Small Business Web Sites
You can see some of our small business designs and implementation at the following sites:
Blair Sugar Pine - Bed & Breakfast Inn
The Blair Sugar Pine Bed and Breakfast inn combines the graciousness of a turreted, historic 1901 home, with wireless Internet and other modern-day amenities. We provided a classic, yet sophisticated design to reflect this blend. The owners use the McWebby site editor to update their links, guest book, photo gallery, web specials and page copy.
Coloma Country Inn - Bed & Breakfast
This historic bed and breakfast inn, located in the heart of Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, features old-fashioned luxury, warm hospitality, awe-inspiring breakfasts, lush gardens and a pond containing the best-fed ducks in Coloma. The innkeepers wanted their web site to reflect this old-fashioned charm for prospective visitors. They use McWebby to update their links, photo gallery, and page text.
Deb Peter - Real Estate Broker
Deb Peter, a residential real estate specialist in Cool, California, wanted a casual and outdoorsy look to reflect her love of the outdoors, the American River, and the horse country between Auburn and Cool. Deb uses our McWebby software to update page content. We created a customized real estate listing module for her use.
Kevin Gage - Professional Actor
When well-known character actor Kevin Gage is contacted about a potential film role, he points the casting director to the substantial collection of photographs and video clips on his site. His talents and experience, as showcased on the web, have kept him solidly employed. The McWebby site editor is used to upload images and video clips, post articles, and update descriptions, page content and news. Much of the site updating has been done by a movie fan who has no experience with web design.
Mother Lode River Center - Whitewater Rafting
Mother Lode has one of the loveliest riverfront campgrounds on the South Fork of the American River. From this facility they invite you to enjoy their whitewater rafting trips and "family floats", outdoor education programs for grades 4-12, and challenge ropes courses for youth or corporate groups. Mother Lode already had an extensive web site and attractive graphics; we reworked the site to make it work with all browsers, be easier to navigate, be accessible to visually-impaired visitors, and be optimized for search engines. We also installed a blog and customized it to fit with the rest of the site. Mother Lode staff use our McWebby editor to quickly and easily update their links, FAQs, calendar, guide page and available dates.
Sierra Nevada House - Hotel & Restaurant
The Sierra Nevada House inn, restaurant and bar offer respite for weary travelers and a base of operations for the adventurous. Their web site reflects both the history of this 19th century lodge and the sophistication of its renovations, from fine dining and excellent wines to wireless Internet. The owner uses our McWebby editor to quickly and easily update his events calendar, menu and hours of operation (which change seasonally).
Tom Rancich - Counter-Terrorism Specialist
Recently retired from the U.S. Navy's elite SEAL teams, Lt Commander Thomas Rancich puts his experience and knowledge to work as a consultant in several areas: presenting a practical approach to counter-terrorism, teaching leadership skills, and sharing expertise on the workings of special operations forces. Tom's book, For the Courage of the Founders, is featured on his site. You can read the first half online and/or order a PDF download of the book using PayPal. We also installed a blog for Tom so that he can discuss the book with his readers. Tom uses McWebby to update his page content.
Entry-Level Sites
Entry-level packages start at $599 for clients who do not need a large site or complex graphic design. Most packages include the McWebby website editor for easy owner updates. The following are examples of entry-level designs.
American Heritage Land and Home - Real Estate
American Heritage has been serving real estate buyers and sellers in Coloma, Garden Valley, Georgetown and other parts of El Dorado County for over 25 years. Before coming to us, they were using a generic, template-driven site. They liked being able to update their listings, but did not like the "look and feel" of the templates and were frustrated with the limited capabilities they offered. With our McWebby web site manager, they now have an attractive site that allows them to update their own listings, links, events and other information whenever they wish.
Camp Wildwood on Black Lake
Camp Wildwood is a family owned and operated lakefront rental cottage and campground business on Black Lake in the North Country of New York. Folks come for fishing, exploring, and relaxing. The beautiful lake and grounds provided lots of photographs to choose from in designing the site, and the owner asked for a McWebby photo album on the site so that she can upload more pictures of cottages, sunsets, guests, and big fish! She also uses McWebby to update her availability, events calendar, links, and all other text on the site.
Candy Wall - Real Estate Broker-Agent
Candy is a real estate broker-agent specializing in homes and property in the Coloma-Lotus area, especially riverfront on the South Fork of the American River. She wanted a fun site design that would reflect her sunny and energetic personality, while at the same time providing information about properties available in the area. Candy uses our McWebby site manager to update her own property listings and resources list.
Drawing Free - Art Instruction
Artist and teacher Margaret Welty is convinced that everyone can learn to draw, and she's proven it in her art classroom for years. Now she's offering classes and pointers over the Internet. We set up a mailing list so that folks can sign up for her free "ezines," and built a custom McWebby package that allows her to create and post her ezines online. Going forward, she will also be using McWebby for her guestbook, links, and galleries of work done by herself and her students.
Excellence Landscaping & Tree Service
Randy Jackson wanted a clean, fast-loading design that would show off his beautiful landscaping work. We developed a project gallery featuring photographs of some of the many walls, walkways, lawns and other plantings that his company has installed. The site is easily updated with McWebby.
