News Archive

WordPress on Windows?

Jan 2016

We got an interesting call today from local charity Hives Save Lives, based near Verwood. The charity works with farmers in Uganda, bringing in equipment and training in honey production and helping to provide sustainable management and income generation. They told us their brand new, fully responsive WordPress site was all ready to go live.

The only problem with the site was … the project had dragged on and their original WordPress developer could no longer be located. We get more than a few calls like this. Now, it’s not a particularly difficult task to move a WordPress site from a development server to the live site, tweak the options to fix URLs and run a script to rename the paths of all the images. Job done, and in less than half an hour.

There was only one slightly tricky feature of the project. The old Hives Save Lives site was classic ASP and the hosting was Windows/IIS. Not everyone realises that WordPress will run quite happily on IIS. But we love Windows hosting as well as WordPress and we were quickly able to sort out a few redirects using ISAPI so visitors linking to the old ASP pages will get smoothly redirected to the new homepage.

“On The Fence”

Jan 2016

Cheered up this gloomy morning by running into one of our customers from a while back. The St James Cottage Nursery staff were putting up their new banner. The banner artwork is actually taken from the website, stationery and graphics we created for them a few years ago.

The “Cottage” was established over 40 years ago. They are situated in the grounds of St James’ First School, overlooking open fields, in the quiet village of Gaunts Common 3 miles from Wimborne.

The yellow house was always part of their logo but we created the Dorset countryside scenery, colour scheme and typography. The font is Englebert.

As you can see from the photo it was a grey old January morning but we still think our artwork adds a dash of colour to the day.

Recent Projects: Poole Storage

Sep 2015

Objective

To design and build a website for the domain existing unused domain www.storagepoole.co.uk to attract new customers from within the Poole area. Make the site look different to the sister site of Genius Self Store in order to attract a different clientele. The Genius site was developed several years ago and now looks dated, some comments have been made that it looks like they are no longer in business. Make the site responsive, modern, and bright with a colour theme of turquoise.

• In order to make the site appear different the Genius site a new logo was designed using a modern font and including a padlock within the lettering itself. In order for this to work the font needed to use an almost perfect circle for the letter O.
• A Word document of site areas and content was provided by the client.
• Various competitors’ sites within the industry sector were reviewed by the client and presented to use with a list likes and dislikes. A front animation was requested.
• Turquoise colours were selected with a gradient to add interest and dimension.
• A single page style site was designed as a demo to present to the client to show ease of use when viewing via a mobile phone.
• Stock images were selected and a demo animation was created outlining the customers the unique selling points of Poole Storage. Three animated slides were created the outline;
  • Problem solving – need more storage but you’ve run out space; let Poole Storage solve your problems.
  • Self-storage for people on the move; we deliver, you pack, we store.
  • Affordable lowest price guaranteed.
• The 4 simple steps outlining how the service works were created in graphics so explain simply to the perspective customers/site visitors.
• A simple pricing structure reviewed on a competitor’s site was discussed and the client requested to include something similar on their. Once the content was provided by the client a set of graphics was created to present this. A house graphic was created to show how many storage units would be required for how many number/s of residential rooms along with approximate square footage.
• Further graphics including a location map for location/ area coverage, icons for storage types, a price match rosette and a why use Poole Storage background graphic were designed and created.
• A contact us form for created and amended by the client.
• The site was then assessed by WBSys to ensure that relevant keywords were sufficiently included within the sites content. Some text was slightly amended in order to include further relevant keywords for client’s business niche.
• Whilst being developed the demo web site was continually  uploaded to our private password protected development area for review by the client.
• A live business location google map was included on the sites footer to show customers where the company is located along with improving the SEO on Google.
• Once the site was reviewed and approved by the client it was uploaded the final domain of storagepoole.co.uk .

Recent Projects: Meadowbank House B&B

Jul 2015

We worked with Jane & Matthew on small fixes to their Wiltshire based B&B website last year. The site was built using a WordPress community theme and used a plugin to deliver a mobile-friendly experience (of sorts). All of this had been setup by another developer.

This year we were asked to address all of the site’s various niggles by creating a theme from scratch. This was surprisingly easy to do, as there was nothing wrong with the site’s original branding or layout. But it was a joy to get rid of a plague of plugins which had been added to the site over the years.

