ABOUT CLIENT
Joe Friel — best selling author, trainer, speaker and athlete — wanted to have a new search feature added to his site that would allow coaches to easily find, link to and purchase his training plans. Much of the site build was started by another web developer, but was never finished. Also, the original domain included “blog” in the domain name, which wasn’t on brand for the purpose of Joe’s site so this had to be addressed as well.
My Role
Assess the live and dev sites, secure a new domain, and create a hosting account
Migrate dev site to the new hosting account and assign the new domain
Troubleshoot issues after site migration
Develop search tool, fix issues, and redirect old site to the new one
Solution
Create custom HTML, CSS, JS and Ajax to build a real-time search tool
Optimize SEO content for new site and for redirection of the old site
Created a popup email subscription form to replace old signup form
Fix identified troubleshooting issues
Impact
Google search ranked #1
43.2% increase in site visitors, resulting in over 100K unique visitors per year
Average 15% weekly growth of email subscribers
214% increase in training program sales
Discover
Researched hosting providers and plans to find the best match for my client’s needs. Selected a domain that better markets the client’s training plans. Assessed the live and dev versions of the site to determine which was more up to date and viable to be migrated to the new hosting account/domain.
Explore
Migrated the dev site to the new hosting account and assigned the new domain. Once migrated, performed site testing to identify what was not working, what was never setup properly, and what was needed to achieve the goal of creating a functioning custom training plan search feature.
Design
Took the design mockup file, and coded a layout for the search pages. Created the search box layout and added Ajax functionality. Applied the correct taxonomies to the different training plans so the filter will work properly. Also addressed some of the issues identified during troubleshooting phase.
Test
Had the client test out the search feature and give feedback for any adjustments. Also had the client test the rest of the site to make sure all functionality they were expecting to have was still in place. Identified a few missing features not in the dev version so I made sure to note those and prepare to incorporate them in the next stage.
Develop
Applied some additional formatting, added a search box for keywords, and a clear button to reset the search. Created and added some custom graphics for a bit of visual diversity. Fixed identified issues from the previous step. Added a new popup signup form for email subscribers.
Launch
Updated all SEO, created an automatic redirect for the old site, and gave everything one final walkthrough. Joe created a blog post and Tweet for his followers, letting them know about the new website address and recent changes. Once sent, got the OK from the client and set the new site live, turned on the redirect for the old site, and also helped Joe setup a feature that will automate his blog posts. He only has to post a new blog entry and it will automate the post to his Twitter account, and send an email to the subscribers so they can read the post as well.