Carnivale is an exciting, colorful, and unique Chicago restaurant and bar located in the city’s west loop neighborhood. With energetic colors, photography, and wild design, it’s a luxurious restaurant that engages all of the senses with global flavors, Latin music, and savory aromas—not to mention their award-winning Mojitos, fresh ceviche, and wood-grilled steaks.

Carnivale approached us with the task of bringing that exciting, colorful, and unique experience of the restaurant into the online space, along with improved usability, strong SEO benefits, and an emphasis on their private event booking opportunities. We were more than happy to accept the task!

When you first enter the site, you’re exposed to an array of dazzling colors and a vivid movie behind red curtains that showcases all that Carnivale has been known to host–from weddings and private events to cabaret shows and live music.

To go along with the elaborate design and taste appeal (we all found ourselves constantly salivating while we developed this site), you can easily make reservations and request a booking or more information for a private event, while easily viewing the layout of every room and what each one has to offer. Users can browse Carnivale’s extensive photo galleries, view the menus and daily specials, and watch Carnivale videos on the site. You can experience Carnivale while on the go via the new mobile site we developed for them!

So, make sure you go check out Carnivale Chicago for some fine Latin cuisine, your next private party booking, or if you are just looking to enjoy a great Mojito (or three!) in a stunning vibrant atmosphere.

When looking at most business infrastructures there is usually one thing that is most important amongst all of them—the consumer. Your revenue is driven by consumer purchases, and if said consumer is happy with the services your company provides, they will more than likely return for repeat business.

A strong online presence can be everything for your business, so make sure you follow these 4 simple tips when constructing/revamping your website to create the best online user experience for your customers.

1. Have a Mobile Version of Your Website

As we stated earlier, 2011 is the year for mobile marketing and optimization, and rightfully so. With the use of mobile phones for web browsing reaching all time high numbers and constantly climbing, it is important that you have a mobile version of your site so your consumers can access your site, on the go, from their phone.

If your budget doesn’t allow you to build a complete separate mobile version of your website, be sure that you web developers are building your site to be mobile friendly.

2. Constantly Provide Additional Information (Add a Blog or News Section)

Adding new supplemental information to your website can be extremely valuable for multiple different reasons.

Benefits on a Consumer level

The main reason consumers will be going to your website is to find out more information about your product or service, so having supplemental information that’s relevant to your business will strongly benefit them. It can also help push them over the edge to make a purchase.

Not only that, if you are constantly providing new fresh information about the particular space your business is in, your site can become a resource for information which in turn can drive lots of traffic to your site. And believe me there is no such thing as bad traffic to a website.

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So what are our good friends at Google up to this week? It ‘s always something, but this week there has been a convergence of four key online marketing and development trends.

The local, mobile, check in, and collective bargaining movements are starting to merge over at Google. Even though they aren’t always the ones with the first idea, if Google embraces it, you pretty much know it’s going to be big or is at least a hint at where the future is going. So let’s take a look at exactly what’s happening out west in good old Mountain View, California.

Google launched Google Places in April 2010 to help searchers find local business quickly on a map, without having to navigate through pages and pages of search results. Google Place pages allow a business to showcase their products, services, location and highlight important information like hours and contact information. Now users don’t have to go slogging through a phone book or a businesses website to figure out how to contact them. Google made the place pages easy to see in searches and over time they started showing up directly underneath websites.

It’s important to note that Google has been spending a lot of time working on their local listings and encouraging businesses to update their place pages. There are many reasons for this, but it’s easy to see that Google is distancing itself further and further from Bing and Yahoo. The Google business plan is to offering so many intuitive easy to use features that a user can find everything they want in Google. It won’t be long before you will be able to search for a pizza restaurant in your area and have a sample slice through Google…. Just Kidding. But seriously, things are getting crazy.

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Bryan Heredia, front-end developer and designer

We’re happy to welcome Bryan Heredia to our interactive team. Having started as a graphic design intern here he has already had an opportunity to learn the ropes. Bryan will be bringing his creative genius over to the interactive team focusing in on front-end design/build. He’s a Bryan-of-all-trades, if you will.

In college, Bryan studied graphic design and somewhere in there, he taught himself coding. At envisionit, he’ll be programming, designing, programming design, and designing programs. No big deal, really. “It’s all problem solving,” he reasons, a skill he applies in his own time when creating silk-screened posters, animation, and photography projects in the wee hours of the morning.

This is Dave Berg, our new Director of Business Strategy.

Dave comes on board with a wealth of expertise in business strategy and interactive marketing. Prior to joining us, he had been leading business-development efforts at a Chicago-based interactive agency. Dave was key in building Axis Incorporated, a medical-consulting firm focused on cardiovascular ultrasound imaging. He spent ten years leading national marketing initiatives for USG, a Fortune 500 global manufacturer of building products. He’s also an active member of the Technology Committee at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, where he helps  businesses use the interactive space to help them accomplish key business goals.

