Yokoji Zen Mountain Center

The main focus of the Yokoji website is to provide information to prospective and current users of the Center. We wanted it to be as easy to navigate and use as possible while reflecting strongly the feeling of the canyon where it is located: lots of light and space.

• Built in Perch CMS (content management system)
• Multiple custom calendars and events listings with iCal and Google Calendar integrations.
• Multi-author blog
• Responsive design (works well on all devices)
• Integrated with Mailchimp for email marketing
• Solution for publishing monthly podcasts

Over the years, we have shot many events for Yokoji. We have also shot portraits and nature shots for other marketing material, both online and print. Yokoji is set in a beautiful canyon, and the aim of the photos was to highlight this amazing setting and the peaceful surroundings.

We have shot several videos for Yokoji for various parts of the website. The video on the home page acts as a concise introduction to the Center. It answers the basic questions of what Yokoji offers and why it is offered. A number of guests have traveled to Yokoji to visit saying that this video was the reason for coming.

We also shot a series of instructional videos which are on the site, one of which has over 270,000 views on YouTube and is used by many people to learn the basics of Zen meditation. Yokoji already had a YouTube channel with some old talks by the abbot on there. By hosting all the new videos for Yokoji on YouTube, we tapped in to the social element of the service which allows people to subscribe to the channel and easily share the videos with friends. Also, on every embedded video on the site, there are some lightweight social media share buttons for users to share the content with.