The Direct Line to grow your your business
Direct Line Development is a custom web designer and developer located in Philadelphia, PA; Denver, CO and Austin, TX focused on the user experience.
We specialize in organic Search Engine Optimization, and are dedicated to converting a site visitor to an engaged customer.

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Portfolio
Mel's Pizza, Philadelphia Party Planner, Ben Manis Plumbing, 3rd Floor Media

Creamery Tire
Before Creamery Tire Inc. came to Direct Line Development, they had a generic tire shop website that did not reflect the uniqueness of their business, was outdated and hard to operate. Creamery Tire Inc. is a tire dealer with over three decades of experience in the market, boasting a wide range of services they deliver and a modern approach to running the business.
They wanted to get the best website for wheels and tires to attract new clients and create a powerful brand identity. Our team created a top tire website with web design that meets their goals and exceeds expectations in functionality.
We knew that the client loved bold, contrasting blocks and a specific color palette originating from the company logo. We created easy-to-use layouts and added various themed pictures at the top of all pages. Our designers used bright colors on a white background to attract users’ attention to the commercial blocks and buttons, which helped to increase their efficiency. Eventually, we managed to put together the best website for tire sales: bright, memorable, and converting.

Austin Functional Wellness
Our new client at Austin Functional Wellness is an expert in functional neurology and chiropractic care that investigates the inner workings of our brains and how to heal them. And every awesome chiropractor needs a chiropractor website with an awesome web design.
The client requested an informative and at the same time visually compelling, well-designed chiropractic website that would give even the most clueless visitors a clear idea of what he does and how he can help them. We went even beyond that.

Colorado Wealth Group
Colorado Wealth Group offers a multitude of finance-related services; however, the biggest chunk of their clients hire them as a Financial Planning Process advisor.
The client wanted an interesting but at the same time professional wealth management website with web design that would attract new clients and reflect what is going on in the company. The site had to be both attractive to new users and potential customers and stay relevant to the old ones in terms of content and personal account capabilities. Colorado Wealth Group expected a clean design with suitable illustrations - Sleek, Strict, and Simple!

North Star
If you are running a successful business consulting firm, chances are, most of your clients discovered you online. For a company that works with other professionals looking to expand their business, having a presentable consulting web design is crucial for survival.
NorthStar is a team of management consulting experts specializing in strategy execution and implementation for a variety of important, high-end clients. They wanted us to develop a website that makes them stand out from the competition but without losing the professional undertones expected from a firm working in this sector. NorthStar wanted to stay true to their name and design a site that shows they’re ready to help clients “reach for the stars.”

Brookside Gardens
An event venue website that lacks modern design and provides a poor mobile user experience is a disaster for any business. This case is about a revamp for such a website with web design that allowed t to grab attention, represent the place, and make browsing enjoyable for the visitors. The owner of a stunning venue in Colorado named Brookside Gardens has chosen to hire Direct Line Development to redesign the website for this event space. Our team created and implemented the concept that met all the client’s requirements and even went beyond that.

Valor Roof and Solar
Valor Roof and Solar is a roofing company founded by a veteran. It solves residential and commercial roofing and solar needs. During the brainstorming session, we chose the following concept: a roofing website in patriotic colors and imagery associated with the American flag. We also added a video with the roofs of Denver to the homepage to create that wow effect that would make the site stand out.

Black Canyon Performance
In this digital day and age, even car repair businesses belong online. If a site is poorly made, potential customers are likely to assume that the company is either inexperienced or illegitimate. Our client, Black Canyon Performance, knows this. They asked us to create an auto repair website with a web design that would show off their professional approach and attention to detail in working with European cars, make them stand out from the competition, and attract new visitors and customers. Their old site was outdated with poorly organized content and obsolete functionality.

Game Seven Staffing
About the Client: Game 7 Staffing is a staffing agency helping to connect employers with software, electrical, hardware, and mechanical engineering talents across a variety of industries.
Our Objectives: The client requested an unusual and highly functional web design for a staffing agency that would present them on the web as a reliable, modern company and at the same time make them stand out.
Our Solution: To help the client connect employers with valuable candidates, we developed a bold design with a stark color scheme and multiple features.

Smart Air Cooling & Heating
A good HVAC website should educate visitors about the benefits of tailored solutions for their homes and offices and communicate the company’s culture through visual elements and style. On top of that, it should work as a marketing tool and convert regular visitors into paying customers for your business.
That is what our client, Smart Air Cooling & Heating, wanted - a custom, converting HVAC website with a clean design in the 50’s & 60’s style. Although their old website was good at delivering information, it did not communicate the company culture and mission. Additionally, the client wanted to sell their services online - this is a must-have option for modern websites for HVAC contractors. They chose Direct Line Development to do the job and our team managed to create one of the best heating and cooling websites out there, boasting tailored, responsive web-design, interactive elements, and all the necessary information.

Lennox Design Studios
Today, we are going to tell you about our home inspection website design for Lennox Design Studios, a company offering the best services for PA residents.
Our client had strictly defined goals for the web development project - they wanted a modern, highly functional home inspection website. Flawless scheduling and short turn-around time are crucial for this business, and their old website lacked the functionality to help our client serve their customers better. On top of that, the design was outdated and overloaded.

Herps Exotic Reptile & Pet Show
Our client, HERPS Exotic Reptile & Pet Shows, is engaged in organizing reptile expo events. It is a truly unique claim to fame - such family events bring a lot of fun, but must be organized well. The website has to create the atmosphere of a reptile show and yet be responsive, informative, and enjoyable to browse.
The client wanted a clean, professional site that was user-friendly and appealing. The goal is to attract as many people as possible with the client’s brand. We had to create a clean web design that would stay long in the memory and induce the wish to come back again.

