The Meta Blog

WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards.

We were absolutely wrapped to hear this announcement. WordPress is the most enjoyable CMS platform we have ever worked with, thanks to the innovations and continued development of the WordPress team and the ever-growing WordPress community.

In addition to winning in the Overall Best Open Source CMS category, WordPress was named first runner-up in the Best Open Source PHP CMS category. Read Matt Mullenweg’s Official announcement here.

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

We were delighted to find meta solutions web design has found it’s way into printed pages of ‘The Web Designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide To Trends & Styles In Website Design’ – and the great thing is we didn’t even know it!

We ordered a copy from Amazon.com as it looked like a great publication – both as a ‘coffee table book’ and to check out the fresh website designs being featured as the cream of web design.

We were stunned to see one of our websites – Buzz Recruitment featuring inside the pages! Meta Solutions was one of only three New Zealand web design companies to have their work feature in this book so we feel this is a great achievement!

Buzz Recruitment has previously been featured in Smashing Magazines’ 60 Elegant and Visually Appealing Designs and CSS-Based Navigation Menus: Modern Solutions back in 2007 shortly after the site was launched. Recently Buzz also featured at the top of the page in 25 Inspirational Black Websites.

The Web Designer’s Idea Book‘ is a great book and a must have for web designers looking for fresh inspiration.

Hayden Roulston, possibly the best cyclist New Zealand has ever produced is as you can imagine a busy man, between winning Olympic medals and riding in the Tour de France it’s fairly difficult to keep in contact with all the fans back home. That’s where we came in, we set Hayden up with a WordPress website and blog where he can quickly and easily keep everybody informed about how that days race went or what’s next in his busy racing calendar.

We firmly believe the web is a two way communication tool, so we added in a guestbook to allow Hayden to receive messages from the fans back in New Zealand.

We were delighted with how well Hayden embraced the medium and instantly started blogging without any training on the system (the site was completed while he was away riding in the Tour de France). A testament to just how easy the WordPress system is to use.

The finished product is a great example of how blogging can help you connect with people and also how successful a website can be when a client is passionate about communicating.

Visit Hayden’s website at www.haydenroulston.co.nz