The Challenge: Think Iowa City needed an easy to use and manage eCommerce site to sell its shirts, hats, and other merchandise. It had to be easy to use on both the front and backend; users should be able to find the products they’re looking for easily, and staff should be able to add products to the backend quickly.
The Process: Vortex worked with Think Iowa City to determine the bare necessities needed for the website. The goal was to keep it as simple as possible, both for users buying products and staff managing inventory.
The Result: The Shop Think Iowa City website is simple and easy to use. All of the products are located on the home page and can easily be accessed.
The Challenge: Candida was in need of a new website to showcase her beautiful art, and act as an educational and sales tool for her counseling and therapy business. Prior to, she had her information on an outdated website, and needed something she could brand as her own.
The Process: Vortex worked with Candida to determine what sets her apart from others in her field, and identify which services she wanted to focus on the most. The website was kept as simple as possible, with only two pages.
The Result: Vortex produced a slick, compact, streamlined website for Candida that efficiently presents her services and art portfolio to potential clients. The services and contact form are located right on the home page, making the layout and user experience as simple as possible.
The Challenge: Bench Solution’s original website was built in the early 2010’s, and its design and functionality reflected that. It was easy for users to get lost in its pages, and the design was in a frame, wasting precious screen space.
The Process: Vortex Digital created a new sitemap; removing unneeded pages, and combining content where necessary. A new, full-width design was created, and the navigation was reworked to be more ergonomic.
The Result: The new Bench Solution website serves as an effective marketing funnel, presenting their most important products front and center. Users can easily get to the page they want to in as few clicks as possible.
The Challenge: Like its sister sites, Apartments Near Campus and Apartments at Iowa, the original Apartments Downtown website was extremely dated, hard to navigate, and difficult for Apartments Downtown staff to make changes to. The database was also obsolete, and required extensive upkeep.
The Process: To save on time and money, Vortex Digital duplicated the Apartments Downtown WordPress installation, and slightly tweaked the design and branding to match Apartments Downtown. While it uses a completely different database to manage its properties, it utilizes the same functionality as its sister sites to manage them, making it as easy as possible for staff to maintain the site themselves.
The Result: The new Apartments Downtown website was built in much less time and for much less money than its sister sites, due to the functionality already being coded in, and only needing the design and branding tweaked. The new backend allows staff to easily manage every aspect of the website, and the updated navigation makes it much easier for tenants and potential tenants to find the information they’re looking for.
The Challenge: The original Family Crisis Center website was functional, but had a confusing page structure, unintuitive design, and it did not reflect their new brand guidelines. Navigating the site was difficult, as it was easy to get lost.
The Process: Vortex Digital worked with The Family Crisis Center to determine what the most important information for users would be, and crafted the site structure and design to highlight this. It was imperative that users could find what they were looking for with as few clicks as possible. A custom design was created for the website to better reflect The Family Crisis Center’s new branding guidelines. New SEO was written for each page to achieve a higher organic ranking for keywords such as “domestic abuse shelter”, “women’s shelter”, and more.
The Result: Vortex Digital donated a large amount of time and created a beautiful, ergonomic, informative website for The Family Crisis Center. The navigation clearly states each section of the website, and there is an Escape button for domestic abuse victims to quickly leave the site if needed. The site is built in WordPress, and allows Family Crisis Center staff to easily make edits to the website themselves.
The Challenge: The original Apartments Near Campus website was an extremely dated HTML website, with obsolete design and an unintuitive user experience. The database of properties was functional, but difficult to navigate, and hard for staff to manage in the backend.
The Process: Vortex Digital worked with Apartments Near Campus to determine the most important details about each property, and constructed a database that displayed this information. The database would be searchable by keyword, availability, bedrooms, bathrooms, amenities, and more. Apartments Near Campus also desired an interactive map that showed their properties relative to local businesses, schools and landmarks. The new website was built in WordPress, allowing staff to easily make changes to properties and website themselves.
The Result: The new Apartments Near Campus website displays all properties and tenant services in an ergonomic, interactive layout that users can easily explore through a variety of different methods; from amenities and location to rent and property type. Apartments Near Campus staff can easily edit and add new properties themselves through the WordPress backend interface, and the new design streamlined the browsing process for users.
The Challenge: Heritage Kitchens has made high quality, custom-made hardwood cabinets for years, however, had no web presence. Business was found through reference and word of mouth, but Heritage Kitchens needed a website to increase lead generation and revenue.
The Process: Vortex Digital worked with Heritage Kitchens to understand their brand and rich history, and converted that into a beautiful, custom design. Each of Heritage Kitchens’ services has its own page with additional information, and a portfolio of past work. Each page was coded with SEO best practices in mind, with appropriate meta data and tags. The website was also built in WordPress, allowing for easy future expansion.
The Result: The new Heritage Kitchens website is completely responsive, adheres to modern best practices, and provides an effective marketing funnel to compliment their other channels. Strategically placed positioning statements and calls to action drive users to the ultimate goal: getting in contact with Heritage to plan their dream kitchen.
The Challenge: Vortex Digital created the original Revival Theatre Company website back in 2015 to help showcase its upcoming performances, feature show sponsors, and inform users about upcoming auditions. In 2021, the design was becoming dated, and was in need of a facelift.
The Process: All of the content from the original website was migrated to a brand new WordPress installation, and a new theme was created. New imagery from Revival’s venue and shows were added to the design to make each page as eye-catching as possible. The backend was reprogrammed to allow Revival staff to easily add upcoming shows and change all aspects of the website themselves. A donation portal was also added, moving the functionality from an expensive third party platform to an internal form.
The Result: The new Revival Theatre Company website features a brand new, beautiful design that showcases impactful, eye-catching imagery of its shows and cast. The new backend functionality makes it as easy as possible for Revival staff to make edits themselves, and the new theme serves as a solid foundation for future expansion.