buyTogether was founded by businessmen Tim Sheahan and Gerry Kidd and aims, in a nutshell, to represent and negotiate on behalf the buyer in property sales. A new concept in the Irish property market! (And one that would have been welcomed a few short years ago!) There are 5 different services available:

• Group buying brings a group of buyers together with the common goal of buying their own properties in a development – the group results is some serious bargaining power!
• Single home buyers can also harness the negotiating experience of buyTogether to potentially gain significant reductions in house price.
• The property Search & Select service aims takes the drudgery and heartache out of finding and buying the perfect home for you – buyTogether can do it all for you!
• Developments - this is an interesting and timely idea which looks for opportunities in unfinished developments around the country.
• And finally buyTogether also offer their skills for negotiation and renegotiation of rents and leases in the commercial sector. I know a few people straight off the bat that would seem some very tangible value in getting a few percentage points knocked off their leases!!

So – there’s a lot of very useful offerings available from the team at buyTogether. One of the challenges for us was creating a homepage that not only looked good (easy for us!) but also gave all 5 offerings equal footing with the just the right level of information to explain to but not overload with information  - (not as easy!). In the end, after a lot of design work, some user testing and a few tweaks here and there we pulled it off and we, but most importantly, our clients are delighted with the results. Check out the buyTogether homepage.

buyTogether website - click picture to launch website

Also you might notice on the homepage is video – which aims to explain simply and clearly what buyTogether do.  It also gives you, the visitor, a chance to meet Gerry Kidd, one of the founders and get a sense of the people behind the company – available, knowledgeable and approachable.

The Mortgage  Savings Calculator

The perfect execution of the mortgage savings calculator was paramount. It shows not only your mortgage repayments and stamp duty but also what potential savings you make across the board if you are able knock of a few percentage points form the asking price. We all surprised to learn after some of research that many of the mortgage calculators across a range of high profile property and banking websites simply didn’t work; with inaccuracies in stamp duty the most common issue. Tim Sheahan had spent some time developing the mathematics behind the buyTogether calculator and it was up to us to ensure that it went from Excel to WordPress without a hitch. Our big thanks go out to Alan O’Reilly from Tidy.ie who worked his magic (several times) in the development of the calculator for the website. It is an extremely handy little tool and it works. Be sure to check it out.

Other bits…

There are lots of small pockets of goodness throughout the rest of the site notably the eNewsletter form that deposits the subscribers details directly in Mail Chimp’s (our eNewsletter software of choice) mailing list database. There is a also a nice little widget at the end of selected pages and posts that allows you to share the page/post socially through facebook, twitter, etc. And of course there are some excellent examples of registration forms – about five! – that can be modified and processed all within the WordPress administration area. Handy indeed. Oooh and did we mention that we designed the logo as well?

We will leave you with words from Gerry and Tim on their experience working with Cookie Web. Thanks guys!

In writing our brief for our new website we had a good idea of what we wanted to achieve but really had no idea how to deliver the end product. We had spoken to many wed designers and received quotations which really tested our budget. From a chance meeting at an Kilcock Business Association presentation, we were fortunate to enlist the services of Heidi and Orla at Cookie Web Consulting.

From our very first consultation they grasped our business idea and understood our requirements, perhaps even better than we did ourselves. Together we have developed a website that ticks all the boxes and we are looking forward to using it as the shop window of our business. We have received many commendations from business associates regarding the look, ‘feel’ and usability of the site, which is testament to the professionalism of Heidi and Orla.

The calculator is a very important element of our website and its development and user friendly presentation as a unique tool within the financial services sector owes much to the girls expertise. We have no hesitation in recommending Cookie Web Consulting and we look forward to further developing our website as our business expands.

