http://LinnAreaPhotoClub.org
Linn Area Photography Club is a non-profit organization helping photographers gain more knowledge and experience as well as an inspiration or ideas to get out take more photos! They have members who are beginners up to semi-pros!
The group has over 80 members in the Linn County Iowa area and struggled with communications as a huge email list was their only means of communication. As people joined the club or changed email they struggled with keeping a single list. No one was sure all the time who had the most recent list of emails and every time they sent an email, they got returns and errors.
They had a website but it was old and very static. They also needed a better way to manage newsletters monthly, display images and have a calendar of events not only for upcoming meetings but upcoming photo shoots, contests and more!
Website Development Overview
So we started the website development with the Flexx Theme from iThemes.com as it gave us the flexibility to add a number of widgets on the main page. We have complete control over the background, colors, pages, widgets, layout etc..
As you might suspect they wanted rotating images on the main page of the website. We used the ever popular NextGen Gallery and Smooth Slide show plugin to display the member photos on the main page.
They also use the photo gallery for monthly contest winners and other events throughout the year. They post to the blog and include a link to the particular gallery so images are embedded into the blog posts!
This is small organization with a very specific focus “photography.” Photography is a very broad topic but when visitors come to their website we wanted to cut as many clicks to the information as possible.
The top row of navigational buttons or links are the “pages” in WordPress that we transferred and edited for the new site. The information is fairly static and only changes about once a year. We added a contact form and the ability to download the very simple application for membership in PDF format. Future plans are to make this into an online registration form with ability to pay via PayPal.
The second row of navigational buttons are actually links to blog categories. The navigational buttons are created dynamically as new categories are created. Don’t worry new categories need to be enabled in the theme settings to be visible. This is a great feature in case a user creates a new category incorrectly or by mistake.
Social Network Integration
We also create a Facebook fan page and Twitter account to allow people to follow the groups news and updates. We connected the blog to the Facebook fan page via notes. Then with Twitter Tools we linked directly to the Twitter account so updates to the blog get posted to both social media sites.
We also add WP Follow Me to add the Twitter icon on the right side of the page. We also added Sociable plugin and the FindMeOn plugins for tighter social networking integration. Visitors can find the site via social networking then post interesting content from the website out to the social networks!
Widgets
The left and right columns were perfect to add widgets to show upcoming events, recent posts, links (blogroll) and links to member sites. Many of the members have their own websites and we want to highlight them here.
We added sponsor logos to the footer area and the order rotates every time the page updates. This gives each vendor top listings every time the footer loads.
Calendar
Event Calendar 3 was our plugin of choice for this website. Of course there is a widget showing upcoming events but this plugin creates calendar events by creating a post. You use the post editor as you would write a blog post but at the bottom choose your starting and ending date/time. When you submit a calendar event the post is assigned to a specific category in your blog. IF you have setup RSS to email via Subscribe2 or aWeber or others, then your calendar event you just posted is emailed to your email subscribers as well as your RSS subscribers.
For this website we did not enable the Subscribe2 widget as they prefer to only have paid club members on the email list.
Newsletters
The photography club publishes a monthly newsletter saved as a PDF document. They post each newsletter announcement to the blog and PDF files are managed by WP-Download Manager. As stated above when they post a newsletter their email list of subscribers gets an email notice where they can download the latest copy.
Backend Plugins
Once completed we added SEO, Backup, Optimizer, Google Sitemaps. The site is submitted to major search engines setup for regular backups and optimizes automatically!
Future Plans
We are also planning to create a membership site or a “members only” site. The club wants to allow people to post photos for review and ONLY allow other members from the club to see and give feedback on the images. There are amazing sites around the Internet that allow this but many feel uncomfortable doing this. They fear their photos being criticized by people they don’t know or someone may steal their photo. We will overcome this by keep the group local to the local members.
We plan to use WPWishlist and will post an update when the next phase is completed.
