Illinois River Energy – Website Redesign

Overview

The Illinois River Energy, a corn-based, ethanol processing facility needed to redesign its website. They wanted to independently take control of any maintenance, future updates, or revisions on their website.

Illinois River Energy Selects QAT for Web Redesign

A Fresh Design and Enabling Self-Maintenance

The Illinois River Energy, a corn-based, ethanol processing facility needed to redesign its website.  They wanted to independently take control of any maintenance, future updates, or revisions on their website. They hoped that a website redesign would lead to better and more professional communication with its shareholders, clients, and suppliers. With a website redesign they hoped for a new company look that would:

  • Create a better representation of the company
  • Highlight their daily corn bids and press releases
  • Highly functional and easy to navigate
  • Maintain key elements of their existing company image
  • Target shareholders, farmers, potential vendors, and suppliers

With these hopes of a new design, they turned to QA Technologies (QAT) for the redesign.

The Business Challenge

Illinois River Energy wanted to make sure that the website redesign complemented existing collateral and company image and set forth the following guidelines:

  • Colors: dark green, blue, yellow, and orange.
  • Company logo included in the header of every page.
  • No use of photos of people on the site that are not actually associated with the company.
  • Visuals should only focus on equipment and fields. Stock photos all pre-approved.
  • Updateable using Adobe Dreamweaver.
  • No use of rotating pictures or “flashy stuff”.

QAT Global’s Approach

QAT used Adobe Dreamweaver to accomplish the website redesign. The design added new elements while also keeping to the color template and other guidelines laid out by the client. The photos used in the site come from Illinois River Energy, stock photography, and custom photography. The color palette utilizes all of the required colors and is based in a rich brown, representative of IRE’s agricultural base. To help the website stand out from competitors, QAT developed educational material and links to other sites that IRE’s target audience may be interested in. QAT also enhanced the online presence with search engine optimization and an online employment application.

QAT was able to successfully provide IRE with what they wanted. IRE now has the ability to maintain its website on its own through Adobe Dreamweaver. Through their partnership with QAT, they got a new and professional website while maintaining the company image and purpose.