Now that he’s here, Dave is providing strategic direction for the new work that’s coming into envisionit media. He’s also going to be a major asset in growing new and existing client relationships. And we like his approach–he starts with the point of view of a client’s key customer, and then shapes marketing efforts accordingly to help clients drive loyalty and revenue.

Dave’s been with us for a few weeks now, so we wheedled him into telling us why he joined our team. Here’s what he said:

“One of the greatest observations I made about the envisionit team is the drive and passion they have at all levels of engagement. Everyone cares about the work. There is no buzzword or management style that can perform better for a client than the loyalty of dedicated people, I’m one of them.”

Aw, shucks. Thanks, Dave. We’re glad you’re here, too–welcome aboard!

Blog readers, meet Ari Franklin. He’s the new Associate Project Manager who joined our team last month.

Ari comes to us from the account team at a large branding agency here in Chicago, and he’s now helping to coordinate and streamline the production of envisionit media’s interactive projects. Since he began, Ari’s experience and strategic thinking has been upping the momentum of our projects and helping to cement our many new client relationships. As he continues to settle in here, we look forward to the ways in which he’ll help our team create work that stays on schedule and on strategy.

When asked the old “what do you like most about being here” question, Ari mentioned the supportiveness of the envisionit media team. When asked him what he does for fun, he sort of blanked out in that way people do when asked to talk about themselves.

So, in the spirit of supportiveness, I’ll fill in the blanks based on what I’ve observed over the past month: When Ari’s not working, he’s messing with his Droid, eating gigantic sandwich wraps from Rosati’s and keeping up with interactive blogs and websites.

Welcome aboard, Ari!

It’s the end of my second month here at envisionit media, and I’m proud to say that as the weeks pass, the learning curve continues to become steeper than ever before.  I stated in my last post that, “I’m only at the tip of the iceberg”, and let me tell you that statement was more dead-on than I could even imagine. During my first month I learned an abundance of different media and techniques (SEM, SEO, PPC, and Social Media to name a few) that could be applied to client accounts, but through my second month here I’m really beginning to delve deeper under the water by learning how to utilize these techniques to provide maximum gain for our clients.

With that said, let me give all of you local/nationwide/global business owners out there one small tip of advice I’ve learned while interning here: Use Social Media!! Unless you’ve been living under a rock (no offense if that’s your preferred living space), you’ve probably heard about Twitter and Facebook.  So you have heard about it? (I hope so) Are you using it? (Most likely) But the real question is; HOW are you using it?  Facebook currently has 400+ million users and Twitter is at 75 million, and botH can be great for promoting your business.  But on the other hand, there are already many other businesses being social, so it can be very hard to stand out amongst the crowd.

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There’s no telling what could happen inside Wrigley Field anymore. Brawls? Drama? Defeat? Gasp…Victory? Yes, those lovable losers are at their MOST lovable this year, but the good news is, no matter what’s going on inside the ballpark, you now can always, at any time, see what’s going on outside the park.

Our friends at CubWorld.com have recently added a cool, new, live-streaming Wrigley Field web cam to their site. Perched at CubWorld.com’s brick & mortar location, Sports World, across the street from and with a full view of the front entrance of the ballpark, the camera gives you a live feed of all the action! Visit it the day of a game to check traffic, weather, crowd level, or just to get a taste of the action when you can’t make the game. Oh, the stories it would tell if this camera could only talk….

While you’re on the site, you can of course mosey on over to their great selection of Cubs jerseys, hats, shirts, and other Cubs merchandise (including a Zambrano “Blow Up” sale…seriously). And if you do venture out to support the Cubs (c’mon, they need you more than ever!), be sure to pop into Sports World for some goodies, then wave at the camera on your way out!

envisionit media enthusiastically welcomes to our interactive agency: Marquette Companies!

Founded in 1983, today Marquette serves as private real estate company committed to investment excellence in real estate assets across the U.S. Marquette Companies is involved in a number of local real estate properties, including the Ponds of Naperville and Lemont Lofts. The company also just moved their operations to a new office in Naperville, IL.

envisionit media has extended a warm, summertime welcome to one of the newest clients to our interactive agency, the ROOF at theWit in Chicago. The new relationship may require more than a few “user experience” visits on our part. Or, we hope so, anyway.

Sitting atop theWit, ROOF is Chicago’s unparalleled stargazing destination. A glamorous, 7,000 square foot, year-round indoor/outdoor lounge, ROOF offers stunning city views, roaring fire pits, handcrafted cocktails, live music, and–get this: a suspended, glass-enclosed table for eight that literally dangles 27 floors above the city. Rounding out this perfect experience is acclaimed chef Todd Stein’s menu of Italian-inspired small plates—American cuisine he created during his time as Executive Chef at MK restaurant.

We at envisionit media are raising our glasses high–very high–for the work ahead on this one. Welcome to our team, ROOF!