1. Bicester Furniture Studio
When Roy and Lynne from Bicester Furniture Studio rang me to ask for my help, it was in a distressed state. Their previous web developer had disappeared, along with all the site codes and their furniture sales site was quickly becoming out of date. The first task was to establish ownership of the sites with the registrar. Not an easy task, when all the original registration emails etc were with the absent developer. Once done, a quick holding page was put up, then a simple WordPress site with a shopping cart added on. Later, it became apparent that this facility was not going to have the flexibility needed for their shop, so in January 2011 we moved the shop to use Joomla with a Kryptronic shop component. This gives the site all the flexibility and power of Joomla, one of the most powerful content management systems around, seamlessly connected with the shopping area, with multiple categories, product options, and easy to use inventory and product management systems.Outcomes; 4000-5000 visits per month. Page 1 for Google searches for ‘Corndell Furniture’. www.corndell-furniture-specialist.co.uk
2. The Hair Gallery
The Hair Gallery operate four salons in Bicester, Brackley, Stokenchurch and Kidlington. The old site was a self-build one from me.com, a free service, but with little in the way of SEO (search engine optimisation) tools, and lots of broken links.
I installed WordPress, and using the existing branding, uploaded the current content and images. Following that, the owner installed the WordPress app on the iphone, and can now edit the site from anywhere in the world. Outcomes; 900 visits per month, 80% new visits. We are now exploring Adwords, and other forms of marketing the site for the near future to grow beyond 1000. www.thehairgalleryuk.com
3. Adderbury.org
Never having built a site for a committee before, they wanted their old, and poorly functioning site to have a makeover. With the help of the committee, we tested a few site designs, and finally came up with a WordPress site with ‘Producer’ theme which works well with a magazine style display. Included in the project were both training sessions, and documentation to assist the varied committee with learning the new features and constraints. While the site was being built, it was housed in a ‘spare’, unused domain. The objectives of multiple editors, and growing visitors from under 500 to over 2000 per month was achieved. www.adderbury.org
4, John Russell
John had never owned a computer, let alone viewed any websites. As an interior designer for all his career, he had operated on word of mouth, but moving from London meant that he needed to have some assistance. So, I interviewed him, and trawled through some of his portfolio albums, and got him to write down some copy for the site. After a few months, we moved on to writing news for the site, or ‘Musings’ as we call them. These are getting quite a following, and the result is the site has grown from an initial 50 visits per month to over 250 now. The ‘name dropping’ which news allows one to do really helps with search results, and he has had a number of enquiries, and commissions from the site. He now has a pc, and emails me every month or so with a new item to place on the site. www.johnrussellinteriors.co.uk
