GrassRoots Blog

Here at Grassroots we are always talking about how important your website is and since we have created masterpieces for our clients we figured it was about time for us to be proud of our own site. After we decided that our site needed a facelift, Fred asked me to start revamping it since it has not had a "spring cleaning" in about six months (which in Internet time is about 5 years). I have been totally reinventing our site to make it easier to navigate and more visually pleasing. Trying to pick and choose what to include and how to present all our information has been very time consuming but I have really enjoyed it.

Before I started working at Grassroots I did not realize that a website can be your best or worst marketing tool. A company that has a good site has a home for its product or service to live, which makes it easier for the consumer to search for and actually find that product or service. A company that does not have a good site or that does not have one at all for that matter, has no place for the consumer to try and find its product or service. How does that company expect to get any business if the consumer cannot find it? Not only does you company need to have a visually pleasing and easily navigable site, you need to start doing search engine optimization at the development stage. If your company starts doing SEO from the time you start putting your site together you are able to save a lot of time once it gets up and running. Just make sure you know what you are doing (or you hire someone else who knows) because you could end up hurting your website more than helping it. I know I talk about websites a lot but they are one of the most important assets that your company can have...

So now that I am in my 9th week here at Grassroots I finally feel like I am getting the hang of things. Good thing since I am going to be sticking around longer than I thought! So don't worry this isn't my last blog!

Now back to business...this week I wrote a couple of articles to go along with our ads again. I think they turned out better this time, now that I know what I am doing. Fred did not have to critique them as much as he did the last time, which tells me that I am starting to really get the hang of this whole marketing business. This internship has definitely been a learning experience for me and I am truly thankful that I am able to continue to work at Grassroots. I know that I have a lot more learning to do before I am ready to venture out on my own into the real world of marketing. I just hope I am able to learn the majority of what I need to know before December!

This week was all about putting the finishing touches on the All Occasion Catering website. We are ready to go live (by Wednesday 7/14!) and I cannot wait! I know that everyone at Grassroots is proud of this site and we are ready for everyone else to see it. We believe that it is the best site that we have built so far and we are looking forward to building many more that are just as great! Not only is this the best site we have built it is also the first one that includes animation. Yes, you read that correctly I said animation. We wanted to make AOC Picnics the "fun" page (since everyone has fun at picnics) and that is when we decided that we needed to get creative with the ant character from the new logo. Go to www.alloccasioncatering.com/picnics to check out our first take on website animation.

As you all know by now a website is never fully complete and it needs constant updates so once the site is up and running we will be constantly updating it with new photos from various events that AOC caters. In the mean time don't forget to check out the new, improved and animated AOC website! It will be up and running at www.alloccasioncatering.com by Wednesday (7/14/10)! I hope you all enjoy this website just as much as the Grassroots team does! We want to hear your feedback on our work so don't be shy...leave a comment on my blog post after you check out the site!

Eight weeks down...about one more to go!

After a much-needed vacation it was time for me to get down to business. I have had many tasks here at Grassroots since I started back in May. One of my main tasks has been working on the All Occasion Catering website. The Grassroots team has been working day and night trying to get this site ready to go live and although it is still not completely finished, it has turned out to be one of our best!

I never realized how much work actually went into building a website before I started working on AOC's. I thought all you had to do was choose a few background colors, a layout and write a little something about what the site was all about and you were done. I was very, very wrong. A great website cannot be made in a day and just because it goes live does not mean that it is finished. A website is something that should be constantly tweaked and updated, so just because it's live does not mean you can forget about it. Keep this in mind if you decide to let a website developer revamp your site, not only do site developers want to make a great one, they also have to figure out what you and your clients want and present that in a suitable fashion. The true test of website developers is presenting the site to the client, because no matter how great you think it is your client may not love it as much as you do. Well in this case all of the Grassroots team's hard work paid off because on Friday when we presented the site to the client they were pleased with the way it turned out. We still have a few tweaks to make to it before it goes live but it shouldn't be too long before everyone can marvel over this site! Happy 4th of July everyone!

Seven weeks down...two more to go!