Integration is fairly straightforward, although with dynamically [...]]]> The latest social sharing addition for Curiouser and Curiouser in Edinburgh is the Pinterest “Pin It” feature. This lets visitors pin images of products or items of interest to their Pinterest account and share by way of an online pinboard with those who share the same interests.

Integration is fairly straightforward, although with dynamically generated urls for individual product pages in the Prestashop installation, the code seemed to work fine when tweaked as follows:

<a href="&quot;http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url={$smarty.server.HTTP_HOST}{$smarty.server.REQUEST_URI}&media={$link-">getImageLink($product->link_rewrite, $cover.id_image, 'large')}&description={$image.legend|htmlspecialchars}" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal">Pin It</a>

This takes the current product page as “url”, the main image for the product, and in this case the image title for the “description” and passes it to Pinterest. You can link Pinterest with Facebook and Twitter.

The one rule of the exhibition was, you’ve guessed it…

1. No landscapes

Rachel Speedie, Adam German, Blossom Mccuaig, Sophie Wilson, Fraser Irvine, Peter Smith [...]]]> Callisti was able to help sponsor the “No Landscapes” exhibition opening at Kings Coffee Shop in Dumfries by donating a case of wine to lubricate the artists’ showcase event.

The one rule of the exhibition was, you’ve guessed it…

1. No landscapes

Rachel Speedie, Adam German, Blossom Mccuaig, Sophie Wilson, Fraser Irvine, Peter Smith and Dave Miller were some of the young artists involved.

Not much to see at the moment but as content and functionality are added with [...]]]> Equilibry is starting a simple online marketing strategy in tandem with a holistic therapy practitioner event this weekend in Edinburgh so Callisti was able to customise the twentyeleven WordPress theme using the graphic design and logos supplied by the client.

Not much to see at the moment but as content and functionality are added with some website development, it should strengthen the presence in search results for the on-site and mobile massage provider. The key here was to ensure that potential customers could follow an email or web address and not hit a dead-end – a killer for any marketing exercise.

The email correspondence alone would probably have served as [...]]]> It’s not often Callisti gets a search-engine-marketing client who is already a “web design and search engine marketing” provider so it was a good way to gain insight into the current needs and search channel emphasis of new web design and SEO companies (Edinburgh-based as well!)

The email correspondence alone would probably have served as a template for quick SEO and search engine submission, making basic use of blog content, facebook and twitter profiles and xml sitemaps to help the major search engines index the newly generated pages.

Ryster has a different business model to Callisti, but the Edinburgh based web design, graphic design and search engine marketing company makes use of networking to deliver projects. Kit Allen constructed the Ryster website WordPress integration with using Ryster’s web design, Callisti carried out the initial website SEO and social networking link-ups with Facebook and Twitter (along with Google Adwords setup and general search engine marketing consultancy), and content and copy was written to ensure Ryster’s blog posts and portfolio descriptions were informative and relevant.

For a small company this can make a lot of sense if your main strengths lie in networking and getting sales, providing you can rely on a proven network of skilled providers whose services cost less than what you sell! The right business model for the right person at the right time. Martini?

This basically required a total facelift and css makeover with these (rough) steps:

Create [...]]]> The Dryfesdale Hotel in Lockerbie, Scotland, is part of the Best Western Hotel system so a few individuality trade-offs have been made to meet the stipulations of the Best Western website guidelines.

This basically required a total facelift and css makeover with these (rough) steps:

Create new page template and css file for testing changes
Update website with recommended font (arial)
Update navigation menu (change to horizontal!) – check across different browsers (FF, chrome, ie)
Widen page layout to fit with change in design losing vertical left hand menu
Best Western logo to show on upper-left of each page
“BEST WESTERN” to precede first mention of hotel on each page – check pages and amend as required
Update Dryfesdale logo graphic so that text is ITC Century Book Condensed and contains BEST WESTERN text before name of hotel
Add required text to footer:
“The World’s Biggest Hotel Family® – Each Best Western® branded hotel is independently owned and operated” and link to best western homepage: www.bestwestern.co.uk
Add required link (using graphic image link) to the Best Western Rewards GB website: www.bestwestern.co.uk/rewards
Recommended text colour and link colours updated as per BW guidelines
Page outline colours updated – drop shadow styling to improve design – further cross-browser compatibity checking

While at it:
Fixed bug with special offer display
Addressed a gallery images display issue

…Nothing to do with the new apartments and cottage buildings added to the West Heath Place, now addressed at 1b Hodford Road, London, just off Finchley Road.

This update required creating new posts for the apartments, creating new [...]]]> Remember that old song Johnny McEldoo? “He began to curse and swear, tear his hair in despair…”

…Nothing to do with the new apartments and cottage buildings added to the West Heath Place, now addressed at 1b Hodford Road, London, just off Finchley Road.

This update required creating new posts for the apartments, creating new floorplan images, creating new flash image-maps based on the latest brochure (which is now available to download) and updating some other details.

One of the floorplan image has degraded slightly so will likely be updated with an improved version.

The latest step for Sledges.co.uk was [...]]]> Simple Facebook pages were created recently for Sledges.co.uk and Lochanview.com with some information about the Aviemore-based outdoor shop in the Scottish highlands, and the Dumfries (Kippford) self-catering log cabin holiday venue respectively. The log cabin facebook page is already drawing positive visitor reviews and comments with minimal marketing.

The latest step for Sledges.co.uk was to add and test the like button for each of the products on the e-commerce website so that visitors could share products with friends within their own facebook worlds. Also a link from website to facebook page seemed obligatory! This will be the next step for Lochanview.com’s facebook presence, ideally when the page gets the magical 25 likes required to claim the vanity url.

The emerging trend is that wee facebook icon links and like buttons (and associated html5, og meta-tags, etc) are getting peppered across more and more sites on the internet. Facebook can piggyback on the hard work people put in on driving relevant traffic to their websites by siphoning off “social” activity by visitors.

That aside, Rivendell in Dumfries (Scotland) have launced a new version of their Bed and Breakfast website with an online booking system provided by [...]]]> It was always a curiousity. Whether to optimise for bed and breakfast, bed & breakfast, b’n'b, bnb, b&b, bed ‘n’ breakfast, b and b – are there any other variations?

That aside, Rivendell in Dumfries (Scotland) have launced a new version of their Bed and Breakfast website with an online booking system provided by Queensborough Group. It meets their design wishes and is based on a customised WordPress theme (child of twentyeleven) with some Facebook and TripAdvisor plug-inery amongst other things. The homepage is based on their printed advert and looks more like a splash-screen of old.

The Rivendell Facebook page is also up and running and at the moment features some photographs of Rivendell B&B and a TripAdvisor review widget tab for some extra interactivity.

Still a lot [...]]]> This is a revamp of an existing website (based on codeigniter) using a custom wordpress theme. The Snowdrop Transfers site is a contact point for searchers looking for flight transfers from their airport to the alpine ski resort in the French Alps.

Still a lot of functionality to be made live but the season for ski holidays is upon us and it was important to update and optimise some of the resort and ski transfer information, as well as link up with the Facebook and Twitter profiles.