I am not a web designer, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to creating websites.
My own was made using WordPress, and having managed various sites over the years, I am happy to get stuck in with HTML and CSS if any niggly problems arise and know how to optimise for SEO.
I was recently asked to refresh a long-established website for a luxury holiday cottage down in Cornwall. I was a little intimidated by this task for two reasons:
1) I have mainly been involved in the content creation side of website projects.
2) This site ran on Weebly – something I had not used before.
I like a challenge, and I knew I had enough experience in this area to achieve what the client wanted, so I decided to take on the project. It took a little time to get used to Weebly, but it was plain sailing after that (just had to get a seaside reference in somewhere).
To give you an idea of the changes I made, we should probably start by looking at the ‘before’ version:
Although the holiday home is truly stunning, I think it’s safe to say that the website did not reflect this. It had too many pages, looked outdated, needed new images, wasn’t optimised for mobile or SEO – the list goes on.
The client wanted something that was much sleeker, easier to navigate and generally looked more suitable for a luxury holiday cottage. Here’s the website after my changes:
I edited the website copy, cut down the number of pages, changed the design, made the layout more user-friendly, integrated Instagram on the homepage, and I even went the extra mile by creating a logo for it. I’m really pleased that I stepped outside of my comfort zone to do this, and the client was thrilled with the final result.
If you would like to see the website for yourself, click here. If you would like to have a conversation about your website, please get in touch.
For now, I’ll leave you with a quote which I think is very fitting for this post…
Laura Bracher 