Whether you live in the Great State of Maine or are “from away”, biking in Maine is a beautiful, rewarding activity. 

The new website from the Bicycle Coalition of Maine is here to support you, no matter what you’re looking to do. Here’s just a sampling of what’s going on there:

• Events: Bike Maine puts on a number of great events like the Maine Lobster Ride, the Maine Women’s Ride, and the Great Maine Bike Swap (which I’m looking forward to this year as I’m badly in need of a new(ish) road bike!) You can also find weekly bike rides in Maine and filter by your home town.
• Biking Resources: From a robust list of where to ride to mountain biking resources to maintenance tips and more, you’ll get all your questions answered here.
• Get Involved: Learn how to become a volunteer, become an advocate, or even become a cycling instructor.
• Join Up! You can join or renew your membership in the online store, or grab some great schwag!

This really is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the website goes. Be sure to check it out and start planning your next biking adventure in Maine.

Rich Brooks
Maine Biker

Northern New England Poison Center gets a WordPress Makeover.

Recently flyte launched a website for the Northern New England Poison Center on WordPress.

Visitors to the site can quickly get information on poisons from A to Z or watch presentations from a growing library of recorded webinars, like this one on bath salts. There’s also a poison blog for both the public and health professionals.

The site also offers multiple ways to contact the poison center, from email to live chat. 

NNEPC also wanted to add e-commerce to their new site. While they’re not (currently) selling any antidotes, you can purchase literature, posters and magnets at cost in their NNEPC store.

NNEPC was also looking for some new branding, so they engaged flyte to create a new logo for them:

They also wanted a mobile friendly experience for their site visitors on smart phones:

While I hope you never need the services of NNEPC, you can rest assured that if you do, you can access their knowledge base through whatever channel is easiest for you.

Also, check out this interview with Dr. Karen Simone of the NNEPC on 207 to observe the 50th anniversary of the National Poison Prevention Week:

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design

Pierce Outdoors, a Maine company selling a premier selection of patio and outdoor furniture recently relaunched their site.

Pierce Outdoors sells high-quality outdoor furniture. Visitors to their website can view the products they carry from a variety of different materials:

• Aluminum
• Barbecue
• Wicker
• Wood
• Recycled Plastics
• Iron / Steel, and
• Miscellaneous

Pierce Outdoors was happy with their current website design, but felt that their search engine visibility could be improved. In addition, they wanted to be able to add, edit and delete products themselves, something they couldn’t do with their current website.

Flyte helped Pierce move to a WordPress platform, the popular, open-source CMS for building websites and blogs. We created new landing pages for both categories and products that were keyword rich, helping increase Pierce’s search engine visibility and qualified traffic to the website. 

If you’re looking for great outdoor furniture, be sure to checkout Piece Outdoor Furniture. If you need a website that you can update yourself and ranks high in the search engines, contact flyte today!

Rich Brooks
Maine WordPress Design 

Brown & Jones, Wisconsin Certified Court Reporters, offer a wide variety of court and legal services for your needs.

From state-of-the-art conference facilities, to comprehensive court reporting services, to computer litigation support, they’ll support you from Milwaukee to Maine, Wisconsin to Washington state.

If you need to schedule a deposition you can do so right from their website.

Brown & Jones hired flyte to design and develop their WordPress website, as well as engaged us for search engine optimization and web marketing.

You can also follow Brown & Jones on Twitter, like them on Facebook, follow them on LinkedIn, and check out their YouTube channel.

Rich Brooks
Small Business Web Design

DAC Sales offers HVAC products and solutions to building owners, architects, mechanical engineers and contractors looking for creative, sustainable solutions.

With their focus on custom HVAC solutions, they can tailor a solution to your exact needs, whether you run a hospital, laboratory, university, K-12 school or commercial building.

Mechanical engineers can get their questions answered by DAC President Rick McGinley in the Ask Rick section. (You know, I was just wondering whether the motor on the high plume dillution fan was outside the fan. Thanks for settling that bar bet, Rick!)

DAC hired flyte to design and develop the site on WordPress so they can easily manage daily updates and develop an HVAC blog. We also developed an SEO strategy including keyword analysis, copywriting, blogging and link building.

Serious about keeping their industry leading status, they’ve also engaged us in our flyte training program: your personal trainer for web marketing.

If you need a sustainable HVAC solution be sure to give DAC Sales a holler. If you need help with your website or internet marketing, you know where to go.

Rich Brooks
WordPress Design

If you like outdoor adventure as part of your vacation, you owe it to yourself to do some whitewater rafting here in Maine.

We’ve got plenty of rivers and falls for all levels of whitewater rafting, from the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers to the remoteness of the Dead River or the challenge of Canada Falls.

