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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

A Life of Meaning

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

If we are proactive and passionate about personal growth and continuous improvement, then we can achieve the unimaginable.  It is the determination to grow, and the consistent application of knowledge and values that fuel a sense of purpose and ignites the same spark of faith in others. Yes, the positive consequences of our proactive effort are far reaching – beyond anything we can know.

 

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Should You Use a Ghostwriter? 5 Things To Consider

Thursday, April 11th, 2013

If you’re like me, you have moments where your time feels so stretched, you want to clone yourself: just step into some contraption from a science fiction movie and generate two yous. I know I’d enjoy a having a second Jason around to mow the lawn while I play with the kids.

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What Makes Us Different?

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

We specialize in custom high-end design. Our clients are typically looking for the wow factor in design – something that grabs the attention of their clients. We like to think that we have some of the better designs on the web.

Our aim is perfection. We value quality – from code to design. We have a full time Quality Assurance Technician whose primary purpose is to catch any glitch before it gets in front of users. Most developers and companies don’t have this additional layer of quality assurance. We stand behind our values.

We are goal-oriented. We set deadlines and stick to them. This is what sets us apart from the overloaded freelancer who has the capacity of only one person. We have a team of six, who are focused on the goal of delivering a fully functioning website on time.

We love to communicate. We believe that communication is key to the success of a website launch. Our typical client wants a beautiful website that uniquely defines their business and addresses their goals. We must listen and understand their needs and unique position in the market. Cookie cutter templates are not our thing.

We have a process. Other companies will jump right into blind development and will waste their and your valuable time with rework.  Here’s our process:

  1. Discovery
    We start with a fact finding mission. We ask lots of questions to determine how to best meet your needs. We’ll run reports, look at statistics, and review competitor sites. We learn what you are about, where you’ve been, and where you are wanting to go.
  2. Wireframing and Documentation
    We begin sketching our ideas using plain old pen and paper and/or digital wireframing tools – whatever fits the occasion.  Depending on the size of the project, we will also provide documentation such as use cases, test cases, field definitions and architectural design documentation. The goal here is to get everything we need to design and build the project, establish deadlines and deliverables and more clearly define scope.
  3. Design
    Once you are comfortable with the plan, we will begin the graphic design process for the home page. After feedback and revisions, once we’ve gotten your comments and approval on the home page, we will create full color designs for additional major page types.
  4. Development
    During the development process we write the code that transforms your designs into a fully functioning website or intranet. This includes everything from front end development using HTML and CSS, to hard core server-side software programming.
  5. Testing
    Testing is actually done at every level of the design-build process. Our goal is perfection, so we assign a Quality Assurance Technician to test and inspect every detail of your website at every step.
  6. Go Live!

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Duckback Products Testimonial

Friday, April 6th, 2012

SiteHatchery was recommended to us by one of our local print vendors Creative Composition.  We liked the user friendly aspect and clean design of the Creative Composition site and Duckback was in need of a complete website overhaul.  We desired a site that would be easy to navigate and visually appealing.  With over 25 unique products under the brands of Superdeck and Mason’s Select, we also required that the products be organized in a very user friendly fashion.  Duckback sells products through an international distribution to 3,500 store locations requiring an online retailer database with zip code search and map function.  In addition we required a media center to share files, videos, photos and other marketing content with our customers and vendors.  We wanted to post customer testimonials and photos as well.  Needless to say we asked for a lot.  The team at SiteHatchery did an amazing job that resulted in a completely new and modern look with major improvements to the design and functionality of the site.  Duckback has been in business in Chico for over 20 years, and as a local manufacturer we are pleased to support another Chico business within our community.  Please visit our new site at www.superdeck.com and let us know what you think!

Jennifer Haney
Senior Project Manager
Duckback Products

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Friday, March 16th, 2012

Greetings everyone!  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  It has been an exciting first couple of months for our 2012 year.  We just finished wrapping up the website for a national wood stain and concrete stain brand, Duckback Products – makers of Superdeck and Mason’s Select.  It was one of the larger scale projects we’ve done and look forward to working with them in the future if the opportunity presents itself.

