Cyrius News

We are very happy to have been asked by Rob McMullan from Sydney Classical Guitars, to create his new Website for his brand new shop.  Rob worked for many years at another long-term Web hosting client of ours, Guitar Factory Gladesville, before taking the plunge and striking out on his own, to set up a specialist Classical Guitar shop.

Rob started off sub-letting a store in the city and has now commenced the big set-up of his own stand-alone speciality shop at 438 Parramatta Rd in Petersham.

To kick things off, we recommended he quickly set up a great looking and very suitable single page Website, while all the plans come together for the new store and while we design and develop his main Website.  That way, even prior to launch, he can be attracting clients through Google searches and AdWords, impressing them with a professional design, driving people to his YouTube channel and facebook page and inviting prospective customers to get in touch and make an appointment to check out the great guitar range.

Rob's site is at www.sydneyclassicalguitars.com.au – stay tuned for when we announce the full site in a few weeks time.

One of our clients from way back in the early 2000s is So Art Cakes.  After many years of having their original site, they decided it was high time to bring things up to date.  The Internet has changed so much these days with Content Management Systems (CMSs) becoming essential for any business to maintain and update their Websites.  Even for a small business like So Art Cakes, they need to be able to update their gallery regularly to feature their latest creations and add more and more glowing testimonials as happy brides and grooms write back to thank them for a job well done.

Being a small business and on a tight budget, we advised to go with WordPress as an open source CMS, and start with a good design template as a base that we could modify and customise to give them the look and feel required.  It was the best way to create a custom design with a CMS, without having to start from scratch.

We worked with Sue and Paul to help them save time by naming and giving descriptions to all their cake photographs in their gallery, to help with Search Engine Optimisation and save time.  We kept the whole site clean and simple, focusing on the cakes themselves – Sue's delicious creations.  The result is an elegant showcase, with plenty of supporting information to help the next bride and groom to find and choose So Art Cakes to design their special cake for their very special day.

Visit So Art Cakes Website here.

Cyrius is happy to announce the launch of Wavelink's brand new Website.  After a recent re-branding and logo change, the time had come to re-design and re-think the online presence for the company.

The new Website has a clean design, simplified menu structure, reorganised content and layout and a fresh new approach to promote the vastly expanded product range and supporting information since the previous site was launched.

Cyrius took Wavelink through a Web design and development process that began with a review of the entire content, navigation and structure of the Website, then worked on devising a new set of wireframes to present the information.  Once the wireframes were refined and approved, a design process began, using our favourite graphic designer and Website designer, Stephanie.  Wavelink brought their own freelancing print designer, Heather Noakes on board to create various elements of the new site, such as sliders and banner graphics.

Once the design was approved, Shawn, our Web developer, commenced an extensive process of firstly pulling all the existing content in from the current site, then recoding it into the new Website design framework.  He cleaned up many aspects, adding features and reorganising the programming to facilitate easier management of the rapidly expanding range of content and media provided by Wavelink and their suppliers.

Wavelink is using social media, including YouTube, Twitter, blogging and LinkedIn to reach a growing and highly business- and tech-savvy customer base, so the Website is central to the marketing strategy, driving people to and from all the other online assets.

Cyrius is proud to have been a part of this strategic process since 2004, expanding the scope of the project as both the Web and Wavelink itself have expanded.

Congratulations to Jonathan and the Wavelink team on your brand new Website, from all of us here at Cyrius.  Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your business evolution.

You can visit the site here: www.wavelink.com.au

Today marks one year to the day that the Rotary Club of Ryde launched their new Website.  Cyrius congratulates the Club on all the site has achieved in its first 12 months.

The Website recently won the Rotary District Award for best Website for 2010–11, the Norm Roach Memorial Shield.

It has also attracted a large number of visitors from all over the world.  6,000 people have looked at the Website, which is not bad for a humble little Rotary Club, and they have looked at over 25,000 pages of content.  The numbers are going up all the time, as the site grows in size and stature and continues to be found in Search Engines for more and more keywords.

The Club has benefited in many ways, including attracting guest speakers, volunteers, applicants for various programs and scholarships, and a few enquiries for membership.

Cyrius is proud to have been a part of the Ryde Rotary Website journey and will continue to support the Club to grow and increase its online presence, through the Website and through many social media channels.

Maree Montgomery, Jazz singer/entertainer extraordinaire and fashion event icon, launched her brand new Website to showcase her long career and vocal talents.  A dynamic and versatile entertainer, Maree has recorded 6 albums that are all now available on iTunes and Big Pond Music.  Cyrius is pleased to have been able to play a part in helping Maree leap into the digital age and give her talent a place to call home, where fans from all over the world, throughout her long career, can find her, tell all their friends on facebook about her and relive the magic of her live performances.

Maree is playing a regular monthly gig in Sydney – Laid-back Sunday Jazz, on the last Sunday of each month at the Royal Hotel, Leichhardt.  Cyrius wishes Maree all the very best as her career continues to grow, on- and off-line!

Check out Maree’s new Website here.

Cyrius congratulates the entire City of Ryde Council team for the launch of the new Council Website www.ryde.nsw.gov.au.  The site is a huge portal into everything about living in Ryde and everything that the Council does for the city.  It was designed by Spoonful Design and Cyrius was brought in to take care of the implementation and development of the functionality inside the Council's Content Management System (WCM), working closely with the diligent and hard-working Council Web team, who were charged with the massive job of implementing all of the content of the Website.

We are very proud to have played our role in such a significant project for the city.  Thank you to the City of Ryde for allowing us to be the consulting and Web development providers.

Cyrius Media Group was very proud to have helped the Rotary Club of Ryde receive the Norm Roach Memorial Shield for Best Website in the Rotary District of 9680 for 2010–11.