And there’s probably no better group to take you than Northeast Guide Service. This small, locally owned whitewater rafting adventure company is Maine’s only service registered for swift water rescue, putting all your fears to rest.

You can find them near Moosehead Lake in Greenville, Maine. That makes them the closest whitewater rafting service to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine. They’re also close to Baxter State Park and Maine’s largest mountain, Mt. Katahdin.

In other words, they’re right in the middle of your Maine outdoor adventure vacation.

You can also find them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, or check them out on YouTube.

The website was designed and build by flyte, and we provided web marketing services as well.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design

Even if you’re not quite ready for your electric car yet, you can do your part by buying “greener” auto parts for your current car.

New Hampshire based AutoBeGreen has a wide variety of environmentally friendly auto parts and accessories, including:

• Green Air Filters
• Tire Gauges
• Green Oil Filters
• Engine Oil
• Car Care Products, and
• Much, much more!

AutoBeGreen also has a green automotive blog where they’ve started posting articles and how-to’s on using these environmentally friendly products.

The site was designed by Narrative Design, and flyte built out the designs into WordPress themes, the blog, and added the e-commerce shopping component.

Be sure to like AutoBeGreen on Facebook and follow them on Twitter!

Rich Brooks
WordPress Website Design

So says Drumcircle, a unique research and communications company that helps marketers find the emotionally resonant component of a product or brand and communicate that to their audience.

People aren’t always rational when it comes to making decisions, especially buying decisions. Our emotions often drive us. Drumcircle helps companies understand these reasons, which they call Emotivations™, so their messaging is on target.

They’ve created a proprietary research tool called b.frank that reveals Emotivations. You can even test out b.frank for yourself with an online survey.

Principals Bill Mount and Anne Manning are also blogging at the site, with some great insights into consumer behavior with posts like “To ‘Understand Chinese Consumers’, Start By Understanding People,” and introspective posts like “Are You Smart Enough?“

The blog–and the entire website–is powered by WordPress, so that Drumcircle can blog and update their own website through one easy-to-use admin panel. If you’ve been shying away from WordPress or another CMS because you were afraid the design would look canned, hopefully flyte’s Creative Director, Ryan Goan, has given you reason to reflect.

So, if you’re looking to get a better understanding of why people buy your product (or don’t), or how they feel about your brand (or why they don’t), be sure to head over to Drumcircle and start learning more about emotions and buying habits.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design

If you live in Maine you know that we have a lot of old buildings and a lot of cold winters. That doesn’t do much for our energy savings.

While new buildings tend to keep in the heat better, it’s not practical or sustainable to tear down all the old homes and buildings and replace them with new construction. Many non-profits make these old homes and buildings their operations, and the high heating costs cut into the services they can offer the community.

That’s the inspiration behind BrightBuilt, an open source collaborative of green building professionals designing sustainable solutions. To date, there have been two initiatives: BrightBuilt Barn and BrightBuilt Retrofit.

BrightBuilt Retrofit is a demonstration project with the goal of exploring the affordability and accessibility of deep energy retrofits in cold climates. Kaplan Thompson Architects of Portland, Maine is spearheading this effort to showcase innovation and sustainability at its best.

The target project is a 2,500 sf house owned by Community Partners, Inc. of Biddeford, ME. Project contractor, Warren Construction of Freeport, Maine will oversee the work which includes air sealing the building, adding insulated panels to the walls and roof and replacing and upgrading the existing windows.Taken together these efforts are project to reduce the energy consumption of the house by 80%.

flyte helped get the word out by redeveloping the Facebook presence, with a new landing page (seen above), and strategy around engaging the sustainable building community as well as other non-profits looking to bring down the high cost of heating oil in cold climates.

If you’re interested in sustainable building, deep energy retrofits, or non-profits, please head over to the BrightBuilt page on Facebook and give them a big thumbs up.

Rich Brooks
Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Based in North Berwick, Maine, but supplying seating solutions around the world, Hussey Seating has been in business for over 175 years!

Recently flyte redesigned and rebuilt their site on SquareSpace, a popular content management platform.

The new site shows off the quality seating products that Hussey offers, and organizes them by Products and Applications. This way, visitors can search by the type of seating they’re looking for, or by the space they need to creating seating for.

And the variety of applications is mind-boggling. Whether it’s places of worship, arenas or natatoriums, you’ll find examples of Hussey’s work at the site. (Not sure what a natatorium is? Well, you’ll have to check it out.)

Hussey also added a blog, with the most recent post being about SEO. (What?!?) Hussey is also committed to sustainability, and talks about their sustainable business practices on their site.

If you’re looking for quality seating, be sure to check out Hussey Seating.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design