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Makeover of Christmas Festival Web Site

Makeover of Christmas Festival Web Site

When we were contacted about making over the site for a local Christmas festival, it was easy to see things that could be improved. The site had used one of the popular do-it-yourself “Web site builders” which limited the look of the site (shown below).

Carefree Christmas Festival Before

The first thing we noticed was the large number of menu items across the top of the site. It is simple enough to put them into sub-menus so they aren’t so small and crowded. It also seemed odd to be dominated by colors that aren’t associated with Christmas. Our mission was to rebuild the site using WordPress while giving it a facelift at the same time.

A huge challenge was having a very limited budget and thus very little time to spend on the makeover. So while it is easy for us to see ways the site could be even better, we had to focus on doing everything we could in the limited time allowed by the budget. Below is a section of the home page after the makeover.

Carefree Christmas Festival After

This particular event is made up of a series of events with different organizations leading the sub-events. Of course each group feels their portion is the most important part of the overall event and we tried to give them all equal billing on the site. As with many projects, getting photos, text, logos and other content was a challenge.

The best sites, and those that easily come in under budget, are those where clients are very active in providing content for the site. Even pulling photos from the previous site wasn’t a great answer because they were of a low quality. Trying to feature them on the new site showed they were low resolution and less than optimal.

Another heavy focus of any site makeover is to make sure the new site works great on mobile devices. Why? Because around 65% of all visits are coming from mobile devices. If you only view a site on a computer, you aren’t seeing what the majority of visitors will see. In many ways, the new version of this site< looks better on a phone than it does on a computer! Do you have a site that is overdue for a makeover? Please contact us with an overview of your budget and needs and we’ll get your site looking and performing great!

Mobile Makeover for JC Printing Web Site

Mobile Makeover for JC Printing Web Site

With more than half of all Web traffic coming via mobile devices, it is increasingly important to have a site that works well on mobile. Google also encourages mobile-friendly sites by giving them higher ranking than sites that aren’t mobile friendly.

The JC Printing Web site was originally created by another designer and Unleashed took over the site a couple of years ago. It was already an established WordPress site and the company was very happy with the theme chosen by the original designer. We had run into a few bumps with the old theme, but it made the site at least functional on mobile. That all changed with a recent update to WordPress and the theme developer was in no hurry to release an update.

When the owner of JC Printing contacted us about the site failing Google’s mobile-friendly test, we knew it was time to give the site a makeover with a different theme. Before we get into the changes, let’s take a look at the site on a phone before the makeover. Notice the menus and other content go off the right edge of the screen.

JC Printing Web Site Phone Before

We knew the makeover wasn’t as simple as just installing and configuring a new theme. Numerous pages on the site were dependent on specific features of the original theme. This meant the makeover came in two major parts. Each of the pages needed to be rebuilt without the old theme’s features. Once the pages were all rebuilt, then we could install the new theme.

Divi WordPress ThemeEarlier, we had installed Divi Builder on the site to use its pricing table feature. Therefore it made sense to use Divi Builder to rebuilt each of the pages. Then the site would only be dependent on its features rather than those specific to a theme. While rebuilding the pages, we also did our best to make the pages more attractive and also more functional and informative for visitors.

Once the pages had all been rebuilt, we installed the Divi theme and configured it to the preferred settings of the client. Even though we had to edit all pages of the site, the makeover came in under budget! Below is the site as seen on a phone after the makeover. To fully appreciate the functionality of the site on mobile, get out your phone and visit JC Printing!

JC Printing Web Site Phone After

Drebelbis Engineering Web Site Makeover

Drebelbis Engineering Web Site Makeover

There are some clients that have been with Unleashed for a very, very long time. Someone who attended one of our seminars backs in the early 90s has kept in touch over the years. Most recently it was to update a Web site that hadn’t changed much in years. Below is the old home page and the only real graphic is the logo. You’ll also note that the copyright claims 2004.

Drebelbis Engineering Home Page Before

Given that the seminar the client had attended was all about graphics, the site was definitely in need of more graphics. It also needed an updated look that included responsive design. The new home page shows off the business better and is much more inviting to visitors as you can see below.

Drebelbis Engineering Home Page After

With this type of consulting business, the person doing the consulting is extremely important. The old resume (below) was monochromatic other than the profile picture.

Drebelbis Engineering Resume Page Before

After the makeover, the curriculum vitae has a much fresher look and even offers a PDF version for download.