Gerry Kidd and Tim Sheahan, buyTogether

There is a lot of custom built functionality on the site so pairing that technology with a content management system required a bit more thought than usual. But after reviewing numerous CMS systems, Cookie Web and the Cartell IT team agreed that WordPress was the way to go. You just can’t beat the simplicity and ease of use of WordPress when it comes to updating the content on your website. This was a big factor in the project as we really wanted each department to take ownership of their content and have the ability to update it and keep it fresh. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

We’re delighted with the new website and so are they, another happy client! See what Nicola has to say about working with Cookie Web:

We needed to redesign and update Cartell’s website for quite sometime. We finally took the crunch when we saw Orla and Heidi’s previous work. Their expertise and talent put our minds at ease knowing Cartell was in the right hands. From day one Orla and Heidi’s professionalism and enthusiasm helped us determine what we wanted with the new design. The finished product has exceeded our wish list for the new Cartell website. We would highly recommend Cookie Web to anyone who is looking for excellent quality and service.
Nicola Aherne

Cartell.ie - click to launch website

Tune in to Newstalk’s Motor Mouth show every Monday night where Cartell’s Jeff Aherne is a weekly Motoring Correspondent. If you miss the show don’t worry as Jeff publishes a blog post about the main topic after the show.

National Mileage Register

Since we were redesigning the cartell.ie website we persuaded the team to let us update the nmr.ie website too and bring it into line with their new styling. Cartell operate the National Mileage Register for Ireland so it makes sense for the NMR website to follow the brand and look and feel of the Cartell website. We created a new logo for the site which incorporates an odometer graphic and helps capture the essence of the site’s subject matter. The homepage has been designed in a similar style to the Cartell site and we have kept the same colour scheme in both sites.

nmr.ie - click to launch website

Being an online company it was very important to get the website right so Cookie Web designed a banner featuring the beautiful scenic coastline of Portugal. We went for a nice rich green which gives the site a fresh and friendly look and feel, which mirrors the company’s friendly and personable ethos. Both Cookie Web and GolfonSilverCoast.com are delighted with the results and the site has been getting great reviews from all visitors.

GolfonSilverCoast.com - click to launch website

Irish Guitar Festival - click to launch image website

We’ve enjoyed working with Conor tremendously and admire the amount of work that he and his people have been putting in to get the festival up and running. It looks like it’s going to be great! There are some awesome musicians lined up to play over the 5 days – and we’ve added in plenty of YouTube video clips within the biographies of the performers to give you an idea of their style. Orla and I will be there for sure! And as the festival is based in Drogheda we’ll be taking advantage of some pretty amazing accommodation package deals available.

Conor seems pretty chuffed with the website too:

We needed a website produced fast and within a tight budget and one that met all of our needs to promote our festival accordingly.
From the very first phone conversation, I felt confident and assured that Cookie Web could provide exactly what I needed….and they did. I would recommend Cookie Web to anyone!
Conor Mulhall

Trinity Boutique - click image to launch website

Impressed with Presta

Cookie Web were delighted to have opportunity to try out a new ecommerce solution that we’d been keeping our eye on. Prestashop is an open source (our favourite!) ecommerce solution that suits us very well. It’s free to download, has a thriving community of developers and is quick and easy to deploy. All of these things are very important but being Cookie Web we  needed the ability to create something beautiful as well. Creating a gorgeous and unique template in Prestashop is straightforward and enjoyable (nothing more frustrating to a developer than flailing around in poorly executed software). As with most open source software there is room for improvement and we have recommended several to the Presta team. For instance the necessity for a very plain, sandbox style template as their default offering is a little over blown. But all in all we’re big fans and we’ll be launching another ecommerce shop developed in Presta in the coming weeks.

One Website – Two Solutions

The main website is developed with WordPress with a link to the Presta Shop within subdomin – you’ll see though that both website and shop are site sit together seamlessly. While some clients baulk at having two separate logins – one to update their main website and another to administer their shop we recommend it. Better to have to separate pieces of software that do an excellent niche job rather than a bloated software solution that does everything you could ever imagine (and a lot more than you would ever want) and is a big pain to upgrade and maintain.

The panel will be discussing WordPress User Case Scenarios and we’ll be looking at the strengths and hurdles involved in using WordPress for charity sites, community sites and news-driven sites. I will be discussing my beloved Our Kilcock website – the community website for local events, news, and comments on everything that is Kilcock. Run on WordPress and whatever steam I have left over from a hard days work at Cookie Web.

