Back in ’09, (read that with an old-timey squeaky voice), we did two satellite website designs for Rich Feinsilver, a bankruptcy and real estate lawyer in Long Island, New York. They were pretty simple projects with a lot of context-sensitive video integration.

When Rich got ready to revamp his flagship site, Feinlawyer.com, he came back to us – which is about the most gigantic compliment a client can give.

“I want all the bells and whistles,” he said. We made loud rummaging noises in our bell box and whistle closet, and designed an elegantly simple design to present his content for both practice areas, support a blog, and connect clients and prospects with Rich via social media.

We designed separate landing pages for the Long Island bankruptcy practice:

And the Long Island real estate law practice:

It’s always a pleasure to work with Rich’s Blackberry Rich!

When Florida bankruptcy lawyer Lewis Roberts, who serves Volusia and Flagler counties along Florida’s Atlantic coast, got tired of paying for expensive long-term SEO/hosting contracts and ready for real results, he contacted Rowboat Media for a new Thesis-based custom website design. We were happy to liberate him and his bank account.

Rather than using stock photography of random people looking vaguely relieved or depressed, Lewis asked us to do something “different,” that set him apart from all the templates associated with the big contract companies.

As with all of our recent designs, we created his onsite contact form with Gravity Forms, which stores messages from prospects in the database as well as forwarding them to Lewis’s email, making it convenient for him to look over all of the contacts received in one location in his WordPress content management system. We love how flexible Gravity Forms makes our design process.

And what does the esteemed gentleman himself think?

“Nothing but praise for Cynthia and everyone at Rowboat Media! She came highly recommended and did not disappoint.

I had been bouncing from one website company to another over the past few years. Everything wonderful and glamorous in the beginning, but then the service died quickly.

Cynthia only had a few short weeks to put my website together before my last contract finally ended. I was worried that I would have to ask for revisions, since I sometimes have a hard time deciding on the look and feel of my website.

Well, she did not disappoint because she nailed it on the first try. The look and feel is exactly what I was looking for – which was hard since I didn’t know what I really wanted. As soon as I saw the first draft of the website, I knew it was the final draft.

Everything was quickly put together and I was online and running without any downtime after the old website went offline.

I have already recommended Rowboat Media to other attorneys and am thinking of a website for my wife’s business.

There is no better praise for a job well done than referrals to use the same service. It speaks volumes to Cynthia’s and her team’s abilities.

Thank you!”

- Lewis Roberts – Lewis Roberts, PA – Attorneys at Law

And the bottom line – search results? After not ranking visibly for anything under his old contract, his new Thesis website is soaring up the charts only two weeks post-launch – with several page 1 Google rankings for the keyword phrases he values. I am continually stunned when I see this happen for clients – it never gets old.

Nor do the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody.

Lewis, thank you for the opportunity – we love working with you!

New York City therapist Matt Lundquist contacted us to develop a Thesis website for his TriBeCa practice that reflected who he was and his particular approach to therapy. His tagline, “creative therapy for creative people,” let us know that he wouldn’t want the typical psychotherapist website, or, as he so colorfully put it, “I don’t want to be mistaken for the podiatrist.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Lie down and let’s talk about your mother’s feet…yes, we admit, we wanted to hire him, as we were directly in his target market.

He came to us with some excellent logo choices from a professional designer and a mania for modern design, and we helped him choose the one that fit his goals best. After that, we created a harmonious design that presented his static and blog content, as well as media mentions, right up front.

“What drew me to Rowboat Media was my sense that they didn’t just understand design or the technical aspects of getting my site done–they understand what it means to use the internet to maximize the marketing of a service-based business.  As a psychotherapist, I’m always concerned that my marketing use a delicate touch (I’m not selling office products!).  Cynthia and Deborah understood that.

Another strength of their team is that they know how to listen to my ideas, but also when to step in and assert their point of view in a way that I could really hear; they’re the experts and I needed them at times to gently guide me away from some of my own ideas that just wouldn’t have worked.”
- Matt Lundquist, LMSW, MSEd

Matt, it was a unique pleasure working with you and we’ll definitely book an appointment look you up next time we’re in the Big Apple!

This design, launched in December 2009, was an interesting project for Rowboat Media. We were called upon by this client to update their 90′s-looking direct-sales website for Medical Home Alert, and take it from a static HTML site to Thesis on WordPress. As the client had seen some slippage in Google rankings over time (from first page to second), a framework like Thesis with great SEO was a huge priority.

Since the product is aimed at seniors and their caregivers, we gave a lot of thought to how to create a pleasing and readable website that answered a lot of the questions potential buyers might have up front, while maintaining a strong call to action.  Based on the client’s research, we incorporated large font sizes, discrete navigation tabs and high-contrast colors for increased readability and navigability.

The client is using aWeber email marketing heavily for both inline contact and order forms, and dynamic lightbox and popunder forms to encourage blog subscription and brochure requests. He is also taking full advantage of aWeber’s split-testing capabilities to determine which approaches garner the highest conversion rates.

We found ourselves thinking through every single aspect of the project – each font choice, color, and placement of elements, with utmost care – and also having to keep in mind, “pretty isn’t necessarily what sells.”  However, when all was said and done, we like to think we accomplished both goals – a strong sales-oriented site that is also visually pleasing.

The client seems to think so, too:

“Cynthia went above and beyond the original scope of work for the site redesign by digging deep into the persona of who would be using the site.  She even went as far as to conduct mini-focus groups within our target audience to get impressions and reactions to designs and copy.  Most importantly, she listened and was very open to ideas on both the technology and design front.  She also pushed back with good ideas – it felt like a true collaboration and that I was getting the benefits of her experience while she was also learning from my expertise in direct marketing.  Our results are more conversions, higher rankings and a very flexible site for our business.”
- Bryan Stapp, Senior Alert Network LLC

It was a pleasure and an ongoing learning experience, and we have greatly enjoyed our part in successfully pulling Medical Home Alert back onto Google’s first page for its target keyword phrase!