Now the site runs Jane’s own custom theme built around her business. It features online booking, improved calls-to-action, a radio interview and a blog. And the website has been especially lifted and improved by some gorgeous photography showcasing the food, the property and the surrounding area. Fresh fruit on toasted brioche anyone?

Check out the site at: www.meadowbankhouse.com

Recent Projects: Bournemouth Cycling Centre

Apr 2015

Our work on Bournemouth Cycling Centre’s website began with a tour of the amazing outdoor tarmac velodrome at Ensbury Park. Completed in 2011 after decades of campaigning it’s a fantastic facility and one that puts Dorset on the map as far as British Cycling is concerned.

The cycling centre had a functioning website but with the new 2015 season likely to be its busiest ever it was felt that an upgrade was required. We were asked to provide a new mobile-friendly design and ensure the bookings calendar was prominent and easy to access. They also wanted to switch from Joomla to WordPress. We also helped out with a new logo.

In the end the most challenging aspect of the project was the session calendar. We tailored the session calendar for smaller screens by subtly removing less valuable information whenever there’s limited space. We also ensure the calendar can be printed or dropped into Excel.

Check out the website at: www.bournemouth.cc

Stamp collecting

Mar 2015

Here’s the beautiful bespoke rubber stamp our friends at Purbeck Footprints (wildlife photography, calendars, cards & prints) recently had made. The stamp was manufactured by local company englishstamp.com.

It uses the logo we originally designed for Julian back in 2011. We’re used to seeing our logo designs on clothing, banners, and on the sides of vans, as well as online of course. This is the first time we’ve seen one of our designs turned into a stamp.

Recent Projects: Brent Jones Photography

Mar 2015

We recently completed work on a completely new website for Brent Jones Photography, based in Wimborne.

Brent’s old site was built using StockBox Photo software. We had already helped Brent back in 2013 when a PHP upgrade on his hosting completely broke his StockBox site. So when Brent decided the old site needed a completely new look we were the obvious people to talk to.

Wedding photography is a very competitive market and typically photographers boast high quality distinctive websites. So the project was an exciting challenge. Getting the image layout right is vital and image resolution and pixel quality all matters. Photographers like Brent care deeply about each image and to avoid ruining a carefully composed shot we had to load completely different sets of photos according to the screen size used by the website’s visitors. But Brent was fun to collaborate with and all web agencies love working with beautiful images.

Brent’s site is built with WordPress, is fully responsive, and runs his own completely bespoke theme. It uses plugins developed here at Wimborne Business Systems to cater specifically to the photography industry.

Check out the website at http://www.brentjones.co.uk

What is this WordPress everyone is talking about?

Feb 2015

Increasingly often when we speak to customers about websites and mention “WordPress”, even non technical folk will say

“oh yeah, I’ve heard of that“.

But if you haven’t heard of WordPress or aren’t sure what it does it’s a content management system (or CMS). Content management systems allow you to edit and update your own website. Content management systems have been around for a long time and traditionally they were something larger businesses and enterprises rolled out to manage a sprawling corporate website.

But nowadays we’re all used to easily updating content online, be it in Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. So as a website owner you expect to have full control over your website. You want to drop fresh images in and update your text when the feeling takes you. Which is where WordPress comes in. It’s simpler to use than a traditional CMS. Like Facebook it’s pretty easy to pick up and use with the barest minimum of training. We find our customers like using it.

At Wimborne Business Systems a lot of our website work these days involves WordPress.

And us Dorset folk even had our own major WordPress conference in Bournemouth last year. It was a great success and it was a great chance to meet WordPress specialists from around the world.

How is Dorset Growth Hub helping local businesses?

Feb 2015

The Dorset Growth Hub was established to help businesses in Dorset grow and become more competitive. The organisation is currently running a series of clinics and advisory sessions to support local businesses, particularly focussed on digital, technology and the internet.

Specialists involved in the programme, including us, will provide up to 12 hours of dedicated guidance, advice and support. There’s grant funding available too, to help you take action and implement the changes and improvements which come out of the advisory sessions.

Talk to us on 01202 849492 or phone Dorset Growth Hub on 0845 586480. You can also email them at info@dorsetgrowthhub.co.uk or find them on Twitter at @dorsetgrowthhub.

Dorset Growth Hub – IT Delivery Partner

Jan 2015

Wimborne Business Systems are now the official IT delivery partner for the Dorset Growth Hub in the Christchurch and East Dorset area. More details about the Dorset Growth Hub can be found here.