Insider runs across small out of home companies which still do not have websites. This is a mistake. A website is an easy way to advertise your open locations to potential clients. Today Melody Roberts of Out of Home Creative talks about the process of designing an out of home company website.
Melody, talk about Keenan’s out of home website
While Out of Home Creative specializes in billboard design, we occasionally take on other work such as website design. A new Georgia-based outdoor advertising company, Keenan Media hired Out of Home Creative to design and launch their website.
Keenan Media had never had a website before and agreed with my approach to have a simplistic, scrolling site. These types of websites have recently gained in popularity since they are extremely user friendly by displaying all your information and content in one easy to view, scroll-able page.
Co-owners Brett and Lane Keenan were looking for someone who could not only design the website but someone who also had experience in out of home. They were referred to me due to my industry experience from my past billboard and website design work.
What do they think of your work?
From Brett and Lane Keenan: “Melody was very professional and thorough in every aspect during the design process. She was quick to respond to questions or issues and always met our time constraints. She was also attentive to changes and special requests. With this being our first website, she made recommendations and explained why she may or may not have done something a certain way. From the layout to the color scheme and everything in between Melody collaborated with us to execute our vision, and we are very excited about the final product.”
Their website is responsive across all devices; desktop, phone and tablet and uses search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. Since the client didn’t have a website previously there was no need to have a page migration or redirection strategy from the old site to the new site (similar to how you inform the Post Office when you move to a new home). It should come as no surprise to anyone running a website how important SEO is as this 2017 graphic indicates, not to mention that organic search engine traffic costs pennies compared to other site traffic acquisition channels. Keenan Media will be launching an outdoor advertising blog in the future so stay tuned for more from them.
Did the company think of including video of their signs? Very easy to shoot drone footage or smartphone footage of a sign, upload it to Facebook and then past the video in to a website.
Yes, this was discussed at the inception of the project as a feature they wanted to include. The owners decided to go live with their new website as is and when they have time to shoot the video, I will upload it to the site. They will also be adding a BLOG page so check back periodically!
What are the pros and cons of using Wix versus WordPress when designing an out of home advertising site?
I haven’t used WordPress, so I am not able to provide an educated comparison but several blogs have written comparisons of the two web publishing platforms and I have included one below. There are several reasons why Wix.com is my preferred web builder. Wix offers creative freedom to deconstruct a template or create my own. I am not a web coder, I am a Designer so having advanced design templates and features allows me to create a site that is more visually interesting than another. Wix offers a wide range of tools that will enable me to implement different galleries, fonts, formatting styles, etc., and it is user-friendly when developing the desktop and mobile versions. Wix’s “drag and drop” functionality visually allows me to see my changes on-the-fly. They also offer a method to ensure my website is optimized for search engines since most users turn to Google first to find anything on the web. Lastly, they partner with several online applications as bonus “add ons” which helps when building interactive features through Wix websites.
About Out of Home Creative: We are an outdoor advertising firm which designs billboards, digital campaigns, transit, and street furniture to any non-traditional out of home advertising. Based in Atlanta, Georgia we serve businesses, agencies, media buyers and out of home companies throughout North America. Melody Roberts is the Founder and CEO. For more information contact Melody Roberts or visit www.outofhomecreative.com.
[wpforms id=”9787″]
Paid Advertisement
