Fasturtle® » Case Study: U.S. Route 50

US Route 50 Screenshot of Website by Fasturtle

USRoute50.com is the newest media outlet in the Garden City and Dodge City, Kansas markets. USRoute50.com wanted to create website with a newspaper feel and an online community where local companies could advertise and join a marketplace. Their goal is to become the go to location for user-generated news, comments and communications and for the marketplace to showcase every business listing for the entire Garden City-Dodge City Market. Fasturtle provided USRoute50.com with a custom website design, client controlled Content Management System (CMS), complete database integration to include active records, e-commerce integration, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and a Professional Hosting Package.

Challenge

USRoute50.com wanted to build a website that would give each visitor an interactive, live newspaper experience. The key challenges were creating a unique application that fit USRoute50.com’s exact requirements, including a custom marketplace with a custom advertising module that provided even distribution between each advertiser. Fasturtle needed to deliver USRoute50.com on time and under budget.

First, the Fasturtle team needed to develop a custom design and platform that is easy to navigate and in which users quickly adopt. The public can sign up and become members. This allows them to become part of the USRoute50.com community. Users will be able to search through all articles with categories and Keyword searches, leave comments with spam preventing measures, and RSS Incorporated for users to be able to be auto fed news articles.

The marketplace was an essential element and serves as a place for businesses to have a listing like the Yellow Pages within USRoute50.com with free and paid options. Some of the essential requirements for Fasturtle to develop were predictive search, search by city, and listing of main and sub categories with google map incorporation.

Another significant and revenue generating component was the ability for companies to advertise on USRoute50.com. USRoute50.com needed to have unlimited combinations of tags and advertisers, and the ability to have complete control over which ads are served and where they are served.

For administrative purposes, the content management systems (CMS) would need to be user friendly in order to easily manage articles, users, advertising, advertisers, forums, comments, and business listings. Developing a CMS with an ease of use will ultimately save USRoute50.com time and the expense of making updates that their team can make.

Lastly, since USRoute50.com was emerging as new multi-media site, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was truly mission critical. Fasturtle analyzed key words or keyword phrases to ensure a better chance of recognition and ranking.

Solution

Flexible website architecture and design to allow for future enhancements and expansion. All HTML was coded using web standards and an XHTML Doctype.
Interactive website design and streamlined navigation to increase usability and customer satisfaction.
Content Management System for website maintenance, integrated with MySQL and CakePHP for ease of updating information.
Complete Search Engine Optimization to establish high rankings and drive traffic to the site.
A Yellow Pages type of business listing, with search capabilities.
Adaptable tag-based advertising campaign system that allows the application to serve ads based on article tags.

Result

USRoute50.com is an emerging force for news and information on the web. Fasturtle developed many of the key features specifically for USRoute50.com producing revenue generating as well as cost savings opportunities. USRoute50.com has the ability to update information easily without the knowledge of code and without the added expense of hiring a website company to make the changes. The opportunity for advertising revenue is limitless and with SEO efforts advertising has increased as traffic and businesses find USRoute50.com. Fasturtle implemented USRoute50.com well under project timelines, remaining within the budget.