BURLINGTON, NC (August 8, 2012) – Alley, Williams, Carmen & King (AWCK) knows about staying power. The Burlington, N.C.-based engineering, architecture and surveying firm has been serving North Carolina cities and businesses for more than 50 years.
As they entered their sixth decade, the firm decided to update its web presence, calling on North Star Marketing to create a website that would communicate the firm’s professionalism, expertise and longevity.
Listening Well
North Star Marketing started the project with strategy consultation and planning. Andy Lynch, North Star Principal Marketing Consultant, met with AWCK leaders to discuss the project process, site aesthetics and site function, and to gather essential content.
“AWCK had a few false starts on their website with other vendors,” said Lynch. “The project would start strong, then fizzle out a few months later. So they wanted to understand our process. They wanted to make sure we had a team in place that could guide them through not just the creative phase, but also the content development phase.”
Because of the extensive range of content – from orientation information to staff resumes to comprehensive project descriptions – AWCK needed a firm who could provide content strategy, organization, formatting and writing.
“The planning and consultation phase of the site build-out gave us the chance to hear the scope of their content needs, and to talk through a navigation strategy,” said Lynch. “We were able to leave the planning meeting with a clear understanding of how their content needs would influence design.”
Built to Last
The new AWCK website works hard for the firm: The design uses the available space intelligently, and the home page clearly presents their services, range of expertise and projects. The home page includes:
- Four featured content areas: rotators, news, features and banner menu
- A rotator area that accommodates large project images
- “Case study” format for rotator content allowing AWCK to feature project image, name and description
- Rotator thumbnails for easy navigation
- Banner menu under rotator to emphasize municipal engineering, architecture and surveying
- Location listing in footer for easy access to contact information from anywhere within the site
The new website also serves as a showcase for AWCK’s photography. “We put an emphasis on strong photography for the site,” said Lynch. “AWCK didn’t have an updated image library, so we did several photo shoots to capture their range of services.”
AWCK needed a way to contextualize their deep treasury of professional shots and existing project “before and after” images. The WordPress platform, on which the site was built, provided a gallery function that could be used within any page on the site.
With the right attention to planning and content needs, North Star Marketing has created a website for AWCK that will serve them well. The WordPress platform allows for scalability of content and also provides automatic code updates, ensuring that the new website does not “decay” or become technically irrelevant. It’s a website built to last. To see the new website, click here.
About North Star Marketing
Based in Burlington, North Carolina, North Star Marketing is a full-service marketing strategy and creative services firm, providing branding, website development, print collateral design, advertising, public relations and online marketing to businesses, non-profits and schools. For more information about our integrated-communications services, please contact us at 336-229-6610.
