The Meta Blog

NewZealandStories.com is the official website for the iconic New Zealand book Whitebaiters Never Lie by photographers Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig.

The book Whitebaiters Never Lie documents and celebrates the characters who catch that most-prized Kiwi food – the whitebait. Whitebaiters are a breed apart, and photographers Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig spent over three years travelling the country talking to and photographing New Zealanders about their passion, and documenting the uniquely Kiwi lifestyle that surround it.

We were privileged to be invited by Murray and Anita to develop an eCommerce store where people can buy iconic New Zealand photos and prints from the book Whitebaiters Never Lie.

Built using the powerful Magento eCommerce platform, NewZealandStories.com is an online New Zealand Photo Library which currently features over 2,000 individual whitebaiting photos and images from many of New Zealand’s major whitebaiting rivers. Photos have been categorised by region and river name and can be purchased via a secure payment gateway.

The website offers a number of purchasing options with photographic prints up to 760mm x 480mm. Larger panoramic canvass are also available.

NewZealandStories.com is intended to become a library of New Zealand photos and images featuring classic Kiwi pastimes including whitebaiting, hunting, living in the wild, Kiwi characters and other images that capture our unique New Zealand culture.

Client: Whitebaiters Never Lie (Anita Peters and Murray Hedwig)
Website: NewZealandStories.com

For some time now we have been working with the world’s most popular Content Management System to deliver custom website solutions.

We decided it was time for us to put together a pre-configured, professionally designed website package – designed to meet the needs of many small businesses looking for an affordable online marketing solution.

Want a CMS powered website where you can update your content add new pages? If you are looking for a professional and affordable small business website, then our Premium Economy small business CMS solution could be the one saving you time and money.

And pre-designed doesn’t mean any compromise in quality – just look at some of the sites who have already discovered the benefits of a website they can updates themselves;

www.graffitiman.co.nz, www.cycloneoz.com, www.declinedsurgery.co.nz, www.vacationsnewzealand.co.nz

A good content managed website will provide your business with the tools you need to build and expand your website presence. Additional features can be added as your budget allows including new publishing, blog, photo galleries, event calendar, shopping cart etc.

Our Premium Economy website solution is the perfect choice for a content rich website that needs frequent updating and/or additions. With its user-friendliness it is a great asset for a busy small business.

With turn around times of less than 3 weeks, get in touch with us to find out more about an affordable CMS for your business..

Dave Sewell provides expert sales training and support for retail and small businesses. We really enjoyed meeting Dave and after only a brief conversation, we got an insight to the quality of knowledge and information Dave had which could be used to build his online visibility.

This is a website development story I have been really looking forward to sharing. In many ways this typifies just what it is that makes working with Meta Solutions different.

We were first contacted by Dave Sewell by an email from our website. Dave’s request was simple – “I am looking for someone to design a website for me. It’s not a large web site and I think it will be fairly simple to create. Can someone give me a call to discuss this further. Kindest Regards Dave”…

So of course I picked up the phone to have a chat with Dave and get a feel for what he was looking for. The conversation was easy and we arranged a time to meet where he could tell me more about his requirements for a website.

Dave was looking for an online resume where he could feature his industry experience and qualifications to top-tier employers – somewhat like LinkedIn (of course I suggested he should be using this anyway).

As a long-time Sales Team Manager, Dave had a wealth of real-world experience and knowledge just waiting to be shared with the world. Dave is a gifted speaker and just listening to him was an insight. I immediately suggested he should seriously consider starting his own Sales Coaching Consultancy aimed towards small to medium businesses. All he needed was a platform to voice his ideas and insights and in doing so would attract businesses searching for answers online.

..And this is where the magic happened… Dave told me that every other web company he had seen had just sold him ‘the standard package’ – nobody took time to really listen to his requirements or even consider the potential for a new business opportunity here.

Dave went away and thought about our suggestion and came back the next day with a newfound vigor to get this thing started. Dave was in business!

A fresh new logo design and Dave Sewell – Sales Training is born!

This was one of those magic customers where the values and expectations lined up and the whole process was easy. Not only that – Dave gave us loads of creative freedom to really drive the project, and come up with his branding.

