The original site was created in 2000. It served as a place to publish articles and hold information about a series of events on predictions for life in 20 years’ time.

While modern enough in Y2K, 8 years on it needed a rethink and also a way to make it editable by the owner rather than having to rely on the designer whenever anything needed changing.

WordPress to the rescue, once again.

Version 1: February 2007

This used the increasingly popular MIMBO template to show featured stories and articles in various categories. Clicking a “featured” box and uploading a thumbnail populated the front page’s stories. Drop down menu items removed clutter displaying all the pages in the side bar, and Google AdSense was added to monetize the whole enterprise. There are multiple ways to navigate: through the categories, tags, search, RSS and via the featured stories.

Though slick and clean, this design didn’t really stand out and we decided on going for some premium, royalty-free stock images from StockExpert and a change in the theme to Digital Pop.

Current Version

Now, rather than Mimbo’s built-in features, we’ve gone the plugin route to display most popular stories & featured articles along with the standard areas you’d expect in any WordPress site such as tagging, categories and a powerful search. There are also customizable forms for submitting articles and contact. All the articles have an “Email to a friend” link and the large amount of outbound links are getting this site noticed and daily there are more and more subscribers.

If you’re interested in what the future holds or just want to check out the latest agaveweb site click on over to The Next Twenty Years Series. I’ll be hassling the client for a testimonial soon…

ABC Comfort Furniture wanted an online presence to advertise their location and wares. They have a large Spanish speaking customer base and I’m waiting on their final go-ahead to translate the Wordpress site I built into Spanish. Other nice features include an embedded google map on how to get to their store and an easy-to-update gallery that gives a sample of their range of products to entice people to their warehouse.

Eupenplaza is a shopping mall in Belgium, a country with two major national languages: French and German. On the home page you choose which you want to view the site in and from there on in you can learn all about the stores in the mall, events that the place puts on, sign up for updates, view maps, photo galleries and many other things besides.

www.eupenplaza.com runs on a twin installation of WordPress, one for French, one for German, and is designed to make information easy to access from any page the visitor lands on and easy for the owner to update on their own.

Amour Fou is an independent video rental store in Guadalajara, Mexico. This site is comprised of three main sections:

• A WordPress blog to provide an interactive, visually pleasing way to keep customers informed of screenings, events, holidays etc.
• An osCommerce shopping cart with over 600 searchable titles categorized by country, director and genre.
• A Vanilla Forum where members can chat about cinema in general.

This site has been so successful the majority of the store’s custom now comes from online enquiries and they are thinking of becoming a 100% online store and expanding their range.

A site in Spanish, with some English translation, to advertise a state-of-the-art ultrasound scanner in Guadalajara, Mexico. They were looking for a clean, informative interface which displayed what the machine was capable of and how to get in touch. The site also includes embedded YouTube video which we transferred from a DVD to embed on the site.

Dr. Juan Hernandez of Ultrasonido4d was kind enough to write a testimonial too. Here it is in Spanish and my translation in English below.

¡¡¡ Totalmente Satisfecho !!! No me imaginaba que tan bien iba a quedar la página, un exelente trabajo, muy puntual como los ingleses, con muy buenas ideas y un precio accesible que vale al 100%. Muy recomendable para cualquier persona o pequeño negocio que quiera incursionar en el negocio de la red

Completely satisfied!!! I had no idea the site was going to look as good as this, an excellent job, delivered on time, as is the English style, with very good ideas and a competitive price that was worth every penny. I would recommend you to anyone or any small business looking to make their first steps into business on the Web.

Signo Tequila is a new organization based in Guadalajara, Mexico involved in organizing conferences, producing quality assessments and many other services for the tequila industry. They wanted two logos, one for their stationery that looked like a rubber stamp and another, a wax effect that can be used to approve quality tequilas.

Their site is a portal to all kinds of information for tequila consumers and producers and includes many photos I took myself in and around Tequila, Jalisco. Using the WordPress platform means it is once again very easy to update with new information and links. Since the company is new and still developing its content many areas of the site are still not finalized. Until this happens there are Google adSense ads on the page to generate a small income to cover hosting costs in the meantime.

He no longer needs the old site…