Closing
If your group or organization is looking for an affordable website solution we can help. We create the site to fit your needs then you can maintain page updates and changes. Contact us as needed to add more functionality and features!
We can host your WordPress website and we offer plugin, database and SEO maintenance for WordPress.
Contact us today for more information on how we can help with your web development, design integrated with social networking and web hosting!
Of course to learn more about http://LinnAreaPhotoClub.org just visit their website!
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http://LCRMarion.org
I really enjoyed developing this website solution for a local church in Marion, IA. If there was ever a perfect fit for WordPress, a church comes very close. You have diverse congregation of people, the church staff and volunteer committees and groups inside the church. All of them share the need to communicate to the congregation on a regular and timely basis.
To date, most churches have used the traditional print newsletter on a monthly basis, weekly printed bulletins at the weekend services (for those members who attend) and more recently churches are using email, some too much!
The Details of the website
We developed a WordPress website using the bSocial Theme from iThemes.com and transferred their existing web pages to the new site. We then trained the staff on how to login and update and change the pages when they want to. We learned many of the pages hadn’t been updated for over a year and there were pages they wanted to add!
Next we added an online calendar and again trained the staff to add events based on a number of categories. They have started with simply the weekly services but soon plan to add all upcoming events around the church and groups/committees!
Next we connected their photos page to their SmugMug photo hosting site. The church has a photography club and all members who take photos upload to the SmugMug professional hosting site in high resolution. Now members of the church can order photos, posters, canvas prints and more!
The website pulls the most recent photos from the SmugMug website via the WP-SmugMug Plugin. As new photos are added the website is updated automatically!
Finally we setup the pastors and church leaders with the concept of blogging and the ability to send updates to the congregation when they publish a blog post. They can now post weekly sermon notes and other news/events without waiting for the weekly bulletin or monthly newsletter. This will allow more timely communications.
We added a video box for the church to include recent videos of events or videos pertaining to the holidays or sermon series!
Email, Facebook, Twitter integration with WordPress
We installed the Subscribe2 plugin to allow people visiting the website to sign up for email news and updates. Any blog post will be sent to their email automatically. This is similar to aWeber or Constant Contact but for free! It also allows the church to upload their existing email list of church members and manually add new members when they like. This is a powerful way to communicate but wait…
Next we add the blog RSS feed to the notes page of the Facebook fan page for the church. Now anytime the church posts to the blog it updates Facebook automatically! But wait…
Using the Twitter Tools plugin we also connected blog posts to Twitter updates. Again any blog post updates the churches Twitter account!
So ANY BLOG POST to the website is automatically sent to the email subscribers, updates Facebook and updates Twitter! Very powerful!
Christian Plugins
We did a search for terms like bible or church and Christian and came up with some very nice plugins!
Bible Reading Plan allowed us to put a widget on the main page with daily Bible Reading plans based on the bible used by LCRMarion.org! It supports many versions of the bible so this could be used for many denominations!
The Holy Scripturizer plugin is a really cool plugin. The plugin searches the pages and blog posts for any reference to a bible verse and automatically links them to the bible verse online AND displays a popup. The church can also choose their bible of preference!
Sermon Browser is an amazing plugin! The church is going to implement this next year but the site is setup and we have tested the plugin. Basically the plugin allows the church to upload audio/video copies of sermons and library sort them by date, pastor, series, keywords and more! Notes can be connected to a sermon and linked to iTunes for Podcasting support!
Additional Plugins
WP FollowMe was added to put a floating icon on the right side of the website to allow people to easily follow LCRMarion.org on Twitter.com
We also added the TweetMe – Retweet plugin so visitors can re-tweet any content or post they like. Sociable was added to extend this functionality to Facebook, LinkedIn and more!
There are many other backend plugins for backup and database management, SEO, XML sitemaps, Google Analytics and more!