We are currently beginning work on a website for Fanny Pak, a dance crew competing on this season of MTV America’s Best Dance Crew.  This will be one of the first entertainment and celebrity-driven sites that we have worked on.  We’re excited to give them an awesome look and feel for their website, and watching them take the crown this year on ABDC.  We wish them the best of luck.

Speaking of luck… it’s St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow!  We hope you all have a safe holiday and maybe we will see some of you at the Chico Home & Garden show this weekend.  We’ve been helping them with updates on their website this year and look forward to seeing the work we put into their site come to life this weekend.

Until next time!!

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Video Blog – Search Engine Optimization > Backlinks

Saturday, March 10th, 2012

Jason Cox, Owner of SiteHatchery, discusses the role SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in the success of an online business. Specifically, he quickly describes different backlinking methods.

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Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

The SiteHatchery Egg even loves Christmas!

2011 has been a fun and exciting year for us here at the SiteHatchery office.  This year we brought on three new employees, worked simultaneously on web development projects, and are ending the year doing perhaps the most exciting website we’ve done as a company thus far.  It’s our first government website as a company, so it’s quite the rewarding experience for us to be given the opportunity to develop a website that will have such a high impact on its community.

We have wrapped up many projects this year including websites for entrepreneurs as well as local and out of state businesses.  Among these, Edwards Property Management, The Ebay Life Blog, Swank Plank and a website for a radio station out of New Jersey, WFDU FM.  We are thrilled and anxious to see what 2012 will bring, and how we can possibly further challenge ourselves in our creativity and web design elements.  As a company, we constantly strive to keep up with the latest, modern web designs and features, offering up-to-date, professional websites to our clients.

As this year comes to a close we would like to thank all of you who have supported us this year; to all of our clients and friends, we wish you a Merry Christmas and hope that your holiday season is filled with joy, laughter and great memories for the years to come.

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Extreme Makeover: Office Edition

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

Until 5 months ago, we were doing business out of various coffee shops in our city. In the beginning, it was a fantastic way to save overhead expense – no Internet, rent or power bill. My grand vision was to have a large and lean virtual company made up of SiteHatchery employees networked all over California, working out of coffee shops. The perk? Free coffee and treats. Of course there were certain problems inherent with my plan. For one, the noise was very distracting and sometimes unbearable. I even purchased a $350 pair of headphones to block out the chatter. Outgoing phone calls were challenging (I often sat in my car), the Internet connection was usually slow or down, and we found ourselves regularly engaging in long conversations with familiar patrons. For a while we were able to tolerate these issues, however, it eventually became apparent that maybe it was time for an office. Though having an office would be in increase in overhead, we would certainly be more efficient and focused. So, in April, we made the big move.

The coolest looking pillows! Perfect for our new office and new chairs.

It’s been 5 months in the new office and we are loving it. We moved to the north side of Chico in the Esplanade North complex, just across from the new Brain Freeze and CVS shopping center. We really wanted to stay away from

the stereotypical web development company – having an office in downtown with limited paid parking. Instead, we decided to settle down in a professional location where our clients and future prospects would take us a little more seriously. Our new office was a blank canvas for creating the perfect work environment, so we brushed on a wall of black paint as a base and placed our giant logo over the top of it. The Craigslist gods even brought us a beautiful vintage gold velvet couch! Soon we will be adding a nice coffee table and a pair of retro white chairs with funky pillows that have “@” symbols on them. We can’t wait to start our new video blog with this cozy area as the backdrop.

 

Our new chairs for the office should be here anytime! Were extremely excited for their arrival.

Business is doing well, though we do miss the simple perks of working out of coffee shops, it’s nothing a quick trip across the street to Brain Freeze every now and then can’t fix. The new office is a place where we will be able to grow as a company and look good doing it! We’re excited for all of the new things that are happening in the SiteHatchery office, and would love for you to come see our new home. Maybe you can even help us design the office a little bit, we would love the input. Just give us a ring at (530) 680-2734; We would love to show you our work spaces and share with you our vision.  Hope to see you soon!

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Bidwell Perk Testimonial

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Our business is grounded on a commitment to offer great service and products to our customers.  Our goal was to create a website that would effectively mirror our values, our brand, and  bring Bidwell Perk’s online presence to life. SiteHatchery did just that!  The website showcases our business perfectly. The photography captures different products and retail items for sale, as well as the environment at Bidwell Perk. It is easy to navigate, allowing visitors to explore our menus for coffees, teas, specialty drinks, breakfast, lunch and more.  We hope that customers who see us online will come and visit us in Chico, California!



