Stingray Point Marina had an existing website that was created in the early 2000, and as I have noted before on these pages, that made their website an age in human years of about 100 years old. So we worked together to bring them a more modern look, with a slideshow of images for the marina, weather features, a blog, and some special bells and whistles. The marina didn’t own very many good quality photos, so I suggested they run a photo contest among their slip holders. They offered winning images a $50 gift certificate to West Marina. It worked great–there were many, many beautiful photo submissions, and we were able to select a few of the best images to feature in the website. Additionally EJ Communications provided photography services to fill out a few additional images for the home page slideshow.
This site was built using the WordPress platform as a Content Management System, with significant stylesheet changes to create a customized website design. One of the things I love about WordPress is the vast number of plug-ins available to solve client’s individual needs. The client wanted to have a page that included specific slip vacancies, so visitors could see what slips were available and look at the marina map. Allowing visitors to have this information would greatly reduce the amount of time staff would have to spend on the phone with potential slip holders to discuss what was available and where the slip was located. The vacancy listing would need to be updated frequently as they filled the available slips. The client wanted to provide me with an xcel spreadsheet of slip availabilities with slip dimensions and rates. I was able to find a plug in that would import an xcel file and convert it into a visually appealing table. The plug-in also has a very flexible editing capability to make updates and changes. You can view the page with the xcel plug-in in use here.
And of course Search Engine Optimization, and a blogging platform, and Google Analytics were incorporated into the site. A robust weather page with embedded live weather data was an important part of the site, as many of the slip holders use the website as their go-to page for a variety of weather links. Future plans include adding a marina web cam to the site, so people can monitor the marina from their home computers, which would be especially helpful, or terrifying during bad weather events. The client tells me they have gotten several new slip holders over the summer who found the marina specifically from the website.Additionally EJ Communications has created a Google Adwords Campaign, and traditional print advertising campaign for this client, all of which has greatly improved their occupancy rate.
Since I am an avid sailor, it was especially fun for me to create this website for Stingray Point Marina.You can view the entire website here.