Elk Creek Designs
"Joshua at Rystedt Creative was beyond helpful when we ran into technical issues with our website. His extensive WordPress and Woocommerce knowledge helped to answer all of our web development questions. He was always available with a friendly demeanor and ready to talk us through our questions and what needed to be edited or changed on the website, and even showed us via screen-share the exact steps necessary. We greatly enjoyed working with Joshua and would recommend him to anyone!" – Mallory Olson, Elk Creek Designs and Rocket Active Gear A regular client of ours recently launched elkcreekdesigns.com. Elk Creek Designs is an e-commerce store for custom printed products. They sell everything from mugs to canvas wall art. Elk Creek Designs wanted to get their new site cleaned up and ready for Black Friday shopping but ran into a few snags in the process. We've been working with them ever since. We have assisted Elk Creek Designs by... Providing product centric graphic design Elk Creek Designs has a wealth of product images. We incorporated these images in designs for sliders and product collections. Designing Valentine's collection image pairs We combined product images that belong in the same collection to better illustrate the products found in each apparel collection. Designing slider images We also designed three new slider images for use on Elk Creek Design's homepage. Walking them through how to build some new product pages themselves Elk Creek Designs' team wanted to build out some new product pages for their Christmas products that matched other product categories on their website. Yet they were unsure if how they were doing so would work properly. We walked them through how to build…
Maryland LFL
Lutherans for Life is a national nonprofit that exists to equip Lutherans to be "Gospel motivated voices for life". LFL accomplishes this goal through publications, classes, prayer, financial assistance, and training. Despite being a national nonprofit, LFL relies on local and regional Life Chapters to engage churches, volunteers, and donors. Until 2017 the state of MD lacked an LFL presence. The majority of Lutherans in MD are not well connected with pro-life issues. Yet a large group of Baltimore area churches, pastors, and lay people got together to found the first Life Chapter in the state of MD. Thus Maryland LFL was born. MD LFL exists to equip MD Lutherans to understand, speak out on, and help their neighbors who are wrestling with issues such as: Abortion, Adoption, Bioethics, Creation, End-of-life, Family living, Post-abortion healing, Fetal development, and The Christian sexual ethic. Rystedt Creative provided MD LFL with branding and WordPress Development with features that are essential to non-profit work. Branding Design LFL already has a well established brand and logo. It was essential that MD LFL, as a regional Life Chapter, expressed that brand while also being unique. We carefully chose colors and fonts to complement LFL's existing branding while also giving it a Baltimore flare (that bright orange). Additionally, we provided MD LFL with their own version of the LFL logo so that they could easily brand themselves on and off the Web. Website Development After MD LFL's branding was established we moved on to actually building them a home on the Web with a website all their own. WordPress Theme Customization In order to keep MD LFL's costs low we chose to customize an existing WordPress theme…
Total Restoration Services
Total Restoration Services is a restoration contractor located in Hampstead Maryland that specializes in facade maintenance, above and below grade repairs, waterproofing, and more. For over a decade TRS has been restoring and repairing buildings throughout Maryland, Northern Virginia, Washington D.C, and Delaware. Their team has over 50 years of combined experience working on historic architecture, industrial buildings, residential and commercial buildings, and speciality facilities. Despite this wealth of experience, Total Restoration Services had virtually no presence online. They had built a successful business but began to wonder "How much are we missing out on by not being online?" That's an excellent question and one that they turned to us to help answer. So we began a journey with TRS to help launch a website that would give them more visibility online. Atmosphere Design Before we begin writing any code for a website we establish the atmosphere and branding for that site. Total Restoration Services came to us as an established business with an existing logo and reputation. We selected fonts, colors, and layouts that stayed consistent with their past while also bringing their company into their online future. Website Development When we began working for TRS they wanted to keep their website under budget while still getting the best product possible. In order to accomplish this they asked us to develop a site using their existing print promotional materials and project photographs. We designed their site to incorporate all of these existing elements and showcase them in the best (and most search engine optimized) fashion possible. Copywriting However, towards the end of the project, as the scheduled launch date approached, Total Restoration Services realized something important. Their print material…
Jennifer Zucconi Nutrition
Top notch service and design! Joshua took me from having zero real estate to one of the most beautiful “homes” in the virtual neighborhood! In starting my business there was so much to think about. Website development was something I knew I’d have to outsource…I had NO idea how or where to start! The first time I talked with Joshua he spent most of our conversation listening as I shared about my emerging business, my anticipated goals, and my very scattered ideas of how I envisioned my website. He’s definitely a good visionary, because he took my fuzzy ideas and transformed them into a crystal clear, and beautiful, reality! In addition to his visual creativity, his SEO expertise has helped lead many searches to my site. Joshua stayed in constant contact with me as he was building my site, and he continues to be a great resource for me while I’m up and running. He responds very promptly, answers my (many) questions completely, and has taught me how to begin using the behind-the-scenes elements of my site. I’m so glad I found Rystedt Creative! Joshua was instrumental in creating a wonderful place for me in the virtual world. Whether you’re starting from zero or you have a fixer-upper, Joshua and Rystedt Creative can create a space you’ll be so excited to invite visitors into! - Jennifer Zucconi Jennifer Zucconi is a Dallas area registered dietician and food sensitivity specialist. She contacted us to help her launch her virtual dietetics practice! When we began working with Jennifer she had no branding, logo, or website. She had all the knowledge, expertise, certifications, and (most importantly) passion. All she needed was a helping…