So if you’re a WordPress user or you want to be or if you develop WordPress sites on any level then you really should think about coming along. It’s based in Kilkenny and run by Katherine Nolan and Sabrina Dent two of the great ladies of the Irish web-o-sphere so it’s going to be a kicking good event. It’s on 6th & 7th of March – check out the WordCamp website for details.

So general busy-ness in the new year delayed our own website redesign launch – but at the end of last week we finally put the finishing touches to our new look and launched on Thursday. We have gone with the warm, organic (organics are so in!!) tones of coffee and sepia and amber highlights- not quite chocolate but definitely more on par with our lovely business cards we’re so fond of handing out to anyone who’ll have ‘em. We have simplified our homepage layout too so that all you need to take in is a bit about what we do and our latest work automatically pulled in from the blog and presented on a lovely JavaScript slider. Very easy to update – there is no updating. The blog is very much the central focus of the website. After all that’s where all the action is.

So here’s to 2010 and as we like to say here at Cookie Web when faced with a challenge – bring it on!!

BTW – how cool is our cute little favicon!!

The family behind the Dublin Meat Company came to us with a vision of that their new website should be very eye catching and stand apart from other butcher’s websites; after all The Dublin Meat Company is doing something different. The company has received a lot of press since their opening and they felt it was important that the website made an impressive impression on new visitors to the website. Cookie Web worked hard and very closely with them and we are both very happy with the result:

Dublin Meat Company - click to launch website

…and from Brian O’Leary…

“On behalf of all at Dublin Meat Co I would like to thank Orla and Heidi for our new website. From first contact our dealings with cookieweb have been both very professional and friendly. Due to the fact that we are not very IT orientated we relied on the fact that we could pick the phone up to either Orla or Heidi and ask questions. For a small to medium sized company like ours dealing with cookieweb has been exactly what we required and I would have absolutely no hesitation recommending them to anyone looking for advice re websites.”

Paddy, David and Brian O’Leary are the father and sons team behind the Dublin Meat Company and take special pride in their product and motto: Premium Meat, Wholesale Prices. We felt that the lads should take center stage on the website – check out the weekly specials blackboard on the home page. Plus we hooked in a form to allow people to easily subscribe to the weekly specials SMS.

Ronan Casey - Click to launch website

Ronan is a keen tweeter and we used a brilliant little plugin, Tweet Tools, that shows his latest tweets on the website and also automatically sends out a tweet when a new post is published. Hook that into Facebook and you’re all socialised up with minimum effort. Twittering is all about up to second conversation snippets – so if you do have a website than hooking in your twitter updates (tweets) is great way to keep your website fresh and up to date. We’ve recently done something similar to great effect on OurKilcock.ie interlinking the blog, twitter account and Facebook Fanpage.

`Kavaleer presents Garth & Bev - click to launch site

Cookie Web were engaged to create a holding page for the www.garthandbev.tv (there is a complete website pending) and to setup a Fanpage for the program on facebook. Facebook is a notorious for it’s poor interface design and this makes it a bit tricky for people to setup pages – once it is setup though it’s a doddle to update the page with pics, videos, links and news. Each time you update your legion of fans will received updates on their profile walls – it is a brilliant way to keep in touch with your audience. But, as always, only update when you have something genuinely interesting to put out there. You will run the risk of being de-fanned if you insist on updating daily (or even more horribly, hourly) with stuff only your Mum would want to hear about. Luckily Gary and Andy don’t suffer from being boring – and yes I am still being objective!! Check out the Garth and Bev Fanpage and please become a fan!

Of course we were honoured guests at the launch party on the 22nd of November at the fabulous Odessa Club in Dublin. It was a fantastic turnout – the place was literally jammed with kids stuffing themselves with popcorn and getting their themselves sketched by the resident caricaturist. But a hush fell over the noisy crowd when Garth and Bev started up on the big screen and all the kids (and adults as well) watched spellbound (and silent) as two 11 minute episodes played out. Check out the photos of the day on the Kavaleer blog. And don’t forget to watch the show … and become a fan!