along with a News and Blog, our simple Windows Live Writer based content management system, drives a host of resources including Spa Loves, Spa Escapes and Late Deals all integrated with the usual social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

We’re obviously pleased with how the site has turned out, but Spa PR seem pretty happy too. Company Director Steve Malkin had some kind words to say:

“I really, really love our new website… it has great content, its very pleasing on the eye and perfectly positions us as comms experts for our markets”.

It’s early days, but already we are seeing a greater penetration in natural search despite the fact the site has not been optimised for specific keywords, showing that there’s no substitute for a website built to high accessibility standards.  As usual we’ll be monitoring the user stats closely and hopefully writing a nice juicy case study shortly.

They also say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so have a look at the new SPA PR website and judge for yourselves.