Magnetreps.com 

Client: 
Magnet Reps

Technologies: 
PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, XHTML,CSS

Magnet Reps is a leading artist representation and management agency representing a diverse group of stylistically unique award-winning illustrators from across the globe.

I planned, programmed and re-designed the web site to accomplish the following objectives.

Re-design Objectives:

• Provide Magnet Reps with an easy way to publish new content on their web site (no html, coding)


• Make the site scalable (easy to add new artists, content, etc)


• Improve usability


• Make it easy to find the Art/Artist you are looking for


• Make the site "Sticky" (increase return visitors)


• Increase Traffic
  
  
  
  • Facilitate word of mouth marketing
  
  
  • Increase Search Engine Ranking/Indexing


• Improve understanding of statistical data

Solution:

Provide Magnet Reps with an easy way to publish new content on their web site (no html, coding)

I programmed a custom content management system specific to the needs of Magnet Reps. This system allows them to easily publish articles, news, art and much more by just the click of a button.

Make the site scalable (easy to add new artists, content, etc)

It was important that this site doesn't only work well today .. but can accommodate the future. By just the click of a button Magnet Reps can add a new artists to the web site complete with all the artist sub-sections. These sub-sections can be turned on and off based on each artist's specific needs.

Improve usability

Lots of sites look great at first glance but ignore major usability issues (frames, bad use of flash, ignoring the browser functions [location bar, back, forward, bookmark, etc] ) and become a nuisance if you frequently visit the site. It was a top priority that the Magnet Reps web site not only look great, but function great as well. Every piece of content on the site has a unique friendly url that is easy for people to bookmark, copy and paste into an email .. sounds pretty basic .. but lots of web sites ignore this rule. In addition, the web site uses a ton of image caching so when you are browsing you don't have to wait for images to load .. making the user experience much better.

Make it easy to find the Art and Artist you are looking for

Magnet Reps has amazing artists so it's not hard to find great art or artists .. but now you can search all the art by a variety of search parameters to help you find exactly what you are looking for quicker.

Make the site "Sticky" (increase return visitors)

It's very important that visitors return to your web site, not only does this increase your traffic .. but when you have something important to announce .. people are listening . It also helps increase search engine ranking. In order to make a site "sticky" you need to constantly have new content .. So I created a tool that allows Magnet Reps to easily publish new content and set the date of when this content goes live. They can publish art, news, awards, articles, etc easily with no knowledge of html and hiring a web designer no longer becomes the bottleneck in the process.

The site also utilizes a Mailing List and RSS news feeds so people can keep up-to-date on what Magnet Reps is doing even when they are away from the site.

Increase Traffic

Facilitate word of mouth marketing

The strongest form of marketing is word of mouth .. so it's extremely important to facilitate this and not hinder it. We accomplished this by having every piece of artwork bookmarkable, an option to send it as an electronic post card .. and just having a friendly unique url a person can copy to email someone and search engines can easily index.

Increase Search Engine Ranking/Indexing

Search engines can generate a number of referrals if you know how to design a web site that takes of advantage of SEO techniques. Not only is Magnet Reps web site coded in a way that is easy for search engines to index. It also runs daily scripts/programs to let search engines know about all the new content on Magnet Reps.com so all the content gets indexed quicker.

Improve understanding of statistical data

If you don't understand how your web site is being used, you will not know how to improve it, which marketing efforts have the best ROI, who is using your site, how they're using it and which content generates the most interest.

Magnet Reps was designed and coded in a way that makes this information crystal clear, using a 3rd party statistical system.