About Chris Gilligan

I’ve been building websites since the early days of the world wide web. My background is in publishing, document management, graphic design, corporate training and video production.
Author Archive | Chris Gilligan

Landscape Architect Website with Slideshows & Social Media Integration

Craig Design Group Website

Craig Design Group Website

This is a simple website for a Chattanooga based landscape architect that focuses on beautiful portfolio slideshows. We’ve also added Twitter and Facebook integration to keep fans and customers updated on the latest projects.

Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 0 }

Social Media — Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and Sharing

Social media, including sites like Facebook and MySpace, micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, and sharing/bookmarking tools like Digg, Del.icio.us and Stumble Upon are all very important to your outreach to customers, not to mention the incoming links they provide, and the potential of exponential viral traffic.

Add to this the need for regular blogging (on your site and other platforms) and email updates, and the management of all this online communication becomes daunting. What if there were a way to integrate all of your modes of online presence, so you’d only have to post once to update all of the different platforms? Well, the short answer is: there is.

I’ve been working with a local organic farm to update their online presence, and we’ve come up with a very simple implementation of WordPress that cross-posts to Facebook Pages and Twitter. Every blog post automatically creates an entry with linkback on Facebook Pages, and an accompanying Tweet with linkback. It has been a great way to keep the farm’s audience informed and engaged.

Additionally, we’ve added bookmarking links for all of the major social media platforms and favorites keepers, thus adding to the potential for viral sharing.

I’m also working on a mailing list that further integrates with WordPress, and it’s looking very promising. There is a new WordPress mailing list plugin that allows opt-in or manually entered mailing list clients to manage automated subscriptions to blog and page updates, and allows administrators to manage multiple mailing lists, and send newsletters and alerts. It integrates with the website seamlessly and also has WYSIWYG editing.

Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 0 }

Organic Farm Website with Slideshows and Content Management

Sequatchie Cove Farm website

Sequatchie Cove Farm website

This site was produced in tandem with Widgets & Stone, a Chattanooga design firm. We’re members of Sequatchie Cove Farm’s Community Shared Agriculture program, so we are very familiar with the quality of the eggs, dairy, meat and produce coming out of the clean and fertile Sequatchie Valley. Continue Reading →

Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 3 }

Property Management Website

Walldorf Property Management Website

Walldorf Property Management Website

This site for Walldorf Property Management in Chattanooga uses Joomla CMS and EZ-Realty to create a site that’s easy for Walldorf employees to update and manage.

  • Online forms for lease applications, maintenance requests, and general questions
  • Multiple listing categories and unlimited properties
  • Image uploads automatically create slideshows for each property
  • Multiple, automated RSS and XML feeds to external property listing sites create strong search engine placement — top Google rank for all important keywords and phrases
  • Google Maps & driving directions automatically created for each property listing, with an overall area map showing all properties
Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 1 }

Image Manipulation in WordPress Editor – Crop, Rotate, Resize Images

WordPress has a very nice and simple editor that uses TinyMCE. As of WP 2.8, there is a load of new functionality in the image uploading and management department, with the new Gallery functionality. I like the way WordPress handles all of the image files attached to a post… it lends itself to slideshows, etc. But recently I had a question about rotating images within the editor, and I went searching for a plugin to do it… and found Scissors. This plugin adds cropping, resizing, and rotating functionality to WordPress’ image upload and management dialogs.

I just loaded and activated Scissors, so I’m going to try it out to see how it works…

this image is rotated

this image is rotated

this image is resized

this image is resized

this image is cropped

this image is cropped

Well, it looks like it works just fine! Another plugin that’s just become a necessity for client sites!

Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 1 }

Rafting and Adventure Travel Site with Reservation Form

Southeastern Expeditions website

Southeastern Expeditions website

This site, for an adventure travel company that runs rafting and eco-tourism trips in North and Central America, features a clean interactive design and extensive search engine optimization, including tailored metatags, hyperlinks, and a backlink referral network. Continue Reading →

Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 0 }

Regional Visioning Plan

Chattanooga STAND website

Chattanooga STAND website

This site, completed for Chattanooga’s Create Here, in tandem with design firm Widgets & Stone, is for a regional visioning process being conducted around Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  • Tell-a-friend and Volunteer forms
  • Semantic, search engine and handheld browser friendly design
  • Google Analytics to track page views, form submissions, pdf and  file downloads
  • Expression Engine multi-site manager
    • custom fields: staffers can frequently and easily update the content and sidebars
Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 0 }

Non-profit website with Calendar and Slideshows

Sequatchie Valley Institute website

Sequatchie Valley Institute website

I visited Sequatchie Valley Institute years ago with my children, and made a long-term goal to some day live and work with the folks I met there. We use the web extensively to communicate with our members, the public, and the media.

  • SlideShowPro Director provides an engaging and easily-updated frontpage show, and a gallery of current and past events
  • Event Calendar manages our online calendar
  • Registration forms and contact forms for events and communication, routed to the proper folks
  • MailMan takes care of our e-mail blasts
  • Vanilla forum helps the board of directors sort out our business
Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 1 }

Adventure Travel Website

Austria Adventure Week website

Austria Adventure Week website

I worked with Bike Tours Direct to create this sub-site to promote their Austria Adventure Week package, a 2-week trip catering to mountain bikers and trail runners. We picked an open source WordPress template and made some minor tweaks to personalize it for the site by replacing a few images and adding navigation tabs.

  • Easy to use WYSIWYG editor allows administrators to quickly make edits, add pages or images, etc.
  • Comment feature for visitors to ask questions and get quick answers
  • SEO — Search Engine Optimization for automated submission to Google, MS Network, and Yahoo; automated SEO-friendly titles, URLs and descriptions
  • Custom contextual navigation system
Incoming search terms for the article:
Comments { 0 }

Art Competition with Submission Form

Zero Sum Website

Zero Sum Website

This is a project for Create Here, a Chattanooga think tank nonprofit that connects entrepreneurs and artists with creative communicators to promote sustainable, creative initiatives and showcases. Zero Sum is an exhibit that examines the role of games in contemporary culture and the impact they have on our social experience, psyche, morality and approach to critical thinking.

  • Online forms for artistic submissions
  • Database to collect and organize submissions, including file uploads
  • Search Engine Optimization, sitemaps, Google Analytics to provide info about traffic and visitors
Comments { 0 }