Polar Design Interactive Marketing Blog, Website Design Blog, E-Commerce Blog

Interactive Marketing Blog

Polar Design’s interactive marketing blog features regular posts, insights, thoughts, ideas, and recent project launch announcements. We share our developments in interactive design, online marketing, and crystallization of communication. Occasionally, we’ll blog about apparently off-topic subjects we love, from music, agency marketing, the Boston startup scene, chimps, and the Celtics.

Chronological Listing of Blogs Posts from All Blog Categories

A Trusted Legacy in Secure Portals: CFAO Project Now Featured in Our Portfolio

May 08, 2025

by polaradmin

custom development, multi-employer, October CMS, secure portal, taft-hartley

Carpenter Funds Administrative Office Benefit Website Home Page

We’re excited to share a new addition to our portfolio — not a new project, but a standout one that exemplifies our long-standing commitment to secure, user-focused digital portals for Taft-Hartley and multi-employer benefit funds. The Carpenters Funds Administrative Office (CFAO) Ben

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Meet us at the IFEBP Employee Benefits Conference October 1 – 3

September 26, 2023

by polaradmin

conference, custom development, hipaa, multi-employer, secure portal, taft-hartley

Polar Design is pleased to announce our attendance at IFEBP’s 69th Annual Employee Benefits Conference October 1 – 3, 2023. We will demonstrate our digital communications solutions for employee benefits funds, with a focus on Taft-Hartley and multiemployer solutions. Our

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The growing importance of SEO for medium-tail phrases

March 26, 2021

by Mark Jaklovsky

e-commerce, SEO, tips and tricks

London Harness Medium Tail Keyword Position Improvement due to Polar Design SEO

In the early days of search engines – essentially until 2005 – optimization for highly desirable two or three word keyphrases was relatively easy. The right on page content, meta tags, and as many inbound links as you could obtain from link farms did the trick. Those day

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A Message from Polar Design about the Coronavirus

March 20, 2020

by polaradmin

coronavirus, e-commerce, live chat, multi-employer, taft-hartley

Dear Friends and Clients, We want to let you how the Polar Design team is responding to the new Coronavirus. We are all working from home and practicing social distancing. In fact, we started to limit social interaction during the 1st week of March by removing children from school a

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Powerful Content Marketing for Community Media / PEG TV

May 24, 2017

by Mark Jaklovsky

CMP, community media platform, cord cutting, public access tv, SEO

Community Media centers, also referred to as Public Access or PEG TV stations face a critical era as “cord cutting” (the trend of cable TV subscribers to cancel their subscriptions in favor of viewing content online) continues. Because Community Access / PEG TV stations p

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Taft-Hartley Blog Series Part 3: The Core of Successful Fund Sites

October 25, 2016

by polaradmin

dashboard, multi-employer, secure portal, taft-hartley

Health and Welfare Summary Eligibility

Increased member registration, utilization, and other quantifiable improvements are benefits of custom designed portals that follow design best practices while adding a dash of creativity. Taft-Hartley portals should at a high level be easy to access, use, provide participants compre

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Community Media Blog Series Part 3: Revenue Generating Website Features

September 01, 2016

by polaradmin

community media, community media platform, e-commerce, PEG

Prior to the Internet, , an increasing number of Americans are cancelling their cable subscriptions and relying more on the Internet for video entertainment. With the decrease in cable subscriptions and budgets, community media stations need to find new ways to earn revenue. Adding en

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Community Media TV Blog Series Part 2: SEO

August 17, 2016

by polaradmin

community media, public access tv, SEO

Our previous blog post in this series, and within the unique and specific context of a community media center’s online presence. First, a quick primer on SEO. How high a web site ranks in searches and how many different search terms cause a web site to appear in the results are direct

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Community Media TV Blog Series Part 1: Importance of On-Site VOD

August 16, 2016

by polaradmin

CMP, community media, community media platform, public access tv, SEO, video integration, video playback integration

Cord Cutting Trend

and chart to the right shows, community access stations’ cable viewership will continue to decline in the coming years, threatening both revenues and viewership. Community Media organizations need to embrace the new paradigm to stay relevant, to maintain their reach, and to open doors

