Let Gard’s web team guide you every step of the way with our expert website strategy, design and development
The Hub of Truth
We Help You Engage Your Audiences
At Gard, we build award-winning websites, develop digital campaigns and manage social media to help clients communicate online. We launch successful web design and digital solutions for national clients in healthcare, energy, government, philanthropy, professional services and more.
We bring to each project a sophisticated understanding of audiences and user experience (UX) design, as well as storytelling, content creation, SEO and SEM, and enterprise-level WordPress development. We thrive on complexity and know how to present nuanced information to the right audiences using human-centered design principles.
The process we engage our clients in is collaborative and rooted in strategy. The result is an online presence that makes our clients proud and drives engagement from their audiences.
We’re experts in redesigning websites for large organizations, and we create small niche sites, too. Whether your site has become unwieldy, grown without a plan, or you’re just starting out, we can help.
We simplify the complex, creating clean, intuitive websites that engage audiences and are easy to maintain and scale as your organization grows.
Our SEO, SEM, web analytics, user research, usability testing, video production, social media strategy, and media buying expertise allows us to make holistic and strategic recommendations for your website.
We specialize in custom, open-source web development for projects ranging from enterprise-level to microsites. We prioritize technical excellence and never shoehorn a website into a pre-made template.
- Website audits
- Cross-channel audits
- Google Analytics audits
- Qualitative and quantitative user research
- Personas and journey maps
- Information architecture and user flows
- User Experience wireframes
- Visual design prototypes
- Responsive (mobile) design
- Copywriting and copyediting
- Content strategy and style guides
- Content governance planning
- WordPress development
- API integration
- Custom map building
- Usability testing
- Accessibility testing
- Training and user manuals
- Website technical maintenance
- Website content management
- Ongoing training
- Social media strategy
- Digital advertising
- SEO and SEM campaigns
FAQs
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How long does a website take to plan, design and build?That depends on several factors, such as scale, complexity, technical integrations and more. A small site can take a few short weeks if the goals and content are clear at the start. A large, complex site with hundreds of pages and multiple integrations can take several months.
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How much does a website cost?Like timing, the cost depends on the scale of the site and the types of services. Often the discovery and planning process reveals beneficial functionality or strategies that you may not have initially considered, and it can also reveal efficiencies that were not initially apparent.
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What’s Gard’s project management process?We excel in managing projects with grace and skill. Web projects can be particularly complex, with many moving parts. To keep projects moving forward to launch on time and on budget, we pair creative and technical leads with a strong project manager who ensures that your standards, strategy, deadlines and budgets are adhered to at every step. We use enterprise-level project management software to ensure no details get lost in the process.
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What is Gard’s technology platform of choice?We build sites in WordPress on a trusted, highly secure host. This open-source solution is extremely flexible, broadly supported, and its popularity and ease of use will enable your organization to remain independent of your vendor. Additionally, we ensure all site content is fully accessible and that ADA-compliant features are in place. All our sites are built using standards-compliant code, with up-to-date HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and we follow best practices for SEO optimization.
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How easy will it be for our organization to maintain our site?We get to know your business workflow and will make sure the content management system (CMS) we design fits your needs. We consider site admins to be an important audience we’re designing for, and we customize each site’s CMS to make it easy for your staff to maintain. And if you don’t have time to maintain it, we are happy to do that for you!
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Does Gard use a ticket system to manage requests for help?We don’t use a ticket system, and a dedicated account manager will be your point person during the site build and after it’s launched. We are highly responsive and happy to help with the even the smallest question or edit request.
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Does Gard farm work out to offshore staff?We do not. All work is done by our Portland-based team of seasoned professionals, who have the wisdom and experience do get your website done right the first time, with a transparent process and no surprises.