How to Make a Great Website

"Its not wether you get knocked down"

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If you could be anyone you wanted to be, who would you be? How exciting is it to think that you could start a new chapter in your life in a whole new world? Without the limitations of the physical world and human constructs that have been created around you?

Well that’s where the Metaverse comes in. There are whole new worlds being created out there that will remove the physical limitations of life and allow you to chase your dreams and be who you want to be.

Sounds pretty exciting right? Let’s dig in a little more to understand what this might look like.

SO, WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?

Simply put, the Metaverse is the convergence of all the digital things you do online into one virtual experience.

In a sense, it already exists. We sit on Zoom calls, research on the web, talk on social media, buy things on Amazon, watch streaming events and online video, and play games. The Metaverse is already here.

But think of tying all of it together and removing some of the limitations that still exist in your physical life when you access the web.

But how is this all of the sudden now possible?

When I told my parents I was going to major in digital art, my decision was met with echoing questions:

“What even is that?”

“How are you going to make a living?”

Now 10 years out of college and as the Senior Digital Art Director at Karsh Hagan, I understand that these questions aren’t far from what we hear from prospects and clients on a daily basis.

“What is digital art, and how can it help our brand’s advertising strategy?” Let’s start from the top.

What is Digital Art?

Digital art is an artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process.

Digital art is all around us. It’s everywhere we look. From movies like Pixar’s ‘Toy Story’ to apps like Instagram, digital art has introduced modes of storytelling that were once impossible, making it a valuable and limitless tool for advertising.

Why is Digital Art a Successful Marketing Tactic?

Now, more than ever, we’re a visually driven society. It’s no coincidence that we’re naturally drawn to images, when you consider that 90% of the information processed by the brain is visual, and that our brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. The brain’s preference for images even impacts how memory is formed as 80% of people remember what they see, compared to 20 percent of what they read. That makes digital art an especially important tactic for brands looking to create a campaign that’s as efficient as it is impactful.

What is the Difference Between Digital Art and Traditional Art?

When it comes to advertising, the difference between digital art and traditional art is simple. There are no gatekeepers. Anyone with a phone in their pocket and a little bit of creativity can create and share their art. Unlike the billboards or magazines of the past, online apps allow artists to instantly publish their work for free for all to see.

The success of digital art within that context comes down to ROI. Delivering the highest return on your investment requires the ability to measure, analyze, and adapt your strategy – it requires the ability to learn. Digital art is iterative and efficient – allowing us to easily track engagement rates that let us fail fast, tweak, and refine. We can then use that information to employ data-proven digital art across all marketing channels, ultimately delivering a product that best serves your brand and your audience.

How You Can Use Digital Art In Brand Advertising

At Karsh Hagan, we have used our understanding to create beautiful and effective marketing campaigns for our clients. For VISIT DENVER we created an immersive world that targeted convention planners all over the country. We created three unique videos, using 2.5D animation. These videos were seen by over 462,610 people and counting! Check out the work here:

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At Karsh Hagan, we have used our understanding to create beautiful and effective marketing campaigns for our clients. For VISIT DENVER we created an immersive world that targeted convention planners all over the country. We created three unique videos, using 2.5D animation. These videos were seen by over 462,610 people and counting! Check out the work here:

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I’ve worked on a lot of projects in my career, and some just stand out – not because they are the biggest or flashiest, but because they embody everything done right. The LongPoint Minerals website drove home the idea that it takes a lot to build a great website no matter how big or small, and how you do it is just as important as what you do to deliver something exceptional.

And, when you’ve got a great team, with a good strategy, following the right methodology, the results really shine. This was one of those projects, so we wanted to highlight it and talk a little more about how we did it.

FIRST, GETTING TO THE WHY

One of the most important things a website can communicate is why you do what you do. For many rural community residents, choosing to sell their lands’ mineral rights is a long-term family decision, and they need to know they can work with a company they trust. For LongPoint Minerals, we developed a clear brand that targets the audiences with creative and messaging that was really true to the company: trust, respect, integrity, and their word is their bond, and it really is.

WE REALLY EMPATHIZED WITH USERS

With user-centered design as our methodology and research as our tool, we created a well thought out user experience that informs users throughout the site with contextual navigation, micro interactions to reveal content, and headlines to inform users of content with calls to action to move them to conversion. We made the site skimmable and of course responsive for mobile users on the go.

BUT WE HAD TO DRIVE BUSINESS

For the bottom line, from a business perspective, we focused on driving mineral rights leads and servicing investors. The site features a dynamic lead collection form that filters lead prospects to the proper area by locating them by county.

SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE

During the UX process, rather than create a huge site with extensive content, we really narrowed down the content of the site and paired it tightly with the UX to achieve the purpose of building relationships and driving prospect leads.

MAKE SURE IT INDEXES FOR SEARCH

We planned out and prioritized technically enabling search over optimizing content to start. We used a detailed SEO checklist to technically enable the site for search and also used the Yoast Plug to ensure metadata was entered based on the specifications. We are now well positioned to focus on a localization strategy to further enhance the SEO onsite content optimization of the site as a next step.

APPLIED A RURAL BUT CONTEMPORARY LOOK

We then took the brand and designed something that fits within that established look – something that feels rural but also feels contemporary with a modern font face that conveys a feeling of a trust in a legitimate scaling business. The design targeted the rural communities with earth tones, cool blues and relevant, authentic imagery. We then developed an extensive UI kit to create a consistent look and feel throughout the site, which will also be used to guide the feature enhancements to the site.

INTEGRATION FOR EFFICIENCY

In today’s complex technical world, it pays to accomplish specific tasks more efficiently by integrating 3rd party systems. First, we integrated with MailGun to facilitate the thousands of emails sent for sign-ups and forms to ensure delivery, then we also integrated with ARC GIS mapping system to display the accurate areas of operation on a dynamic map within the site with real-time data.

SECURE AND SCALABLE DELIVERY

To ensure the delivery of the site, we used managed hosting WP Engine which provided the added cloud security that we needed. We employed SSL encryption to further secure the site transactions. Then we did a security audit to confirm there were no holes, and that we were not passing any secure information without encryption.

TAKES A TEAM TO DELIVER

To deliver all the technical needs of the site, you need to partner with experts, so we partnered with an experienced WordPress development firm, hosting firm WPEngine, and – most importantly – our client to deliver on this project. And the team really worked well together, a critical component of a successful project.

AGILE AND COLLABORATIVE MANAGEMENT

Finally, we applied an agile management methodology to the project, using Trello to manage all aspects of the site with client access, so it was completely transparent to what was going on at every step of the project to all team members.

This is a project that everyone at Karsh Hagan was proud of, from the results it produced to how we worked together to make it come to life. It was a win-win all around, so it felt natural to write a blog about it just to show when you do it right and work together, you really get results.

Take a look at the finished product at Longpoint Minerals.

If you want to learn how to do it right, give us a call!