Two things motivate us at Hansen Multimedia — causes we support and clients we love. So when it came time to update the website for the National Association of Music Parents (AMP), we were excited by the prospect.

The mission of the National Association of Music Parents (AMP) is to build a grassroots national movement that brings together ALL STAKEHOLDERS of music education to defend the interests of our students and ensure that music and the arts remain an integral discipline within the core education system in America.

This is a cause that we can get excited about! We consider it a privilege to work with AMP to design a site that is visually appealing and functional — educating visitors about the importance of music education and uniting parents, educators, and music boosters in advocacy. AMP provides parents with valuable resources to support their child’s music education, whether it be information for beginning band parents, the tools to create or improve their booster organizations or anything in between.

In addition to being motivated by the cause, we were honored to once again work with long-time client, AMP, and Founder Scott McCormick. AMP has been a valued client of Hansen Multimedia since the original site launch in July of 2011. We have provided services such as logo design, advertising layouts, enews, technical support for webinars, and more. Hansen Multimedia has also produced several videos for the organization, including this profile piece featured on the AMP website.

Two years ago, Hansen Multimedia helped AMP launch their first website with the purpose or providing information and resources to parents of music students, educators, and booster organizations. As will happen with any website, over the course of time, we and the client identified measures that could be taken to improve the site — better user experience, more streamlined navigation, added security, updated features. In this particular situation, the content management system used for the first site was reaching its end-of-life. A decision had to be made — update the content management system or convert to a different system altogether. After careful assessment of the demands of the project, it was determined that a WordPress site was the ideal solution for AMP at this time.

Why WordPress?

The WordPress content management system has myriad benefits that made it a good choice for this project, some of which include:

Ease of Use

Very little technical knowledge is required to maintain the content of the site. Anyone who has used a word processing program such as Microsoft Word will have the ability to make updates to the site.

Scalability

The site can grow as the organization grows. As pages, posts, and features are added to the site, the performance will not be compromised. Updates to the content management system are simple to apply — one click in the site dashboard.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines, including Google, love the clean and simple coding of WordPress sites as well as the keywords, descriptions, and metadata that allow for very precise search engine optimization.

Custom Design

Hansen Multimedia designed a custom template for the AMP website allowing for a unique look and strong brand identification for the organization.

Practically Unlimited Features and Function

WordPress is the content management system of choice in the market. Because of its popularity, there are many programmers writing plugins and extensions for WordPress. Does your site include a blog? Need to restrict access based on user clearance level? Want to add calendars, video galleries, social media feeds, registration systems, or eCommerce? Whatever the needs of your site, there is likely a plugin out there to provide the function.

AMP Homepage

A Custom Approach for AMP

AMP’s new website was launched on October 17, 2013. The custom plan for their website included the following features:

Tiered Access Levels

AMP offers different membership levels which afford users specific access to content based on membership.

Responsive Design

With their first website, there were essentially two different sites — one for desktop users and another for those accessing the site on a mobile device. As more and more traffic is coming from phones and tablets, it is imperative that the site functions well on all devices. The new AMP website is responsive — the site is optimized based on the device. The components on the pages automatically adjust in size and layout for a positive experience on any device.

Blog & Social Media Integration

With the mission of educating people about the importance of music education, AMP maintains a wonderful blog on their site with multiple authors. WordPress makes it easy to allow access to multiple users so that the AMP team can easily post and update blog articles and interact with users commenting on the posts. We were also able to incorporate AMP’s Twitter and Facebook feeds seamlessly into the design of the site and make it very easy for users to share information from the site via popular social media.

Event Management

AMP offers many events — webinars, contests, conferences, and more. A plugin was used that allows their team to post information, collect registrations, and even accept payment online.

We encourage you to take a tour of the beautiful AMP website and read more about their cause. And if you think WordPress might be a good choice for your website and organization, contact Hansen Multimedia for more information.

As technology is changing constantly, our work is never done. We continue to work with the team at AMP to enhance the site, improve the user experience, and more effectively communicate the very worthwhile message of AMP — that music and arts are an integral discipline within the core education system in America.