The community of Drupal developers is constantly working to improve the Drupal platform. The first major update of these improvements in a couple years is Drupal 7, which will most likely be released in the next couple of months. (The core Drupal development team prefers to not set a release date but instead to release it when all critical bugs have been resolved. If you are a PHP developer who can smash bugs, you can help get Drupal 7.0 released sooner.) There are many improvements to Drupal with Drupal 7, but the decision to upgrade at this point should not be taken lightly.

How does upgrading to Drupal 7 Help My Website?

An upgrade to Drupal 7 improves the future of your website. Updates to the administration of Drupal 7 are the result of hours and hours in professional software testing labs making sure administration is more usable and straightforward. Also, newer database systems mean you can run your Drupal site on different types of database setups to better fit your business needs. And major updates to different portions of the module and themeing systems mean smoother, quicker and more flexible custom module development for your Drupal site.

What should I consider when upgrading?

There are a lot of details to consider when upgrading your Drupal site. In fact, for many sites, the process of upgrading may involve completely reworking how the site is structured and managed. When Drupal 7 is released, all core functionality will have a working upgrade path. However, the majority of current sites use some community-contributed Drupal modules to complete their functionality. Most of the major contributed modules do have a version that will work for Drupal 7, but not all do. And not all Drupal 7 modules will have a smooth upgrade path from earlier versions of Drupal. Similarly, all custom modules for the site will require at least a minor rewrite due to changes in the database and themeing systems within Drupal 7.

It may be a little early to start the Drupal 7 upgrade process, but it’s not too early to start thinking about when and what is involved in upgrading your site. It will be at least a couple months before August Ash starts using Drupal 7 for new production sites; we have to evaluate Drupal 7 further to make sure it meets our needs. If you are looking to update and improve your website in major ways over the next couple years, an upgrade to Drupal 7 within the next six months would be recommended. If you want to keep your website much the same for the next couple years, there is much less reason to upgrade. As with any web site change or upgrade, the answer to the question for you comes down to cost. Is it worth it for you?

Contact us at August Ash to find out how much a Drupal website upgrade may cost for your site.

Creating a website with a content management system in today’s web world is almost a necessity. In the web of yesteryear, we used to make sites like we make brochures; if we need to include some new information, we open up the file and change it and then upload it to the website. Content Management Systems such as Drupal or WordPress save us the hassle of finding files, copying them, and uploading them. (more…)

These days you’re in the minority if you haven’t heard of Twitter, but actually using Twitter might be something entirely new for you. So this will be dedicated to all those people who are new to using Twitter.
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Sit back, relax, and leave the website to us. That’s our invitation to every client, and it’s not an arrangement we take lightly. August Ash Inc has established itself as a leading provider of website design, internet marketing, and e-commerce solutions in the Midwest and nationwide. With the help of strong leadership, talented staff and wonderful clientele, we have earned wide acclaim and were ranked in the top 25 of web development and design firms in the Twin Cities by the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal in 2009.
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Want to have a contest? Let’s see who can create the most social media profiles by the end of the week. Sure, you’ve got your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts up and running already, but I’m talking about all the others out there. There are hundreds of them; social networking sites as far as the eye can see, each with a name more whimsical than the next.
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Creating an online presence is one thing. Having an online presence that grabs and maintains attention is another.

August Ash exists to help local companies develop their identities on the Web in a way that communicates effectively, reflects professionally, as well as improves revenue and profitability. We’ve worked hard to establish a reputation for offering web design Minneapolis businesses and non-profits can use to their advantage.
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Last month, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal published its annual list of Top 25 Web Development and Design Firms in the Twin Cities. August Ash was included in the list, which ranked the highest-performing local companies by overall revenue.

August Ash (AAI) has grown to 21 full-time employees over the course of the firm’s 11 year history. Despite finding itself in the company of firms with as many as 140 employees, AAI has a proven track record of increased sales and revenue even in the midst of formidable outside economic conditions.
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The secret’s out that social media can be used to the advantage of businesses and organizations of just about all walks. And even though for some owners the details are still sparse and the benefits are unclear, there’s a growing willingness to open up shop in an unfamiliar land. As long as it will pay off.

So does it pay off?
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Why pay for traffic in search engines’ paid listings, if you can achieve high organic rank – the gift that keeps on giving with traffic, leads, and sales?

First, to digress a bit and to speak to an area near and dear to our hearts, high organic rank isn’t really free anymore.

With more and more business turning to online marketing, and in large part to search engine marketing, the competition for the first few listings of the search engine results is only growing. The sites ranking at the top of the results for competitive terms are paying in some way – either directly paying a search engine optimization/marketing company or paying with their own time and resources.
See our blog post “Search Engine Optimization: Not As Exciting As Magic” for much more on this topic.

But, now on to our main point:
Why would you need paid search advertising once you’ve achieved high organic search engine rank?
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Yesterday, the Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) announced its winners of the 2009 Excellence in Marketing and Communications competition. The contest, an annual event since 1990, rewards airports around the country based on the criteria of how well their marketing and communications efforts reflect on airports, flying, and the stakeholders.

Among the competition’s nearly 250 entries overall, the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (part of MAC) ranked second for websites.

Earlier this year, August Ash launched the brand new, redesigned website for MSP. The new website features a cleaner, simpler appearance, with an assortment of real-time tools to assist visitors.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport will be recognized at the ACI-NA 18th Annual Conference & Exhibition in October for its honor. August Ash is honored by the opportunity to partner with the Metropolitan Airports Commission. Congratulations on your latest accomplishment, MAC!