We’re super proud to introduce the new web home of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, a literally world-renowned nonprofit. Tanenbaum brings together people of different faiths by guiding schools, workplaces, and medical institutions and honoring peacemakers of wartorn regions.

The list of religious and political dignitaries*, corporations**, universities***, and charities**** who support Tanenbaum — via financial support, accolades, or contributions — is completely ridiculous. I offer you mere samples of each:

*: Billy Graham, Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Kofi Annan, Madeline Albright, Joe Lieberman
**: Walt Disney Company, Conde Nast, Verizon, Kraft, Prudential, Shell, Viacom
***: Oxford, Princeton, Harvard, George Mason, Fordham, Columbia
****: Carnegie Corporation, JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Merril Lynch & Co. Foundation

And many many more. Somewhere in there, there’s little old us.

Tanenbaum’s old site was static (AKA hard to update, inflexible, and hard to expand) and didn’t present the clearest picture of exactly what they do.

They wanted to distinguish their programs from each other in an obvious visual way, instead of having only one look for the entire site. Being able to update their own content at the drop of a hat was also on the shopping list.

Looking over their content management system options, they narrowed it down to Drupal, WordPress, Ruby on Rails, and Moveable Type.

Already leaning towards going open source, Tanenbaum was impressed by Drupal’s flexibility.

So (PRESTO) we created a custom Drupal build for Tanenbaum, as we’re known to do from time to time. We developed:

• a complete E-commerce solution allowing sales, donations, and gifts
• Google Maps and social media integration
• different sections for each program
• a promo ad management system
• forums
• a couple dozen distinct content types
• Views/CCK-based automagical content displays
• easy-to-create photo galleries
• and a roped-off section offering premium content for paying members.

Pulling over and restructuring all their content followed, plus some proofing along the way. Tanenbaum’s old blog was hosted at wordpress.com, so we brought that on over into the new Drupal site too, consolidating their web presence and brand into one much-improved location.

So YEP we’re happy Tanenbaum’s new Drupal site is live and firing, and now we’re on to the on on to the next one.

The Image Initiative, Inc. is a Syracuse, New York nonprofit dedicated to helping young women of color. They asked us to build an expressive website that puts them in charge of all their content and gives them plenty of room to grow.

The site features a custom Drupal build, an original theme with multiple highly distinct templates, and lots of Views/CCK work to ensure all their newest content goes where it’s supposed to go. We’re very proud of the finished product!

Sometimes, in a Drupal-based site, I want to do something to a certain title with CSS, which is easy if the title is on a node. But what if the title is on a View? Well, I’ve used this simple snippet with success to give the title of the Views page a unique id, allowing you to target it with CSS.

In the page.tpl.php file of your theme, find the area of code where your title is set. Insert the following code above.

<?php 
 $illegal = array("'", ",", " ", "-", "/", "&", ":", ";", "|", "–", "—");
 $uniquetitleid = 'title-'.strtolower(str_replace($illegal, "", $title));
?>

Then, replace the following code (or similar):

<?php 
if ($title): print '<h1 class="'. ($tabs ? ' with-tabs' : '') .'">'. $title .'</h1>'; endif; 
?>

with this:

<?php 
if ($title): print '<h1 id="'.$uniquetitleid.'" class="'. ($tabs ? ' with-tabs' : '') .'">'. $title .'</h1>'; endif; 
?>

This code simply takes the title of the page, strips some characters, converts it to lowercase, and turns it into the unique id for the <h1> element that contains the title. Obviously, this code won’t be very helpful if your title is based on arguments – unless you are wanting to make certain argument-based titles look different for some reason. Let me know what you think.

Real estate broker Luxury Rentals Manhattan knows the ins and outs of New York City. But there was one avenue they hadn’t mastered: the web. Updating their website with their rapidly overturning inventory was a daunting time commitment.

LRM wanted a site designed to index hundreds of New York apartment buildings, showcasing descriptions, images, space and amenities, developer details… But they couldn’t let indexing turn into a ‘round-the-clock project. They wanted a practical way to deliver all this to their users. They also wanted a sharp-looking site. And it had to be easy to use. And inviting to both search engines and potential customers. And loaded with well-written content on all things Manhattan real estate.

With a loft-y goal—running the web’s best Big Apple apartment marketplace—Luxury Rentals Manhattan chose Engine to design, build, and carry out the solution.

