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. 

Graves Jenkins are a leading, Sussex based estate agent, providing a mix of commercial and professional property services. 

Following an extensive pitch process, we’ve been commissioned to redevelop Graves Jenkins’ website and CRM system. Our winning proposal involved a totally bespoke software solution tailored to their exact business requirements.

The new website will hopefully look great (naturally), but will more importantly provide the tools for the business to take full advantage of online marketing and sophisticated client database management.

The winning formula
We don’t want too give much away yet, but some of the proposed features include:

• Social media integration
• Fully configurable client area with preferences and alerts
• Comprehensive and easy to use search facility and alert system
• Automated email property alerts
• Google map integration
• Enhanced property details.

Phil Graves, Director at Graves Jenkins told us,

"The decision to appoint the right website design agency was a difficult one as the City has a plethora of good quality agencies in a rapidly expanding media business. We have recognised that the new website will have to meet the demands of new business and be more interactive online. The property industry is ever changing and Graves Jenkins are keen to keep pushing new boundaries which is something which we are known for.

Gravitate Media were selected from a short list of agencies, as they demonstrated a complete understanding of our project requirements and company values. We very much look forward to a long term business relationship."

Watch this space
We’re obviously delighted and excited to have won the contract, and are very keen to get stuck in immediately. Please keep an eye out for any announcements in the early spring regards launch dates. 

We’re pleased to announce the launch of our latest client website, http://www.baymarkets.com/

The Swedish based I.T. company, provide cutting-edge software for OTC derivative trading systems and have a prestigious portfolio of clients such as the Norwegian Stock Exchange, Vantage Capital Markets and Cleartrade.

Baymarkets asked us create a website to communicate their core sales messages effectively to their highly corporate market. Following an extensive consultative design process, we’ve delivered a very clean layout with a generous use of white-space offset by powerful abstract images.

Having recently been launched at an international trade show in Chicago, the site has so far been met with universal approval.  We are confident that the site will perform and help Baymarkets improve their already impressive track record.

We’ll be reporting measuring and reporting on site performance as per usual, so watch this space…

It often bothers the collective Gravitate Media psyche how often simple web design principles are ignored in favour of a one-size-fits all approach.

Off-the-shelf website templates have become increasingly popular, especially with the proliferation of WordPress blogging tool with its numerous third-party plug-ins and burgeoning development community. Their popularity is testimony to the tempting freedom it can offer businesses with the obvious potential short term cost savings. But before everyone runs off and attempts DIY website solutions, businesses should remember that most off-the-shelf web templates are exactly that – a basic template – and as such should be handled with care.

A working example

We were recently approached by A Helping Hand, a London based company offering one-to-one IT tuition for silver surfers. Following numerous conversations about their website performance, we were commissioned to improve design and user experience of certain key pages.  What was immediately clear from initial discussions was as the site was based on an adapted WordPress template many of the finer details that add up to a commercially successfully online presence had been missed.

Generic home page

Their existing home page used an identical grid/layout to the rest of the site (as dictated by the WordPress template). This presented the visitor with long paragraphs of copy devoid of visual prompts – the result was at best underwhelming and did not work nearly hard enough.

Along with setting the tone and creating the right immediate impression, a good home page design should encourage and entice visitors into the most effective zones of the internal site. Our solution http://www.ahelpinghand.co.uk/ broke up the main central column up into multiple areas descending in a hierarchal order. 

Ecommerce issues

The page selling vouchers also suffered by adhering to the generic Wordpress template. Important ecommerce features like the Buy Now buttons were pushed far too low on the page and the purchase options confusing.

Page example pre-overhaul

We applied tried and tested design principles by splitting the main column up into two. Our solution brought the call to actions up above the page fold and allowed for a greater level of supporting messages and information.

Page example post-overhaul

The lesson

Although off-the-shelf templates may seem to offer a tempting short-cut, the visual solution that they produce can be rather generic and lack individuality. Many professional websites share similar goals but individual design requirements are rarely identical. In order to get the most out of any template purchased or provided by the likes of WordPress, expertise in the shape of for an experienced designer is still required. This then begs the question whether it may be better (and more cost-effective in the long run) to ask an experienced designer to produce a bespoke website from scratch in the first place.