Last fall, the Board of Directors for the Bankruptcy Law Network contacted us for an update to their blog. With over 30 participating attorneys across the nation and over 4,000 posts, it is the most-read bankruptcy-related blog on the ‘Net.

Since their old design was starting to look a bit tired, and presented content in typical blog fashion – last post first, in a linear layout – the client wanted more of a “magazine-style” layout on Thesis that would show current articles in four different categories, point new users to basic information about bankruptcy, and feature a list of most recent posts in an accessible manner.

Also, since the subject of bankruptcy is by its very nature an unsettling one, they wanted soothing colors and a pleasing design to encourage readers to hang around and educate themselves about the process. In the footer, participating attorneys are linked via geographic location so readers can go directly to their respective websites if they’d like to pursue a bankruptcy filing.

It was a fun and challenging project, and we look forward to working with BLN further to keep the content rolling out smoothly.

When St. Louis Realtor Karen Goodman contacted us via one of her favorite outlets – Twitter – she was at the end of her rope. For the past year, she had been working with a hacked up WordPress theme that had been half-designed for her needs and half-abandoned, and had taught herself how to modify theme files in an attempt to bend it to her will.

While she did an admirable job of drawing traffic, selling properties and scoring new listings, she was ready for something that reflected her level of professionalism and didn’t require that she continue to study computer science to make things happen on her website.

She knew she wanted a smart-looking gateway (no pun intended) into her site that focused prospects on home search, captured leads via the advanced home search capability she was offering, and provided them the ability to get detailed information on the local St. Louis market.

Since no Realtor’s site is complete without a home search (alternately known as MLS or IDX) page, we worked with her to embed her IDX service and coordinate it with her design:

Karen is also a very detail-oriented client, and as an experienced WordPress user, she knew exactly what type of widgets and plug-ins she wanted on her site and how she wanted them to look.  She also needed a coordinating page design for her blog and market reports:

Karen, it was a pleasure and an education working with you – we are proud of the finished product that resulted from our collaboration!

When Torsten Uhlmann contacted us from Thalheim, Germany, he wanted to create a professional calling card for his software consulting services and a gateway for customers to be able to purchase his software products.

At the time, Torsten had two websites and blogs – one for his AGYNAMIX software consulting business and another to promote his Simidude cross-platform networked clipboard product. He wanted to consolidate the two websites – one was running Joomla and one WordPress – and focus prospects on three main offerings – software consulting services, downloadable software products, and support. He asked us to use Thesis due to its strong SEO framework.

The Challenge: Multiple Page Templates

Since Torsten needed a page that would serve as the new front door for Simidude, to which he redirected his simidude.com URL, interior content pages, and a blog – each of which would feature different items in the sidebar, we needed to create custom page templates for Thesis.

The Simidude page utilizes CSS body classes, Thesis’ feature box function, and conditional tags to create a header that brings in the Simidude logo, inserts the screenshots, and creates a layout that differs from the AGYNAMIX home page.

An example of another content layout for the Consulting page, featuring another unique header element:

Thanks, Torsten, for the opportunity to create with you!

When Mike Maxwell contacted us for a redesign for his law firm in Wauwatosa Wisconsin (say that 3 times real fast), he was concerned about search engine optimization, a friendly and modern look for his website, and a content management system he could really work with – he was tired of being dependent on a web design firm for small changes.

When we explained to him about the fact that we build all our sites on the WordPress content management system, he was excited – and also referred to our earlier post about being “congenitally incapable of incorporating gavels, scales, or leather-bound books into legal website designs”.  This statement spoke to Mike, as he was suffering from a couple of the aforementioned clichés himself – to wit, a gavel and an imposing Doric column:

Instead, he asked for strong, clean graphic cues to make it easy for the user to navigate his 45-page website and know how to contact him. We delivered, the client was happy, and a few nice things were said on Twitter:

@caffeinatedelf: Well done – GREAT design, Cynthia!

@hithosekeys: ::applause::

@lee_strickland: Gorgeous site!

@fiberartisan: ooh! How unlawyerly looking! Love it!!

@danrippon: Great looking site!

Thanks, Mike – it was a pleasure saving yet another website from the gavel…so to speak.

This has just been the weekend for awesome and totally unsolicited praise for Rowboat Media website designs.  The latest comes from Pixelita Designs, and features our handsome and lovely trio of Rich Feinsilver, Angela Cooper, and Michael Berman.  By coincidence, the two gentlemen are from Long Island, while Miss Angela serves clients in Mobile, Alabama – from the North Atlantic down to the Gulf Coast!  Hmmm…noticing an ocean theme here…it’s been way too long since those of us in the rowboat have heard the sound of the surf.  Digressing again…

Anyway, we thank Joni Mueller of Pixelita for her extremely kind words, and for featuring us yet again in her Thesis series.  A few weeks ago, we were also thrilled to see that we made up 20% of her 10 Pimped Out Small Biz Thesis Sites, featuring Rowboat clients Kirk Myers & Elisabeth Harrington along with delaPlex Software LLC.

Praise may not pay the bills, but it sure does keep us encouraged as we slave away on behalf of our design clients.

Thanks, Joni!

We did a quick little spiff-up on Thesis for Jeffrey Douglass, a Realtor in San Diego.  He wanted a fun, friendly design that said “San Diego” on his educational real estate blog.  Today he let us know that it made Apture’s site of the week!  Obviously, we’re proud for Jeff and wanted to help him show off a bit.

Congratulations!