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Creative Composition

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

Website developed for Creative Composition in Chico, CAThe challenge for Creative Composition in envisioning a new website was that it would need to speak to two very different audiences; print newbies, who have a vague idea of what they want and no knowledge of how to ask for it; and seasoned print professionals who speak “printer-ese” as their first language. We produce a huge volume and variety of materials so an easily understandable and navigable site that could showcase our abilities and serve both kinds of clientele was mission critical.

SiteHatchery understood and embraced the challenge from the start.

Did I mention we have more than our share of control freaks around here? (An occupational hazard in a business that is keen on DETAILS.) We also wanted a dynamic site that we could easily update so we could show the world the killer products we were making day in and day out. We don’t do stale.

We also had some very specific ideas of how we wanted it to look and feel. They were great at responding to “I want what I want”. There answer was always, “Sure, we can do that”. I never felt that someone was on the other end of the phone call rolling their eyes.

Jason and his team helped us think through the process and find the most elegant solutions. They kept to their timelines and also held us accountable to our part of the process, which is crucial in any partnership – and sometimes a delicate dance.

However, even more impressive to me than their technical expertise, was SiteHatchery’s commitment to client communication. I’ve worked with other web firms that assure you they are ”busy in the back room” and promise to hit the deadline but you can never be sure because there is no communication between milestones. The SH team acknowledged every communication, and gave me real time progress updates. That is HUGE when you are answering to people above you who want to hear more than …”the web guys promise……”.

We are thoroughly delighted with our new site and would (and have) give SiteHatchery our highest recommendation.

Keitha Corbit
Creative Composition
Client Relations Director

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New Blog Design

Monday, February 28th, 2011

If you have received our eblast, then you have heard the rumor about the change to our blog. Look around. Does it remind you of something familiar? You guessed it!! It looks just like the rest of our site!

We decided a uniform look will decrease confusion to new visitors, so we gave it an upgrade. What do you think?

In web development, consistency is a key component to good development. We do not want people to think they have left our site when they visit our blog, so we decided to help them out a bit. It is the same site you have grown to trust for web development discussion, just with an upgrade. Please continue to give us tips and feedback. We always appreciate the dialogue.

Always improving,

The SiteHatchery team

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The Phone Book vs. Google

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

The use of websites has dramatically changed over the course of the last five, even ten years. More consumers are turning to the internet to look up simple business questions. The phone book is a thing of the past. I cannot even count the number of times I have “googled” a business just to look up simple information about operating hours, services offered, and phone numbers. Because of the change in the use of the web, business must reconsider their presence online.

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Strategic Content and SEO

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Though understanding and applying SEO (Search Engine Optimization) concepts can be challenging, it’s absolutely necessary to have a firm grasp on at least the basics. SEO firms and web developers throw out terms like meta-tags, backlinks, sitemaps and other other such technospeak, making internet marketing seem as daunting as writing a book on application programming or learning a foreign language. The complex algorithms involved in a search listing placement are well beyond the comprehension of most mathematicians. So don’t beat yourself up if it seems over your head. No matter your height, the sky is over all of our heads.

Implementing basic SEO concepts can truly set your online business apart from your competition. Your website’s position in search engine listings influences fluctuations in visitor traffic, and in many cases, viability. So your primary aim will be to do whatever you can (providing that it’s fair and ethical) to make it to the top of the list. It is this drive to advance beyond a competitor that makes SEO fun, and getting there can be financially rewarding. (more…)

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What Is Website Usability, and Why Should You Care?

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

What does it mean to say you have a “usable” website? The term “usability” is actually an industry term that is based on an entire field of research and testing that, simply put, has to do with how easy it is for people to navigate and use your website. (more…)

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3 Reasons Your Website Needs Videos NOW

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

Does your website have videos? Are they something you plan to get around to “someday”? Or do you wonder, why bother if you already have good content in the form of text and still photos? I think you need to get videos on your site sooner than later, and here’s why: (more…)

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