Drebelbis Engineering Resume Page After

This is a type of business where a lot of the work is very technical and probably doesn’t look interesting to someone outside the industry. Even looking at a list of services can leave those outside the industry a little confused. On the old site, there was nothing more than a basic list of services (see below).

Drebelbis Engineering Services Page Before

The new page (below) has the updated look, but each of the services links to a dedicated page with detail information on that specific service.

Drebelbis Engineering Services Page After

Now when people need to understand a little bit more, they can click on an area of expertise to learn more about it. In addition to the updated pages, new pages were added to explain expertise to visitors as well as past projects and their conclusions.

One thing that helped keep the costs lower for the client was their graphics expertise. We provided specifications for various graphics and they provided us with a file ready to use on the Web site. Make sure to visit the new Drebelbis Engineering site to see all that was done. When you are ready for us to give your site a makeover, contact us with an overview of your needs.

Front Row Seat at the Circus Web and Blog Makeover

Front Row Seat at the Circus Web and Blog Makeover

Many years ago Foster was involved in a philanthropic organization in Phoenix for men under 40. While in that group, he befriended another member who was an up and coming television journalist. That was more than fifteen years ago and they only kept in touch via social media in recent years.

Jim Heath is that journalist and he had built a popular blog focusing on the “circus” of politics in the United States along with a book detailing his coverage of the previous two Presidential elections.

The previous blog page had a real problem with formatting of posts in the sidebar as you can see in the screenshot below.

front-row-circus-blog-before-crop

Notice how some of the lines are text are only a single character which makes it nearly impossible to read and limits the number of posts that are visible. We were able to import all of the old posts (Jim did the actual import with our direction) in only a few minutes. He put a little polish on them to make them look better on the new site and the result is shown below.

front-row-circus-blog-after

This is a huge visual and functional improvement over the old site and should allow his readership to increase greatly, especially since he is covering the latest election cycle.

Previously his book sat on the dedicated frontrowseatatthecircus.com domain and it was only a single page site. While the old page didn’t have the visual problems found on the blog, it still left a lot to be desired as you can see below.

front-row-circus-book-before-crop

We didn’t make a lot of changes to the content of the page during the transition other than being part of the overall look of the new site. Just because it is together with all of his blog content, the book should get a lot more exposure. Below is the updated book page.

front-row-circus-book-after

This was another project that was turned around in just three days time. Given the election news cycle, it was very important to makeover the site as quickly as possible so that Jim could benefit from the new site in the heart of this year’s election.

Now that the blog and book sites have been combined and made over, Jim is working on adding even more content to the site for those who love his political coverage. We’re happy to help him continue to build his platform into a political news force.

VJ Properties Web Site Makeover Part 1

VJ Properties Web Site Makeover Part 1

Each project we undertake has a different flavor. The latest project has two parts to the makeover and today the first part will be discussed. We were originally contacted by the client on a Monday and the project was discussed. Things were finalized on Tuesday and we were ready to start on the makeover. Then came the bombshell, the current hosting was expiring in a week and the point person on the project was leaving on vacation on Friday. So we basically had three days to harvest information from the old site and get a new VJ Properties site launched.

Because of the very tight timeframe, the first part of the makeover was simply moving the site. Once the point person returns from vacation, we’ll improve the looks of the site and update the information. The original home page had very little information and was composed entirely of a single Flash element. Flash is out of favor and losing support so some visitors would see absolutely nothing. Those who had Flash support would see the home page below.

VJ Properties Before Makeover

It was visually OK for those who could see it. But with all navigation built into the Flash element, some visitors wouldn’t even be able to navigate to other pages. One of the other complications was that the company did not have the logo in a vector format. Part of the project then came converting the logo from bitmap to vector so we could use it in various parts of the site. The new home part is still very basic (shown below), but it will evolve in the second phase of the makeover.

VJ Properties After Makeover

As the company deals with commercial properties, featuring those properties is of utmost importance. The old site had the properties page shown below.

VJ Properties Before Properties Page

After the makeover, there isn’t a huge difference on the main properties page. We didn’t spend a lot of time on this aspect of the site yet as the list of properties is likely to change completely in the second phase of the makeover. Where we did focus was on the details page for each of the properties (shown below).

VJ Properties After Properties Detail

The old Contact Us page was very blah with nothing but text and no interactive elements. We added a nice map and a contact form in addition to the list of employees (see below).

VJ Properties Contact After

While it may not be immediately visible from the examples shown here, the biggest upgrade is that the site is now responsive and works great on mobile devices. Before we started, the site didn’t work well on mobile devices at all. We’re looking forward to starting on the second phase of the makeover and making the site even better!

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