Discovery

We took on this project to provide total support for VMO’s online presence in early 2020. Since this is a non-profit organization, efficiency was the top priority. Also required is the ease of updating to support ongoing event schedules, amount other things. We were approached with these guidelines from them:

  • Website overhaul – redesign and redevelopment
  • Faster site loading
  • Reduce management time on the site
  • SEO plans

Right from the start, we discovered the site was running extremely slow. The “first load time” was longer than 3 seconds. Sure enough, the original developer hosted the site with a major brand’s discounted hosting plan. And there was no DNS management, not even an initial setup. Moreover, the domain name was with another “reseller” provider which hosted the mailbox also. All the major components were with different suppliers. The slow speed was also the result of the poorly optimized website content, along with the lack of a CDN network.

Consultation

Once we got our findings, we made suggestions based on the requirements as well as cost-effectiveness. The organization does not have any technical oversight so a decision was made to appoint us as their technical advisors. In which we lay out the plan for VMO’s online presence going forward.

The plan focuses on the following recommendations:

  • Centralized management
  • Increase cost efficiency
  • Increase site-related task management response time
  • Enhance visitor’s experience
  • Updatable design to revise every season
  • Increase search engine impressions for events
  • Increase the site’s marketability for social media
  • Modernize the design to increase engagement and sponsorship
  • Minimize involvement in the organization

Solution

To make sure the organization has a streamlined process for their website, we moved the hosting to our own server. As well as the domain name system and mailbox management. With just one point of contact, the organization will save tons of time down the road.

A new CMS was implemented so updating can be done easily. We also tailored the SEO solution to accommodate. Since this is more of an event-based website, an SEO plan was chosen with an emphasis on social and content SEO, to drive more social media engagement.

Moving both the hosting server and DNS was essential to increase the site speed, which increases site ranking by the search engine because now the website is scoring higher in user experience.

Now everything is under one provider and with only one point of contact, essentially taking out previously time and resource-consuming processes. Since everything is consolidated, we have managed to reduce the unnecessary costs associated with dealing with multiple providers. With that in place, a lot of resources are now spent on items that really matter. 

The overall cost did increase but it was expected and very much needed to transition into a fully managed solution. The organization is now able to allocate a significant amount of its resources for organizing events, concerts, and community outreach programs.

The total project time was 4 weeks including drafts and revisions. 

Major Takeaway

A few things to consider when you build your website, whether doing it yourself or hiring a professional to do it:

  • Web “designers” do not handle complex servers and Domain Name System. You will need some kind of management for where your site is hosted. The time you spend on figuring it all out would take somewhere between 30-50% of your total development time. Make sure you factor that into your schedule.
  • Avoid discount brand hosting services (the big names) unless you are just hosting a very simple website and expecting very low volume visitors.
  • A valid organization (or on the way to be) whether small or big, will always need a dedicated person to oversee their online strategy or at least a maintenance personnel when your major broadcasting platform is your website. Imagine a retail store front without one staff in it the whole time. It doesn’t work.
  • Sometimes when this website thing gets too complicated or difficult or time-consuming, it usually means the providers or the services you use are making it so. It’s time to make a change.

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