Raising the bar for Albion Parks & Recreation

As a lifelong resident of Albion, Indiana, I was quite excited and honored to launch Albion Park Department's first website in March 2022.

One of the driving forces for Casey Myers, Park Superintendent, to have a stand-alone website was the growing number of people from outside of Albion using Hidden Diamonds Park. This premier, 89-acre park offers some of the region's best (and free) recreational opportunities, including an 18-hole disc golf course, splash pad, and trails that wind through beautiful, natural areas.

Prior to the launch of a new website, patrons likely found some basic facts listed on a page within the Town of Albion's website:

It was difficult, however, to find the kinds of details many might seek before committing to a commute.

A municipal website serves a very specific purpose: to distribute information to citizens. In this case, the vision Myers had for promoting Albion's parks as a "destination" required something more. I began the project by gleaning as much information as I could about park features, amenities, fees, and public engagement. I asked Myers a litany of questions, the kind patrons most likely ask when they are looking to camp, rent a pavilion, or find programs and services available. This drove the basic navigation for the new website, created on Wix.

The development of inner pages of the website relied upon use of dynamic data. By building tables of data for lists of parks, features, and amenities, I was able to provide a front-page filter to help patrons navigate to whatever it is they are looking to "do". When they select an activity and click the button, they are immediately delivered to the park that provides the activity they seek.

Each inner page provides a deeper level of detail about each park and the most popular and sought-after activities.

Navigation was the most important need Myers relayed to me, so the entire website is made to be user-friendly, providing options to use a search bar that floats on every page, a simple "I want to" interactive lookup on the home page, and a bold, fixed top menu bar. The site is responsive, and mobile navigation is also easy.

This project will continue over the next year as electronic forms have been introduced in this first phase. More "bells and whistles" are envisioned for the future, based on patron and town staff feedback.

What a pleasure this project was! Kudos to Myers for his excellent use of Facebook to keep the public informed and to celebrate the many ways citizens enjoy the parks. The imagery was one part of this project made much easier for the ability to grab and use dozens of photos previously shared on social media.

Albion Parks

New website powers Windmill Museum's marketing efforts

As a long-time supporter of local tourism and a past president of Visit Noble County, I have been a champion of efforts to market Noble County's many, extraordinary tourism assets for decades. Among those assets is the Mid-American Windmill Museum in Kendallville. When I ran into a museum volunteer while working on another local website project, I grew pretty exited about the prospects of helping the museum create a new, modern presence on the internet.

Sure enough, just a few weeks after our impromptu meeting, I received a formal request to submit a proposal for a new site for the museum. This project promised an opportunity to fix the display of images, an issue that resulted from upgrading the "old" website to operate with an SSL certificate. I had seen this issue occur on other sites, but did not expect to find that the content of this site was (still) being managed in a challenging and somewhat archaic way - manually, using raw HTML code in the site's file management system.

In 2022, in my opinion, no one should be expected to maintain a website's content without a modern, user-friendly front-end editor. Clearly, the museum's directors understood this and were quick to accept an affordable solution offered by Catchy Creations. Not only would a new website (in this case, using Wix) give a fresh look and feel to prospective visitors, it would also provide countless other updates resulting in an attractive, modern, interactive site for the museum to promote, raise money, and serve visitors.

The museum's website, before the relaunch, was only displaying its images if the user specified https:// in the URL. This indicated the site's SSL Certificate installation did not include necessary changes to the directory path for images. Though this "before" screenshot does not illustrate this issue, just imagine that where you see an image on the web page you would only see this placeholder instead:

The museum was also excited about the prospect of providing a responsive website. The existing site, still operating on the old platform, looked like this on a mobile device:

So let's look at the new website home page:

Visitors will enjoy the ease of viewing the new site on mobile devices:

In addition to improving the site's responsiveness, we also incorporated digital forms. Now, enthusiasts can apply to volunteer, send donations, and become members of the supporting organization safely, electronically, and instantly! (We used Wufoo forms, integrated with the museum's Square account, to accomplish these upgrades.)

Lastly, we recognized an opportunity to offer a more engaging, interactive look at the 52 windmills that make the museum a destination for wind wheel and history enthusiasts. The simple website table looked like this before relaunch:

The new site, using dynamic content (easily managed from a dashboard accessible to designated volunteers at the museum) allows visitors to see (and enlarge) images and even search the database for specific manufacturer models:

Working on this project was truly a privilege and satisfied my desire to support a local non-profit that has done great work to enhance quality of life and boost tourism and our local economy. I hope you'll find their new website easy to use as you plan your next visit!

Windmill Museum website

The scoop on Rake & Take's new business & website

Jory Baugher, a resident of Kimmell, IN, reached out to Catchy Creations LLC at the start of 2022. He requested a quote for building a website for a new company he was just starting called Rake and Take Pet Waste Removal.

While Rory described his website needs as "not very in-depth", envisioning a one-page site with links to social media, he was rightfully concerned about finding a solution that could grow with his business and also remain completely under his control and ownership, desiring a site that could be easily transferred should that need arise.

Following a series of e-mail exchanges, as Jory and I managed this entire project without ever meeting in person, we agreed on an affordable yet reliable choice: a WordPress website hosted by HostGator. We chose a shared hosting plan with a dedicated IP address and some optional upgraded security options.

By choosing WordPress, we were able to select one of the top WP themes, Neve Pro, which came with the option to use Elementor to edit the site. Elementor is very popular editor that allowed us to design custom headers, footers, and page content for Rake and Take. Jory also wanted to capture leads through a contact form on the site, which required us to find an SMTP mailer that would integrate well with his Google Workspace account using WP Forms (lite, free version).

We are proud of the results of this challenging project, one that may appear to have used a more-complex-than-needed back end for a small company's launch, but one that was based on informed, intelligent decisions by an entrepreneur who can see the future of his businesses with intentions to grow!

Rake & Take website