Category: Technology

Idaho State Civic Symphony now on the latest ARTdynamix® platform

Without any background in web design or maintenance, I never would have imagined that I’d be guiding the look of and updating content on a website for a symphony orchestra, while enjoying the creative process and getting excited about adding new pages. Keeping the ISCS ARTdynamix® website fresh, user-friendly, and engaging has become one of the favorite parts of my job thanks to the incredible “Dream Team” at Dream Warrior Group with their patience, responsiveness, and outright brilliance.
They are an absolute joy to work with (and know how to keep me calm).
~Kathryn

Last week, Idaho State Civic Symphony (ISCS) took the plunge and upgraded their site to the newest ARTdynamix® with the re-imagined, easy-to-use CMS.  ISCS has been using ARTdynamix® for over 5-years with great success but said ‘yes’ quickly when our Project Manager demonstrated the features including drag n’ drop page builder, content versioning, private areas, show, class and artist management, the ability to change the navigation on the fly and easy integration with leading show ticketing solutions.

“Making Magic and Changing Lives in our Spectacular Home.”
—ISCS Mission

Established in the early 1900s, ISCS is the oldest orchestra in the State of Idaho.   Since April of 2005, the Symphony and our audiences have enjoyed the benefits of the incredible acoustics of the Joseph C. Jensen Grand Concert Hall of the L.E. and Thelma E. Stephens Performing Arts Center. The Center is an imposing 123,000 square-foot edifice of classic design, with a hub-and-spoke arrangement centered on the large Marshall Rotunda lobby, which serves us as a venue for our pre-concert activities and chamber music.

DWG looks forward to partnering with ISCS for many years to come — our goal is to make their website easier to manage and effective for ticket selling and information sharing.

 

How do I select keywords

So many factors go into keyword selection – the first being: Do I need keywords? Many folks will tell you keywords are no longer relevant, but that only tells part of the story. Indeed, it would help if you considered keyword strings or key phrases (approximately 3 – 5 words). And while it is correct, keywords don’t have the same impact on search bots. They are essential in these ways:

How do you pick the right keywords? First, remember that this, like all marketing, is some trial and error — that’s OK as long as you learn from it.

  • The first thing I do is think. Who and why do I want folks to land on this page? So, for example, if my desired audience is tourists, I might use the term “Jazz Event Calendar for New York” or “Jazz in Los Angeles .”If trying to capture a local market, I might use “Live Jazz performances near me” or “Jazz concert schedule for New York City.”
  • Map out the pages on your site and select the strings that match the content — context is essential and strategic.

Recently Google published information about Key Word and search trends:

Top 2021 Trends per Google

(be sure to read #2 about evolving entertainment)

-near me with outdoor seating +150%

-stadium seating +600%

-in a theater near me, +500%

-live music near me +40%

Search Trends

‘Cheap’ searches

Sorting and selecting your keywords is as simple as knowing your clients and what is trending.

Dream Warrior Group, a Los Angeles SEO Company, provides the needed solutions for your online marketing needs. Our expertise includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing & Google PPC campaigns. Call us now at 818.610.3316 or click here.

Mobile First…and Primary

DWG has been building and spreading the word on mobile first for a long time…remember “.mobi?”  Times have changed since then and at some point the emphasis flipped from a mobile site as an accessory to your desktop version to mobile primary. This concept is so important that we thought a refresher may be helpful. The idea is simple – the site needs to respond to the visitor and visitors are on their devices.

A few reasons:

  • It is now often your first impression.  Where do you open your emails and click links?  So do your visitors
  • Google – This isn’t a surprise or a secret especially if  you keep up on Google various email channels. If your site does not have mobile friendly interface, you will be downgraded.  Google considers mobile primary — they are not wrong.
  • Why not?  At the end of the day, all of your versions should be well-designed and fully functional.

Your visitors use your mobile first, so it should be primary to your design.

 

Communities: Ukraine

We all are part of various communities — clubs, family, neighborhoods and work.   Sometimes communities are social, purposeful, or just because there is a commonality — sometimes we help – sometimes we ask for help.

Right now one of our communities, technology experts from Ukraine, is in circumstances I can’t fully fathom but I know we should do what we can to help.  I think of all the developers and IT specialists who are unable to work right now as they are protecting their lives — but I also imagine they are wondering what will happen to their job.  The other side of this equation is the challenge this must be causing for those companies that are struggling to maintain their work, create new projects and serve their customers.

Here’s how we will help with the goal of helping Ukrainian developers be able to return to their work.

When we agree to take on a job from those in a war torn region, we ask that they return the work back to original techs once they are able to do so.  We also be proactive with the technologists pass back the work the moment they are ready.  In this way we act as a project caretaker and not a project taker.

If you need assistance whether technologist or client, let us know how  we can help during this distressing time. Let me know how we can help: dreambig@dreamwarrior.com

To  my technology friends and competitors:  please think about jumping in to do the same.  Not so that we can gain work but so that we can help our communities displaced by war.

~LaMae

Pacific Symphony Launches with Tessitura Ticketing Integration

Congratulations to the team at Pacific Symphony on your beautiful new website!   You can see it here – Pacific Symphony Website

Pacific Symphony sought an entire web presence that could represent their nationwide brand with passion and excitement (in addition to California style).  Pacific Symphony wanted to maximize the user experience by fully integrating custom functions including Tessitura ticketing system.

ARTdynamix™ Enterprise fit that request perfectly.  Thus, DWG collaborated with Pacific Symphony through the entire process and the new web presence launched in December of 2021.  Yay!

As we began developing the Pacific Symphony’s Website, the need for a shopping environment for REST handshake with their Tessitura software in order to replace their existing SOAP based environment.  Having converted other Tessitura clients from SOAP to Rest, we began the task by understanding the way that Tessitura is customized for Pacific Symphony. Tessitura refers to itself as “arts enterprise software”.

It is an enterprise application used by performing arts and cultural organizations to manage their activities in ticketing, fundraising, customer relationship management, and marketing.

As many of you know, Tessitura happens to be amazingly flexible and allows the end user to create their ticketing environment pretty much any which way they care to.   As such, understanding the client ticketing paradigm is essential to creating a great Shopping platform.

We were able to cover the gamut ranging from short flex series with special pricing, to long term category based fixed packages, to group sales, individual tickets, and donations.