High-Rez Diagnostics - Laser & Radiation Safety Consultant
Richard S. Hughes, PhD, brings a wealth of experience and expertise to his classes in laser safety, radiation safety, and fiber optics technology. Located in Placerville, he travels to sites around the country to teach courses, provide consulting or serve as an expert witness. He wanted a clean, quick-loading site with the necessary technical information and no fluff to get in the way.
j.c. brennan & associates - Acoustical Engineers
Jim Brennan and associates are expert consultants in acoustics, vibration and noise engineering. Jim blends professional efficiency with a casual and welcoming personality, so usability was an important factor in their web site design. They use their McWebby photo gallery to showcase some of their more interesting projects.
John R. Hughes - Family Law Attorney
Placerville Attorney John R. Hughes specializes in family law services for El Dorado County and Sacramento County, including divorce and separation agreements, child custody and support. His experience as a CPA allows him to provide knowledgable financial advice as well. He wanted a site that was professional but still fit his office's helpful and casual personality. We installed our McWebby site manager so that his staff can update his FAQs and resources themselves.
Web Sites for Organizations
Web sites offer a tremendous opportunity for organizations to communicate with their members, promote their services to the greater community, and provide background information for grants and researchers. We understand that organizations are often richer in volunteers than in cash, so we enable them to keep their sites up-to-date with our McWebby Site Manager.
American River Festival
We first donated a website to the American River Festival back in 1996. Over the years, other volunteers have done the work. In 2007 we took on the job once again, adapting Heather Shakespeare's design. We converted it to use style sheets, making the pages cleaner and faster. We also installed the McWebby website manager so that the event organizer can easily add new sponsors or update pages herself.
Bed & Breakfast Inns of El Dorado County
This association, formerly called Historic Country Inns, includes El Dorado County's most delightful bed and breakfast inns, in styles from gingerbread Victorian to timbered lodge. The Inn owners had an attractive site design, but needed it updated and made more accessible to users and search engines. We brought the site in line with accessibility standards, performed basic search engine optimization, made it easier to keep up to date, and installed our McWebby editor so that the Innkeepers can do some of the maintenance themselves.
Coloma-Lotus Chamber of Commerce
With over 80 members, this group represents the vast majority of businesses in the adjacent rural communities of Coloma and Lotus. Since there was no budget for a web site, we started with a very simple design, and have slowly added content as needed. The Chamber uses our McWebby site manager to update its own minutes, links and frequently-asked questions (FAQs). The Chamber's calendar is actually a feed from the calendar database at the Coloma Valley web site.
Gold Discovery Park Association
The Gold Discovery Park Association (GDPA) serves as the "cooperating association" for Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma, California. The GDPA supports a variety of educational programs and projects to help preserve historic buildings and maintain park facilities. We installed and customized an osCommerce shopping cart for their "Gold Rush Mercantile," and trained their staff to add new products and process orders. In addition, the GDPA uses our McWebby site manager to update much of its page content, including links, calendar, photo gallery and main page text.
Community Web Sites
Coloma Communications publishes and maintains these sites as a community service, with support from the Coloma-Lotus Chamber of Commerce:
Coloma Valley
Coloma is best known as the site of the first gold discovery in California at Sutter's Mill in 1848. This discovery triggered the 1849 Gold Rush. Each year thousands of visitors visit Coloma's Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park to view the historic buildings, museum and living history demonstrations. This extensive site about the Coloma-Lotus area has been in operation since August, 1995. It has gone through several design makeovers, the most recent in May, 2005, by Rafael McMaster.
The American River
Flowing from the Sierras through El Dorado and Placer Counties into Folsom Dam and Sacramento, the three forks of the American River have helped shape America's history. The South Fork, site of California's first gold discovery, today provides the most popular whitewater rafting west of the Rockies with its many fun and forgiving rapids, scenic setting, and reliable summer flows. The North and Middle Forks also offer whitewater excitement, fishing, summertime cooling, and other forms of relaxation for all. The American River's convenient location less than 1 hour from Sacramento and 2-3 hours from the Bay Area makes it a great choice for summer weekend adventures. Easy page updates are implemented using the McWebby Site Manager.
E-Commerce Sites
We use and recommend osCommerce for highly customizable e-commerce implementations.
Gold Rush E-Mercantile
The Gold Discovery Park Association supports Marshall Gold Discovery SHP, where the California Gold Rush began. Their Gold Rush Mercantile, located at the Park, offers educational materials for the many teachers and students who visit the Park, along with fun toys, gold jewelry and gifts from the Gold Rush era. We helped them make these items available online, using osCommerce and PayPal payments.
Other Sites
These personal web sites and content-rich fan sites provide a breadth of experience for the Coloma Communications web team.
Brego.net
This fan site for actor Viggo Mortensen and The Lord of the Rings receives over 30,000 unique visitors per month. In addition to news and movie information, the Brego.net archives include over 200 articles, 100 video clips, 600 links and 450 photographs. Custom McWebby site editor modules make it easy to keep everything organized and updated.
Deskrat
The name for this page came in a dream. The plan is to use it for sharing scripts and other technical information with other web designers and programmers.
McDonna's
We created this personal web site for Donna's dog, photographs, and bits of journals. Someday she may even find time to update it.
