Websites

Ady-Voltedge is one firm that doesn’t make you choose between economic development expertise and website development expertise. We know both.

Ady-Voltedge EDO Website Development

Ady-Voltedge combines the website development expertise of Voltedge, Inc with the decades-long experience of Ady International Company—America’s foremost consultancy for corporate site selection, serving leading employers worldwide. As such, there is no other consultancy on Earth more qualified to design and build your EDO website.

A website designed and built by Ady-Voltedge is created exclusively for your EDO. Unlike “specialized” ED firms that sell templated websites, or “generalized” website development firms that tend to sell “websites in a box,” we bring a powerful toolbox of mix-and-match features for EDOs, all customized as a turnkey package specifically to successfully market your specific community or region.

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Ady-Voltedge Website Development Process

The Voltedge Design Process

No matter how simple or complex the website, we follow the same general process on all of them.

Because a website is an important means of communicating to your customers (sometimes the primary way), it makes sense that the website should be grounded in your marketing strategy and position. If you already have this in place, that’s fine; if you don’t, and you need help, we’d be happy to do so. During the marketing strategy stage, we also work through the requirements of your website - what you want it to be able to do for you, and how you’re going to measure the success of your website once it’s done. At this stage, we’ll know what special functionality will be required for your website and why.

From there, we move into the navigation of your website: what information will be shown on your website, and how will it be related to other information on your website? If yours is an e-commerce website, what information needs to be on each page progression? We’ll work through these and other related questions here.

Content is next. This includes copy, photos, graphics, videos - you name it, anything that helps tell your story. We’ll develop this content, often repurposing or updating existing content, and make sure the voice we create to tell the story works to engage your target customers.

Design of the website is next, after we know what kind of information each page of the website will need to showcase and what the overall market position is. We build off your brand identity, and apply the visual elements developed to create your online brand identity.

Programming is where the rubber hits the road. We program in HTML using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) - the best-in-class approach with the additional benefits of improving search engine rankings and making future updates to your website easier. We have developed VoltEdit™, our what-you-see-is-what-you-get content management system (CMS) that allows non-technical people to make routine edits to the website without any technical training. This is also where we program in any special functionality that your website may require.

Our team is small by some standards, and scrappy. Just how we like it. We have a core group of really smart people who work together seamlessly and who give each other both room to shine and, when necessary, a reality check. We have marketing strategists, programmers, designers, animators, videographers, writers, testers, and debuggers whose medium of choice is the internet.

Data Selection & Sourcing
The first step in developing your website is understanding what information is required to be on it. Labor costs, tax rates, property listings, maps, and incentive information are minimally expected by corporate site selectors—but the most successful EDO websites usually have over 100 data points. We’ll help ensure that your community or region is positioned as favorably as possible while still meeting site selectors’ data requirements. This is an important distinction from ED “specialists” that offer only standard data on their ED websites, regardless of what story that data may tell about your particular community. In addition, Ady-Voltedge offers you proprietary knowledge about what additional data attract and maintain the attention of corporate site selectors, and we teach you where & how to source these data so that you can keep your website content current.

Navigation Expertise
Whether your EDO serves a county with 5,000 residents or a Top 10 region with millions, Ady-Voltedge offers you unmatched expertise and proprietary knowledge about website navigation specific to EDO websites. Corporate site consideration typically begins with a visit to the community website—and too often ends there. Corporate site selectors today have certain expectations about data architecture, internal navigation, and overall website functionality. If your website does not live up to these expectations, it is unlikely your EDO will maintain a site selector’s attention.

Design & Programming
Ady-Voltedge websites are known for uncluttered design and intuitive usability: two things that corporate site selectors greatly value. Graphic features reflect your community or regional brand. And best-in-class programming allows for sophisticated features such as interactive mapping, virtual tours, and other advanced marketing tools.

Free, Integrated Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality of traffic to your website from search engines such as Google. At Ady-Voltedge, we believe that optimizing a website is best done throughout its development. Too many website design firms try to optimize a website after it is completely built, which always yields inferior results. Because SEO is an integral part of Ady-Voltedge website construction, there is never an extra fee.

Interactive Mapping
The Ady-Voltedge interactive mapping tool allows you to present interactive maps with a customizable interface on your website, displaying available sites and buildings, demographic data, proximity to key infrastructure, and more. This module includes a robust content management system, so that you can easily add, remove, or edit map points without any advanced technical knowledge. The Ady-Voltedge mapping system can also be integrated with most real estate databases and filtered to display just those properties in the specific geographic region you require.

Social Media
Tools such as blogs, e-newsletters, and RSS feeds help maintain the interest of corporate site selectors, keeping your constituent communities connected to companies that are considering location, relocation, or expansion. More importantly, Ady-Voltedge will advise you on what makes sense for your own EDO and its business goals, based on best practices in social media and trends in economic development.

Quick & Easy CMS
The Ady-Voltedge content management system (CMS) allows you to update website copy, images, interactive maps, and more from any Web browser anytime & anywhere in the world, using familiar word processor commands. This eliminates the time, bother, and expense of having to call a Webmaster for routine changes. And you can provide password access to only certain portions of the website to select personnel and task them with updating content in their particular areas of expertise as data change. This makes it easy to keep content fresh and up-to-date.

Best-in-Class Programming
All our websites are Section 508 and W3C compliant, programmed in HTML using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which results in numerous benefits. This allows corporate site selectors to view your website on mobile phones without your having to create a parallel website. It makes future changes easier and less costly to make. And it improves your search engine rankings.

To learn more about Ady-Voltedge ED-specific technical expertise, contact us.