Now as we often have discussed, a key web marketing strategy is to have a Content Management System (CMS) where you can create new pages, posts, articles and case studies. In the world of search engines, “Content is King”, and the more pages and posts you can publish increases your chances to be found in search engines for related searches.

Dave Sewell is truly a natural blogger! Before we had even designed his custom wordpress theme, he had a dozen blog posts ready for us to load into the cms! It can really be an advantage if you are able communicate on the same level as your audience – build a relationship with them, write in everyday language and become someone they can identify with by discussing challenges which they may relate to (Dave certainly has this covered). This not only helps you to be found online, it also keeps you relevant, and builds a relationship with your regular followers.

We continued building on Daves’ web marketing strategy by introducing him to Twitter (ideal for micro-blogging and status updates) and creating an opportunity to grow his online Social Networks by integrating his LinkedIn and displaying his latest ‘Tweets’ from Twitter.

At Meta Solutions our expertise goes beyond simply building a website – we can help you to clarify your business goals – or even help you with that first step to starting a new business!

Client: Dave Sewell – Training and support for Retail and Small Business
Website: www.davesewell.co.nz

Lodges of New Zealand offer far more than luxury accommodation and fine cuisine, they offer a total Lodge experience. Tailor made unique experiences, sometimes only available to lodge guests, characterise the exceptional hospitality offered by the Lodges of New Zealand.

The New Zealand Lodge Association has been a longtime client of ours. The Association members decided it was time for a complete rebrand with a focus on web marketing to increase the visibility of the NZLA website, directed towards Google searches.

The website had not been changed for several years, hence needed revising to reflect Google’s current relevance criteria. Also the overall branded seem to lack a uniqueness and didn’t reflect of goals and values of the Lodge Association.

We were stoked to be awarded this project as we felt we understood the goals of the association and could also offer some real innovation using the vast potential of Drupal to bring together a stunning website solution.

The key issues for the project were neatly divided into smaller project which included;

Rebranding – to create a new logo – but also identify the over broad vision for the Lodge Association.

Web marketing and relevance to current Google searches. What were the high value searches the association were missing in the current website – and what can be done to present a website which is relevant, and targeted to the ideals of their audiences.

The plan was to build the majority of the website content from information built around each Lodge. Where was it located? What activities and experiences are offered? What were the many ways a visitor would choose to select a Lodge?

Finally, what technologies needed to be in place to execute a website solution to bring it all together? This involved planning not only a site structure, but also the actual layouts for the many different page types and clarifying how we would layout the custom admin pages to push all of this information to the various parts of the website with one click.

This was to huge project which challenged our abilities and I think took us to a whole new level. The finished website is a masterpiece. It brings together a number of highly custom page views with multiple sorting orders, dynamic content is displayed in a number of various places.

The Lodges of New Zealand project brought together;

• Logo design
• Website marketing & strategy
• Custom Drupal development
• Custom page types
• Dynamic content views
• Random lodges featured on the homepage
• Interactive maps

A custom website development masterpiece powered by Drupal – Richard’s Pièce de Résistance!

Client: Lodges of New Zealand
Website: www.lodgesofnz.co.nz

Priority Property is a boutique Property Management company based in Christchurch and offer a premier service to landlords and tenants.

Meta Solutions worked alongside Priority Property Management to develop a new website to sync with their in-house property listings database, and establish an online web marketing strategy to build their brand visibility online so they would stand out for ‘Christchurch rental property’ related searches.

Database Integration

Priority Property Management use a desktop application called REST provided by Rockend to manage their rental properties. REST has an in-built web marketing module that allows them to upload their properties to various web channels including TradeMe – and their own website.
Working with Gold from Evolved Development we were able to integrate the REST data to be imported into the website so the client now manages the site content from their desktop application instead of a web browser.

As a result, Priority Property Management have produced a highly effective web marketing tool to promote their property listings directly from their REST database. They get a significant percentage of their rental applications via the website and currently achieve over 1,500 visits per month seeking Christchurch rental properties and can be found on page 1 of Google search results for ‘Christchurch rental properties’ (as well as a range of other related search phrases).

Client: Priority Property Management
Website: www.priorityproperty.co.nz