The ENGINE Solution

We delivered an effective, clear, and easy-to-use site. It’s topped with a focus on user-centered SEO and well-written content. May we walk you around?

Content Management Solution: Drupal

LRM’s primary reason for doing up their site was simple: they wanted to manage their content better. We knew the best solution.

LRM is now powered by the award-winning open-source option: Drupal. It’s a mouthful, but when customized for a specific purpose like LRM’s, Drupal makes life easy.

It turned out to be the perfect foundation for all sorts of features… a hierarchical tagging system, geotagged apartment profiles integrated with Google Maps, blogging, contact forms, apartment search forms, slideshows… Lots of cool, simple stuff.

Design Solution: Look Sharp, from Interface to Images

When you think of researching real estate, what comes to mind? A bumrush of whitened teeth and cheesy headlines? Duck and cover, here come the old-guy glamour shots!

LRM deserved better architecture—a classy blue, white, and gray color scheme, photos of beautiful buildings instead of tan-in-a-can men, and a UI that explains itself. They wanted their site to project helpful, not desperate.

Content Creation Solution: User-focused Articles and the Luxury Rentals Manhattan Real Estate Blog

Having a way to add tons of details about each listing was a great content cornerstone. Next, LRM wanted to take their content through the roof. So we put their site in position to be an authoritative source by researching and writing original articles and pitching in to the company blog.

LRM wanted a site packed to the vaulted ceiling with quality content. Instead of focusing on what’s great about LRM, our strategy was to explain things that New York real estate buyers want explained.

We wrote link-worthy and keyword-rich articles on each major Manhattan neighborhood, plus other useful content—not only will all this content turn up on Google search result pages, it’ll establish LRM as a local authority on what New York buyers really need to know.

LRM went a step further and took advantage of Engine’s blogging experience, asking us to create posts for their company blog. With each blog post, LRM is increasing their fresh content advantage. As their site gains age and trust, all this content will bring in more and more eyeballs.

SEO Solution: Content First, Links Second

With their luxury apartment expertise, LRM is very familiar with the value a good concierge adds to a building. How great is expert insight into where you can best invest your time? Engine turned LRM’s site into a kind of “web concierge,” making it easy for potential customers to find exactly what they need. “Searching Google for apartments near empire state building, ma’am? I’d recommend Luxury Rentals Manhattan.” Best part is, this concierge is always on the job.

Straight “out of the box,” Drupal is great for search engine marketing. Engine boosted Drupal’s SEO magic by installing a huge tagging system.

Focusing on traffic generators that didn’t involve buying ads, we used directories and social bookmarking sites like Delicious to add a little link juice. We’ve found in the past that this is a good way to get a steady trickle of traffic.

We also hit all the basics, like writing keyword-based anchor text, showing LRM how to apply alt text to images they post, and using PathAuto to create search-engine-friendly URLs. And, since we’re still working with LRM even though the site is delivered, we’re also planning a link-building campaign soon.

Tools

For this solution, we used Drupal, Views, Thickbox, and various customized modules, among others.

Luxury Rentals Manhattan’s Immediate Payoff

After showing LRM how they can easily maintain their listings (and the rest of their site) with Drupal, we handed the keys over to them.

Immediately after opening their virtual doors, LRM’s site was already ranking #1 for several long-tail keywords. Translating into an increase in leads overnight. Obviously, Manhattan real estate is extremely competitive, so the site’s best days are still to come.

LRM eagerly began adding new building profiles (and removing profiles for SOLD buildings). They’re able to keep their site current with very little effort or behind-the-scenes web-nerdery. LuxuryRentalsManhattan.com is turning into a towering success.

Take a tour for yourself at luxuryrentalsManhattan.com.

See anything you like? ENGINE can create a website for you.

Click below to learn more about some of the services we delivered for Luxury Rentals Manhattan, or, as always, contact us.

Atlanta, GA - Lewallen Contruction recently chose Engine Industries to redesign and rebuild the Lewallen Construction website. With a great brand identity, Lewallen Construction needed an online presence reflecting their quality work.

Many of Lewallen’s potential clients are international… meaning Lewallen’s website has one chance to make a good impression. It was essential to make a site that could be updated frequently with new services and project photos, and that could be used with little effort.

The result is an easy-to-use website that is well-organized and presents the user with a no-nonsense interface… quick and simple.

Tools used to build this solution included Drupal, Views, and Thickbox.