Renewed Strength Personal Training Studio
Renewed Strength Personal Training Studio is a local fitness and training studio that was concerned about a competitor's position in Google search engine results pages (SERPs). In certain searches this other fitness coach was also ranking on page one or even above Renewed Strength Personal Training. Yet their competitor's website is poorly designed compared to Renewed Strength and the services they offer are limited. So why were they still ranking well? SEO on Wix Renewed Strength contacted us to ask if we could evaluate their Wix powered website and determine what could be done to improve their search ranking. We evaluated both Renewed Strength's website and their competitor's site and then provided Renewed Strength Personal Training with a four step plan for improving their ranking. Structured Metadata One of those steps was implementing robust structured metadata on their webpages. Renewed Strength's website was using barely any structured metadata and thus not taking advantage of the local SEO benefits available when you provide your business data in this format. The studio decided that this step, in particular, was one they wanted us to take on. Navigating Wix's Limitations However, Wix limits what kind of metadata can be added through their admin panel (eg no Open Graph tags). Yet structured metadata works as long as it is inserted into the header of your web pages and Wix does allow you to insert custom code into the headers. So we got crafty! We evaluated what metadata Wix was already implementing (only two tags), coded unique metadata for every page of Renewed Strength's website, and added that code to their Wix pages using an alternative method in the Wix admin panel. With this and…
Sweet Dreams 4 Kids Daycare
Sweet Dreams 4 Kids Daycare in Owings Mills Maryland is an established local daycare with an outstanding reputation. Angela Jones-Coleman has over two decades of childcare experience and has maintained close relationships with the families she serves. Until recently Sweet Dreams 4 Kids Daycare did not have a dedicated home on the Web. Like many local businesses, Sweet Dreams 4 Kids relied upon word of mouth to sustain their business. Yet, a dedicated website increases trust and reputation and may help the daycare sustain their business and be more competitive. We provided the daycare with a simple yet functional website that could be expanded modularly. Sweet Dreams 4 Kids wanted a simple one page website to keep web-development costs down. They wanted to start small with the hopes of growing the site in the future. We designed their site to grow with their business - whether they expand the site themselves through the WordPress admin panel or give us a call to add a feature or updated content. We designed the site from scratch using modern responsive design, bright fun colors, and simple yet interactive content. sweetdreams4kidsdaycare.com lists essential information, provides a means of contact, contains an interactive Google Map, and an interactive tool for sharing and viewing reviews. Rystedt Creative designed the first version of sweetdreams4kidsdaycare.com to grow with the daycare's needs. We may continue to work with Sweet Dreams 4 Kids Daycare to expand the site's contents as time goes on. We (or the daycare itself) may replace stock images with original images from the daycare and a slideshow or gallery, expand information, add a contact form and contact page, and a visual layout of the daycare. Rystedt…
Rocket Active Gear
"Joshua at Rystedt Creative was beyond helpful when we ran into technical issues with our website. His extensive Wordpress and Woocommerce knowledge helped to answer all of our web development questions. He was always available with a friendly demeanor and ready to talk us through our questions and what needed to be edited or changed on the website, and even showed us via screen-share the exact steps necessary. We greatly enjoyed working with Joshua and would recommend him to anyone!" - Mallory Olson, Rocket Active Gear and Elk Creek Designs Rystedt Creative recently assisted with the launch of rocketactivegear.com. Rocket Active Gear sells active gear such as camping, cycling, and hiking products through their WordPress powered store. Like Rystedt Creative, Rocket Active Gear is based in Maryland. Upon running into some roadblocks that they were unable to solve or were spending too much time attempting to puzzle out Rocket Active Gear asked Rystedt Creative to assist them in launching the site. Part of our time was spent researching possible causes of problems they were experiencing, providing recommendations for possible solutions, and demoing those solutions. We also assisted Rocket Active Gear by... Building a custom product category navigation menu The theme powered product category navigation they were attempting to use was not compatible with some of the other software powering the site and caused numerous bugs that complicated the navigation of the site. We disabled the offending navigation software, built a category navigation menu, implemented it, and thoroughly tested it. Now Rocket Active Gear is easy to navigate. Installing recommended solution to bundle a free gift with a customer's purchase Rocket Active Gear wanted an option to offer a free downloadable…
Relaunching the Raising Rystedts Blog
In addition to creating modern and effective online content for our clients we have been busy refreshing our own online properties. The Raising Rystedts blog is a family blog published by our Chief Creative Officer (CCO), Gabrielle. It is also our oldest active online property... and it was in need of a refresh. The old site had expensive hosting, an inflexible content management system (CMS), poor search engine optimization (SEO) and limited extensibility due to the host's requirements. It was time to make a change. While launching the Rystedt Creative website and designing client projects we began work on re-designing Raising Rystedts. Like most organizations we wanted the least amount of downtime possible so we developed the new site locally while we left the old site online. We mimicked the original site's atmosphere while rethinking the user interface (UI). The old UI felt too constricted on PCs, the multiple blogs were not unified and the UI had no interactive feel. When designing the new website we resolved each of these issues in turn. We modified an existing design to feel more spacious on desktops and read more like a magazine, unified all the old blogs as one blog with multiple category pages and added image and link effects that breathed new life into a simple blog. The development of the site was accomplished using a customized WordPress powered install with our firm's preferences. We installed our preferred plugins and edited necessary PHP and CSS files. Finally we began copying content from the old site. In most website relaunches porting old content is one of the most time consuming aspects but it is worth the investment. If done right all of…