Stuart Foster from The Lost Jacket approached us to simplify his existing site and transform its look from a blog into an agency site. We were very happy to do so as we’re big fans of the content on The Lost Jacket. Stuart had a great vision for the site, which we took and expanded upon to create a clean, simplified layout that promotes the services of The Lost Jacket while also giving his content a clean and easy to read feel that is a hallmark of the Thesis theme.

A New Homepage Layout

The first thing we did was to restructure The Lost Jacket’s homepage. Stuart wanted a slider effect so we integrated a jquery slider that lists The Lost Jacket’s services, the latest blog post, about the agency, a contact form and social media presence.

Stuart also wanted a focus on converting visitors into RSS subscribers. To help with the cause the homepage lists several options on how to subscribe to the blog via RSS, email and Google Reader. It also lists the current number of subscribers to give social proof that The Lost Jacket’s content really is top-notch.

A New Blog Layout

Previously, The Lost Jacket featured a three column layout, where the content resided to the left, with two columns in the right sidebar. We encouraged TLJ to drop the sidebars to allow for bigger, easier to read content. When we showed a mockup of the idea, The Lost Jacket loved it and told us to roll with it.

To help maintain some of the features from the sidebar, we added a fat footer to the bottom of the site that lists latest posts, latest comments, and latest Posterous posts. There’s also a few links to main pages such as contact, about, and the archives, with the biggest categories (Branding, Marketing, Public Relations, and Social Media) featured again, with unique introductions to each archive.

The Result

We think the end site came out really well. Stuart’s initial vision and willingness to hand over the reins to us while still keeping an open communication line in place allowed for new ideas to flourish up and become integrated into the site. It was a great process and we feel it helped make the end product great as a result.

Go check out The Lost Jacket’s social media, PR, and marketing services. Let us know what you think of the new design, we hope you enjoy it!

A special thank you to Miss Gordon for lending her color & typography expertise to really make the new look sing.

Debbie Merion from Essay Coaching was referred to us for help turning her existing Flash-based site into an easy to manage WordPress setup. Moving from Flash to HTML/CSS wrapped in a wordpress installation helped optimize Essay Coaching for search engines and human visitors and gives Debbie an easy way to post updates to her new site.

A New Design

During the course of the project, the focus began to shift from mimicking the existing site to transforming it into a new design with new functionalities. Using Debbie’s existing logo and color scheme as a base, we built upon the flexible and efficient Thesis theme, allowing for easy upgrades in the future and a solid SEO foundation to promote from. The end product is an XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant site that looks great, is optimized for search engine traffic and highlights Debbie’s great essay help services.

Take a look at the site below:

Essay Coaching for College Admissions

Web Presence Consulting

Debbie was looking to streamline her online work process with the new site. In addition to the new look, we added an appointment form, contact form, and payment form to enable her to perform her coaching services online from start to finish. As a writer, Debbie also wanted to showcase her book. Visitors to her site are now able to easily find Debbie’s book and read an excerpt before deciding on making a purchase.

We also helped Debbie emphasize her online video coaching sessions, by featuring them at the top of each page’s sidebar. Debbie also looked to The 42nd Estate for consulting help, particularly in the promoting her site and services online. During our ongoing sessions we’re helping Debbie draw traffic to her site via quality content optimized to showcase her talent and experiences to all visitors.

So far, Debbie reports an increase in appointments scheduled, books sold, and an overall improved web presence. Contact Debbie today if you’re a parent or student looking for help with college admissions essay.

We’re unveiling a new feature here called Spotlight. The Spotlight category will shine the light on some of the work we’ve done across the web. We’re thinking it’s a good way to introduce you to some of our work while we get a portfolio section integrated into our new design. We’ll also keep the Spotlight feature once a portfolio is up and running as it’s a nice way to give additional information on each project. First up in the Spotlight is Dish It Out Boston!

Dish It Out Landing Page

Dish It Out approached us for advice on social media and Search Engine Optimization for a site yet to launch. The first thing we noticed was that their site did not resolve to the dishitoutboston.com domain name. Instead when you punched in that domain, it forwarded you to a mac web space area landing page. Within a day of contacting us, we set up hosting to resolve the domain name to dishitoutboston.com, installed a wordpress installation and created a unique landing page with a Boston backdrop. Doing so allowed Dish It Out to start acquiring links and building a subscriber list to help with their future launch.

Here’s a look at the Dish It Out pre-launch landing page:

The Dish It Out Boston pre-launch landing page

Boston Businesswomen Community

Dish It Out is an organization designed to connect and help Boston based female business owners. Its owner Catherine Howe has tons of great ideas for the new site and is a natural networker. If you’re a women in the Boston area and your run or own your own business, make sure to head over to Dish It Out and subscribe to their feed to get updates on the new site’s progress.

Check out the landing page we created for them and make sure to subscribe to their feed to be updated on their progress. And a big hearty thanks to werkunz1 for taking the awesome photo of Boston and posting it under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license so we could use it as the cool backdrop for the site.