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What to Do When Your Website Needs Help

What to Do When Your Website Needs Help

By on May 18, 2014 in Blog, Search Engine Optimization, Website Content and Optimization, Website Design

Recently I had the privilege of working with Nina Fogelman, President of AncientSummit.com who specializes in luxury travel to Peru.  She had a website which had been created by another company that went out of business before the job was completed.

She found me on LinkedIn and asked for my advice on what my company could do to help her launch her new site properly.

Ancient Summit needed several things fixed to make the site search-engine friendly AND customer appealing.

First of all, the photos needed to be optimized for the search engines. That means we had to add alt-tags, descriptions and titles to photos in the main content area as well as several in the Testimonials area.

We also had to create custom graphics for the side bar testimonials (which included total optimization)

Every page needed to be optimized with tags, keywords, titles, descriptions and alt-text.

Several AncientSummit.com pages were re-written to be more search engine friendly.

Navigation was another issue. The original web designer created the template using a theme and then customizing it to match the look and feel Nina wanted for AncientSummit.com. In doing so, he made it nearly impossible to edit several aspects of the site including the menus.  We did a work-around by adding menu items to the bottom of the main pages such as the AncientSummit.com/about page.  This way the content is there and people can easily find it.

We also changed the landscape/layout of some of the pages deleting a sidebar where not needed and keeping it where it should show up.

We added a video trailer to the site which showcases the work AncientSummit.com does.

We also made some minor changes to the home page and added the side-bar graphics and quotes to the page.

When you are seeking help with a website that needs to be either redesigned or reworked here are some things to keep in mind:

What is your ultimate goal?

How many pages do you need fixed?

What keywords do you want to be indexed for in the search engines?

Is the current content fully optimized or does it need more work done to make it search-engine friendly and ready?

What is your budget? If you have a limited budget, get a price for sections of the work and a price for the complete job. You may find the complete job to save you significant money in the long run. If you don’t have the budget to do everything that needs doing, decided the most important things you want done first and work from there. Ask for 2-3 estimates. Find out how long the job will take and payment terms.

Hire a professional – someone who not only understands web design (Redhead Marketing Inc. specialize in WordPress web design, however we can optimize sites created in dreamweaver, joomla and other programs that have an admin panel which does not require a lot of coding).

Ask lots of questions.  When hiring a professional make sure you can communicate. I have had situations where the client communicated one way and I another. It can be stressful unless you understand the client’s needs. My team and I have learned a lot over the years. For instance, some people like to communicate  by phone. We prefer email simply because we like to document everything so there is no misunderstanding in the long run. However, some clients would prefer to call and chat about their needs. If that’s the case make sure the conversation is followed by an email so both parties understand the expectations.

A great big thank you to Nina Fogelman and her team for allowing Redhead Marketing to be part of their new website launch. Wishing you lots of traffic resulting in lots of new clients….

Warm regards,

Heidi and team

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