In Closing
Churches today are looking for ways to reach out using technology to their current congregation and to find new ways to attract members to their church. Churches are also aging and looking for ways to bring younger people and families to their congregation. Collaborative WordPress sites that implement Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook, Twitter but more importantly have the ability to blog post their updates when they happen vs waiting till the the next weekend service or monthly newsletter!
We have started working on a new website for the LCR Youth. The goal of the separate site is to connect to youth from 6th grade to high school seniors but more importantly to stay connected to the youth through college and into the future!
More updates coming soon!
If you are looking for a solution for your church contact us today to get a quote and learn more about our services!
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Dance Arts Iowa offers a carefully designed and progressive program in dance technique, which takes the young dancer from the primary levels to pre-professional dance.
Dance Arts Iowa offers strong technical training in ballet and encourages students to take Jazz, Tap, and Irish Step Dance to stimulate creativity and enhance rhythm, musicality and fun.
The Website: http://DanceArtsIowa.com
The owner/director Ellis Stroud wanted a new website with more functionality and bright colors! She wanted the new website to match the new colors of their studio which are very bright and cheery!
Due to the number of options we built this site using the Flexx Blog Theme from iThemes Home Page. DAI wanted the rotating images look in the header so we created a base header image with text and changed the background images. We then uploaded the multiple background images and the theme has options to rotate the headers to get a “flash look.” I also like that the navigation buttons can be set above or below the header so we have full use of the header to show what the organization is about.
Next we built a custom graphic with the client’s provided colors to make the page stand out!
Due to the number of options they wanted on the home page we chose both right and left sidebars as well as a footer. This Flexx Blog Theme makes WordPress.org sites look and act very much like what many call a “standard website.” The sidebars, header, footer are consistent through the entire site. We can change that if we like but this is what the customer requested.
The “home page” or landing page was changed to be a static page the client can update. From there we created numerous web pages which are now managed by the client and they contact us for help as needed.
Plugins we used:
The online calendar was very important for managing upcoming events online. We decided to use the Calendar plugin from Kieran O’Shea as we find it’s the best plugin for schedule events that repeat. There’s a full page view as well as sidebar plugins to show upcoming events. The only thing we wish it had was the ability to create a blog post for each entry so clients can be emailed automatically!
Email Subscribers are important as many people still don’t understand RSS. I’m sure RSS makes total sense to all the techies reading this but to show someone what RSS is and then find a reader and then get them to check it, we needed an easy way to allow people to subscribe to upcoming events. So we used one of our favorites Subscribe2 by Matthew Robinson. The plugin allows visitors to enter their email address and subscribe to blog posts/updates. You can manually add people to your list and there’s no need to configure an email server or anything like that. Configure a few options and add the widget to the sidebar and you can build your email subscriber list.
One note on this topic: If you have multiple blogs and you want to build a single subscriber list you’ll need to use a service like aWeber. Setup one email list at aWeber, copy the code into EACH WordPress site and when people subscribe to any site or you update any site everyone gets the update. You can also customize the emails to clients more with aWeber. Click here to learn more: http://aweber.com/?313785
For the photo galleries we used non other than NextGen Galleries plugin. With NextGen you can create multiple galleries of photos, resize photos and even combine photos into albums. From there you can upload various flash or swf players to display the photos in moving “flash” galleries or individual photos. 
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Jeff Schmatt has been a photographer for many years. He has a successful studio near Mt Vernon but he also travels to the clients or events and he also shoots commercial photography. He does great work with Seniors and families!
For this project we used the iThemes Life Theme and customized the header and some colors.
Plugins include Subscribe2 for managing email subscribers, NextGen Gallery for photo albums.
We also integrated this site with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace.
When Jeff completes a photo shoot with a client he creates a blog post and includes a gallery of low-res photos which link to his online fulfillment gallery.
He then chooses a category for each post (Seniors, Commercial, Family, etc..) which auto creates his portfolio links.
Next every blog posts automatically updates the social network sites which brings users back to his website.
Check it out at: http://rubicon-photo.com
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