Project Summary
Chicago Athlete was a print magazine that turned digital around 2020. It features health and fitness articles, product reviews and highlights races and events in the Chicagoland area. The original website was working okay for them, but their WordPress installation was outdated, the advertising process was confusing, and the design needed a refresh.
- WordPress website design
- Custom WordPress development
A cleaner, more modern theme was chosen and all existing articles were migrated to the new WordPress installation. Article categories, posts and pages were all audited to ensure that each piece of content was in the correct location.
Athlete of the Month Feature
One of the features My Chicago Athlete wanted to expand was their Athlete of the Month program. Each month the editors would choose a local athlete and write an article about them. On the new site, this featured athlete is now displayed on the homepage and there is a dedicated page to show all Athlete of the Month profiles as well as the current month's athlete. A form was added so readers can nominate athletes for future months. And a polling plugin was set up for end-of-year voting on who should win Athlete of the Year.
Race Calendar
The race calendar they were using was created by the previous owner of the magazine, but it was a separate website and had a really basic visual design, although it functioned well. In order to bring these race events that were submitted to this calendar onto their new website, a custom PHP script was developed to access the race calendar database and create an RSS feed of those events, which we were then able to access and parse on the new website. This created a race calendar page that fit seamlessly into the new design while pulling events from the existing calendar.
"Steve Starzyk at Casting Nets Digital Marketing is incredibly talented at bringing your thoughts to reality. I have worked with Steve for ten years, most recently on a new website design for Chicago Athlete Magazine. He listened to my wish list for the website and integrated everything I wanted. He is efficient and quick in his work, meeting every timeline and far exceeding my expectations. Steve is responsive and easy to work with. I would highly recommend Casting Nets Digital Marketing."
Mandi Florip
Owner & Editor