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Taft Hartley Blog Series: Part 2 – Improving ROI

August 03, 2016

by polaradmin

custom, hipaa, multi-employer, ROI, secure portal, taft-hartley

financial planning, and Taft Hartley benefit funds to healthcare providers. These online solutions provide users value added service with 24/7 access to transact or view information such as statements, eligibility or account balances. Portals can drive higher satisfaction among parti

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Taft-Hartley Blog Series: Part 1 – Staying Secure Online

July 19, 2016

by polaradmin

custom development, hipaa, multi-employer, online security, secure portal, system integration, taft-hartley

IUOE 478 Taft-Hartley Participant Member Dashboard

Identity theft is a growing problem in the US. Every organization coming into contact with personally identifiable information, or special confidential information as is covered in HIPAA, must make a greater effort to protect this data or risk being held legally liable. Security is an

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Community Access TV & Staying Up-to-Date Online

May 18, 2016

by polaradmin

community media, SilverStripe, video playback integration, web development

Prior to the Internet, PEG stations and Community Media organizations benefited from substantial US cable subscription – station revenues were funded by subscription surcharges. Today, an increasing number of Americans are “cutting the cord” and relying on the Internet for video, info

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Utility Marketing Part 1: The Big Idea behind Mass Big Data

March 26, 2015

by polaradmin

application development, Big Data, government, utility marketing, web development

Mass Big Data's Interactive Jobs Map

Utility Marketing (n.)—Utility Marketing is a strategy to attract customers by providing them tools or online experiences that answer a need or solve an issue, while aligning your brand with them through shared affinity or values. This is the first part in a multi-series of posts abou

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Series: New Marketing Strategies

March 20, 2015

by polaradmin

content marketing, online marketing, PPC, SEO, social media, utility marketing

The marketing imperative. Each year, it gives birth to new buzzwords. At Polar Design, we’ve witnessed quite a few marketing strategies rise and fall. The following list is by no means perfect, but provides some perspective on how digital marketing has progressed in our 15 ye

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Branding Strategies When Expanding Your Company

February 05, 2015

by polaradmin

branding, online marketing, real estate, web development

Your company is expanding; there’s a lot to think about. It’s easy to get caught up in management and finances and let your brand image fall to the wayside. However, maintaining strong marketing and branding strategies is crucial to keeping your business recognizable to bo

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MA Healthcare Website CHIA’s Redesign Offers Better Data Access

December 17, 2014

by polaradmin

CMS, content management solution, government, mobile, redesign, SilverStripe, web development, website editing

Polar Design is very pleased to announce the launch of its most recent site, created for the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA), an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In a previous blog post, we discussed a few of the innovative ways that government websites a

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Government Websites Improve Online Communication and Data Sharing

October 14, 2014

by polaradmin

Big Data, CMS, communication, crowdsourcing, government, web development

The relationship between government agencies and the public is changing rapidly due to the availability and ease of access to big data. With a growing online presence, government agencies are able to connect with citizens, businesses, and the public in new and meaningful ways. Online

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Are You Upgraded? SilverStripe 3.1 Adds New Features, Functionality

September 25, 2014

by polaradmin

CMS, content, content management solution, redesign, SEO, SilverStripe, web development, website editing

SilverStripe 3.1 split screen editing mode

Polar Design is excited to share the latest version of SilverStripe with you. Whether you are an existing client using SilverStripe 2.4, an organization considering a new web site from Polar Design, or using a different Content Management System, implementing SilverStripe 3.1 will bri

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Content Management Solution: Part 7- Custom Form Builder

August 05, 2014

by polaradmin

CMS, content control, content management solution, custom form builder, custom web forms, online forms, SilverStripe

This blog post is one part in a series. Click to see the other posts related to the benefits of a content management solution. Your website has been fully integrated with many interactive modules helping to drive and retain website traffic on each subsequent visit. But, what success i

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Content Management Solution: Part 6- Google Map Integration

July 17, 2014

by polaradmin

CMS, content control, content management solution, google, google map integration, SilverStripe

This blog post is one part in a series. Click to see the other posts related to the benefits of a content management solution. We’ve already touched on a number of useful modules within a content management solution. Having a content management solution allows administrators to

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