The district awards were held recently, with Ryde Rotary President, Allen Horrell collecting the award on behalf of the Club.  It was a big night for Ryde, as the Club scooped five district awards all up.  President Allen kept the secret of all the awards until the Club’s changeover dinner.

Ryde Rotary PR Director (and Cyrius Media Group’s Creative Director) Stefan Sojka was pleasantly surprised to be the subject of one of President Allen’s presentations of a Certificate and the Norm Roach Perpetual Trophy.

The Norm Roach Best Website Award is chosen on the following criteria:

• Overall design
• Presentation and content – does it inform members?
• What impression does it make on a prospective member?
• Visual appeal, legibility, ease of navigation
• Links to Rotary District and Rotary International Websites
• Does the Website have a Password protected area for members’ information

In his acceptance speech, Stefan passed the credit for winning the award on to Cyrius Media Group Managing Director Lata Sojka, whose drive, enthusiasm and attention to detail ensured the Website was produced to the right standard to do the Club justice and help raise the profile of Rotary through the Club’s activities.

Congratulations to the entire Club for supporting us to facilitate this project.  We graciously accept the award and pledge to continue to manage and maintain the Website to the best of our ability over the coming 2011–12 year.

You can check out Ryde Rotary's Website here

Cyrius has just launched a re-vamped version of a Website we designed and developed many years ago.  Sydney-based Wild Goose Trading is an Australian company selling the very trendy sheepskin boots, jackets, hats and rugs.  The new Website (hosting by Cyrius), comes after the company came back to us with a new logo, photos and product range.  The old Website, being designed back in the day when 800 pixels was the standard maximum screen resolution and being designed to suit the old marketing materials, needed to be rebuilt to suit the new logo design look.

Jenny, from Wild Goose Trading had arranged some great high-quality photographs and did all the homework on the product database information, to make our job easier – and of course keep the costs down.  We love it when clients do their homework!  So we concentrated on designing the Website graphic user interface (GUI) and coding the programming content into the site.  In the end it is a very clean and easy to navigate online catalogue, aimed mainly at retail stores, as WGT is predominantly a wholesaler, but also making it easy for end users to flick through the high-quality photographs and get in touch to order something.

The team at Cyrius Web design, Ryde, Sydney, would like to thank Wild Goose Trading for their engagement in helping create their Website and we really look forward to tracking the site's performance, using Google Analytics and seeing how it performs in the area of form submissions and the good old fashioned ringing telephone.

Winter is approaching.  How about checking out some snug and warm gear on the site now?: www.wildgoosetrading.com.au

Cyrius is proud to announce the 'soft launch' of the brand new eCommerce Website, USA Wines Direct.  It might come as a surprise to us Aussies with all our homegrown wines, but America has some of the best wines in the world.  Anyone who saw that movie "Bottle Shock" would understand, how the US beat the French in a blind taste test, putting America, and California in particular, well and truly on the wine-making map.

US wine imports into Australia are relatively small, but it is a strong niche market with anyone who knows the wine, developing a passion and a strong connection to the brands and the varieties.  With new converts discovering the wine for themselves every day, there is an opportunity to even up the balance of trade just a little bit – the yanks certainly drink enough of our wines!

USA Wines Direct is Australia's specialist online retailer of fine wine produced in the USA.  Proprietor Ian Lindsay has spent a lifetime in the wine business and really knows his stuff.  He has hand-picked a selection of the best wines, both in taste and value, to introduce the uninitiated and to allow Aussies and US expats alike to buy American wines directly and locally, here in Australia.

The Website design highlights the images and colours of the wine-growing regions, with an easy-to-use navigation and shopping facility.  The eCommerce solution is Big Commerce, which provides a number of great marketing tools, including Search Engine Optimisation, custom design templates, and plenty of great customer features.

We are now embarking on a strategy of online marketing, consultation and ongoing Website design and development to establish the business and make a splash on the local market.

So raise your glass and let's drink a toast, as we congratulate USA Wines Direct on their brand new Website launch.

Cheers!

Cyrius Media Group is proud to announce the launch of Ideas International's new Website http://www.ideasinternational.com/.

Ideas International (IDEAS) is a publicly traded company on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX:IDE) and has been in business for over 25 years.  IDEAS hosts users in over 100 countries and maintains offices in the US, EMEA and Asia Pacific.  The company provides enterprise IT research, insight, analysis and tools to both the buy and sell sides of the industry, counting as clients many large technology vendors and major blue-chip global IT users.

The new Website is a bold step forward, as it consolidates all of the information about IDEAS products and services, including world-class industry insights, advisories and powerful IT management tools.

Cyrius was involved from the very beginning, working directly with IDEAS management on the design, structure and style of the new Website.  IDEAS have a strong in-house technical team, who implemented the Website into their Content Management System and took care of many technical aspects, leaving Cyrius to concentrate on design considerations, positioning, information and focus.  It was a unique project, with the client taking a hands-on role in the technical implementation and liaising on many aspects of the project that would ordinarily be outsourced.  However, Cyrius Creative Director Stefan Sojka and IDEAS senior Vice President Gary Burgess saw the value in a more collaborative approach, taking advantage of IDEAS strong capabilities and leveraging Cyrius's experience in Website design and production for the most appropriate outcome.

At the same time as the Website was being developed, IDEAS was also working on a brand new product, IDEAS Advantage.  Cyrius was delighted to have been invited to contribute design and Web development resources to the project.

Congratulations to the entire IDEAS team on the launch.  Thank you for allowing us to be involved in such an important project.  We look forward to working with you to develop and market the new Website in the coming months/years.