Want to Know How We Build Websites?
A Look at Coughlin’s Best Tools & Programs
Every successful team has a set of tools they use to achieve greatness, and Coughlin, along with our sister platforms Civally and MyNNY, is no exception. Our team has developed a smooth process for our website builds, and it’s how we’ve been able to build over 120 websites and counting.
As the Website Liaison, it’s my job to know the ins and outs of the website development process, and wow it’s pretty streamlined here! Having years of experience in website development and project management, I truly had not seen a better website build process until I started working for Coughlin.
I believe every team should use similar tools to make their website development process as smooth and painless as possible. In this article I will highlight a few tools we believe truly contribute to our website building success.
Client Communications: How GoodDay Has Made Collaboration Successful
At Coughlin, Civally, and MyNNY, we use GoodDay to communicate throughout our site building process. GoodDay is an easy to use and customizable project management tool that enables us to organize and discuss project matters.
We can break up projects into folders, tasks, sub-tasks, and even to-do lists! In addition, we can have individualized conversations for each project (keeping everything more organized). The platform is also able to track progress within projects, add a “Priority” status, and set deadlines.
Our favorite features are the “Assigned to” and “Action Required” features. If you have a project assigned to developer, but need assistance from another team member, you can “Assign” the task to the developer but put “Action Required” to the team member, so both individuals are notified of the task needed to be completed. Watch it in action.
There are a lot of features in GoodDay that make it an awesome project management tool, and we highly recommend it if you are looking to organize your website development efforts.
PSA: We use the free version of GoodDay. Yes, it is that amazing as a FREE online tool!
The Coughlin, Civally, and MyNNY Help Desk – Our “Ticket” System
To make a website, we must be able to communicate effectively with our clients. Coughlin, Civally, and MyNNY all have individual “Help Desks” that we use to communicate.
We use a software called SupportPal, which provides us with a shared team inbox, a self-service area, and our automation capabilities. The shared team inbox allows all team members to see all tickets, making it easier to finish inquiries for clients. The self-service area is a great team tool that we use for guides and step-by-step process to help us accomplish tasks. Lastly, automation is what we use to remind clients to respond to our tickets, or in my case, give me your content! 😉
Clients can go to each applicable Help Desk through our website or on the back end of their sites (MyNNY and Civally clients) and submit “tickets” for any questions, inquiries, or content submissions. When clients receive replies from us, it goes directly to their email address.
If you are a current website client of ours, feel free to contact us through our Coughlin, Civally, or MyNNY help desks! P.S. Depending on your inquiry, you may just end up in my inbox! 😊
If you need a free option with a few less features, you might consider a tool like Freshdesk.
Every Website Needs a Host, and We Feel Safe with 8Dweb
8Dweb is our go-to website hosting choice by far. They are one of the safest, most secure, and affordable hosting platforms on the market. Offering secure shared cloud hosting and secure and dedicated servers, 8Dweb can’t be beat.
They offer website backups every 4 hours, automatic updates and monitoring, and they have site hardening designed to keep your website safe from hackers.
For a $10 setup-up fee and only $18 a month, the benefits of 8Dweb can’t be beat for the price. Your website gets over $50 worth of software and services per month for only $18 each month. It’s affordable and it’s secure.
What Our Sites Are Built On – WordPress, YOOTheme, and Customized Tools
WordPress and Joomla! are our go-to CMS (content management systems) and YOOTheme Pro is our go-to page builder. WordPress is great because of its versatility and plugin marketplace, meaning our websites can run an e-commerce store, blog, photo gallery, etc. YOOTheme Pro offers website themes and page builder tools for WordPress and Joomla! websites, which makes the design process similar regardless of the CMS.
Because each site is unique, we have a variety of tools we use to create the type of site our clients need. Sometimes referred to as widgets and/or plug-ins, we have a few favorites at Coughlin.
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is often used in our website builds. This comes in handy when a website has to be updated regularly, or if a client knows they will be making updates in the future on their website. These ‘updates’ are seen as ‘posts’ on the back end of WordPress. We can use ACF to make the post’s interface completely customized to the client. Overall, ACF allows us to do special customization for each client’s website.
A few other honorary tools include Fluent Forms and SEOPress. These plug-ins enable us to create custom online forms for clients and run search engine optimization checks for each website page.
The Reality of Websites
Every website is unique to the business it showcases online. Hence the process of building a website can be intimidating and nerve wracking for many business owners, entrepreneurs, and small towns and villages.
When you work with Coughlin, MyNNY, or Civally, your website build will be developed with some of the best website experts in the North Country. Give us (me!) a call, and we’ll be more than happy to start making your customized website quote. Cheers!
