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by Scott Frangos

Fifth Avenue Advisors, is a “B2B” (Business to Business) website for a company that helps other business people decide if it’s time to sell their company, and learn what it’s worth. The company wanted the advantages of a good, dynamic CMS — Content Management System — and one that was simple to manage and use. WordPress was chosen for its easy learning curve, powerful features, and simplicity. They decided to use the “blogging” function of WordPress to create a “News” section where the latest corporate events and updates can be delivered — on the site, and via the built-in RSS feed.

Above, the Fifth Avenue Advisors home page with Business Benefits Slide Show at right. We originally sized the show to fill the large post column, then decided to downsize it to one-half the width. Updating the show for the new size (in the NEXTgen Gallery plugin) was pretty simple. After design changes in Photoshop, the new, resized files were uploaded via FTP to the directory created for this show by the plugin. When the new files over-wrote the old — the show was updated.

We wanted a short slide show on the home page to present the business philosophy of the company in an inviting way for potential clients.

Key Plugins:

• NextGen Gallery - for the slideshow on the home page
• MaxRef Widgets - To show separate link blocks in the sidebar with parent/child hierarchies
  

I worked on this project in collaboration with Newt Barrett of SucceedingToday.com. At that time we were developing our “MaxRef Widgets” plugin, and the client wanted the headings in the sidebar for certain sections to become links to those sections. So we built that feature into the plugin (you can get this plugin now in the WordPress Plugin Repository). This shows some thinking “outside the box,” since WordPress sidebar headings are seldom programmed to be links, but here they give the viewer one more port of entry into important content.

We wanted a short slide show on the home page to present the business philosophy of the company in an inviting way for potential clients. We also wanted to set a “tone” for prospective clients. It’s a “slide show,” because a series of carefully selected images play in sequence, but that’s where the similarity to common slide shows ends. I call this sort of slide show a “Business Benefits Slide Show,” because it is designed with and advertising creative strategy to present a business in the best possible light (see another Business Benefits Slide Show we did for NEXTbusNews.com).

Above, the ability to sort images in your Gallery is an advantage of the NEXTGen Gallery plugin for WordPress. It takes a bit of learning, but it pays off — there’s even a way to add sound/music to slide shows.

We used professional stock photography for the slide show, combined with business quotes and a graphic treatment to coordinate with the site color scheme. NextGen Gallery is an excellent WordPress plugin to aid the presentation of those shows. But the actual content depends on a keen wedding of corporate values and customer needs. The end result is a visual presentation that catches the eye, and helps prospects visualize the benefits of working with your company.

Mr. Barrett, a co-author of the book “Get Content. Get Customers.“, is a great believer in having your content do the lions work in marketing your business. WordPress 2.5 and newer offers the ability for a hierarchy of pages, categories and links. For this project, we created five MaxRef Widgets for the sidebar each with a different Parent/Child page group. Now, the site visitor can learn about company services and key operating processes by scanning down the sidebar and following the links of their choice to exactly the right content.

I’ll be interested in thoughts about features you have when you use MaxRef Widgets as we are actively developing and updating it (current version 1.6).

About the Author: Scott Frangos is Managing Editor and Blogger in Chief for WebHelperMagazine.com, and also Managing Partner for WebFadds.com, a modern web development company focused on dynamic website and blog solutions based on the WordPress platform. He is also an award winning graphic designer, and the lead for creation of Business Benefit Slide Shows.