Point Designs
Every promising company must have an appealing website these days. Quality, well-structured content, and thoughtful web design inspire confidence and convert visitors into clients. Today, we are sharing the concept we created for a prosthetic products website.
Our client, Point Design LLC, is one of the leading prosthetic design companies that help people with partial hand loss by creating durable and highly advanced prostheses. Our objective was to develop a custom prosthetics website that would reflect the client’s competence in the field and showcase their top-quality product. They also wanted to highlight their long-lasting, strong cooperation with world-famous academic researchers.

White Dragon Botanicals
Even though the CBD industry is relatively new, the competition on the market has already become fierce and increased the pressure on business owners to step up their game. These days, having a strong online presence is a crucial element of success. Unfortunately, building a top CBD website on your own is no easy feat. Our client, White Dragon Botanicals, knows this.
The client came to us with a request to redesign their old outdated and overloaded site and make it “pop”. They wanted a light, clean modern web design using neutral and earthy tones - a timeless combination that we thought would serve as a great foundation for the new concept.

Offices of City Central, LLC
Today we are going to talk about one of the coolest web designs that we created for a coworking and office spaces rental company CityCentral. It is a Texas-based lessor offering private offices, coworking spaces, meeting rooms, and more for modern businesses striving to evolve in a community of like-minded people.
The client came to us with a slow, plain, and wordy office space website that neither enhanced their corporate image nor created customer conversions. Low speed is a disaster for a modern business website as people are scrolling through websites faster and faster.
Our goal was to create a custom-designed website that would load quickly, reflect the brand identity, and lead visitors to certain sections and pages by attracting their attention in a smooth, subtle way.

Betts Remodeling
Betts Remodeling is a team of talented remodeling contractors truly dedicated to their craft. From complete overhauls to minor repairs, they do it all! As professional designers and builders ourselves, we felt it our duty to transform the client’s website into a better place to live in the digital landscape. We’ve been doing web design for remodeling contractors for years now and we know how to boost site traffic through smart, SEO-friendly designs.

United Hail Pros
United Hail Pros is a team of auto body repair experts specializing in paintless dent repair (PDR). Their old website was slow, pretty boring, and not SEO-optimized, which is clearly no good for a local business. With that in mind, they reached out to Direct Line Development for a user-friendly auto repair shop website with powerful SEO content and up-to-date web design.

Central Texas Valet
Central Texas Valet is a company that offers professional valet parking services for restaurants, hotels, private parties, and other facilities and small and large-scale events all throughout Texas. The company wanted to give the clients visiting their website a peace of mind by providing a comfortable user experience. After having a look at other valet service websites in the area, we decided to go for a unique web design concept and color scheme that would set the client apart from the competition.

Almighty Moving Services
A new client, Almighty Moving Services North, has recently come to us looking for a simple one-page website with an interesting and memorable design. Their main goal was to increase their online presence and distinguish themselves as the best amongst a sea of competition.
To do this, they suggested that our web design company work with what they already have – their color scheme, and build on top of it. This was important to them because the owners have multiple projects going on and they wanted the design style across all their sites to be cohesive, including their signature colors.
From our side, we proposed to add something unique to the site that would make it stand out – bright visuals and fun animations.
They call themselves the best local moving experts, so we wanted to ensure that this design becomes their pride and matches their title.

Jamsz Konnections
Our new client, Jamsz Konnections, specializing in event planning with a component of social good in Austin, TX and surroundings. They focus on events for overall health and wellness. They went to Direct Line Development to make their website to effectively convey their story that inspires engagement and support. 🎯
How we helped the client to implement his ideas:
📹 Video on the first screen, allowing to learn about the company
🖼 A separate page with photo and video galleries that attract attention and retain interest
🔍 An organized page about the company that conveys the history of the company and allows you to gain the user's trust
📌 SEO Optimized Structure
📝 Well-structured content that presents the idea of the company in a form understandable to the visitor

Maxwell Lighting and Energy
Maxwell Lighting and Energy is a professional lighting company specializing in architectural, commercial, industrial, and residential lighting design, installation, and maintenance. The company delivers cost-effective, expert lighting solutions tailored to client’s needs by using premium lighting products designed to reduce energy consumption.
Our task was to create a web design for a lighting company that will promote their services and work throughout the United States.

Omni Real Estate
Omni Real Estate is a locally-owned and operated real estate company in the Colorado Mountains. The company strives to provide unsurpassed services to make the property sale and purchase easy and pain-free. Choosing the right house is always a challenge for all.
Whether you are a first-time homebuyer or just decide to move, you need to explore the location before purchasing. That is why Omni Real Estate hired Direct Line Development to create a real estate web design to make the home-buying journey a walk in the park.

Into The Wild Overland
Boreas Campers is one of the best trailer manufacturers in Colorado. The company offers top-quality off-road camper trailers for sale or for rent (at partner dealerships only) so that everyone has the ability to enjoy the great American outdoors.
After a series of deliberate considerations, we arrived at the idea of clean, nature-inspired images and intricate off-road tire tread marks in the background as the main concepts of the future website. These elements reflect the company’s values and vibes, as well as the product’s main purpose.

Scrub Daddy
Scrub Daddy needs no introduction. America's Favorite Sponge® manufacturer made the news a few years ago when the company’s founder, Aaron Krause, appeared on Shark Tank to pitch in front of billionaire investors. After the episode aired, the adorable smiley face sponge became an overnight success. To this day, the sponge company enjoys immense popularity throughout the country.
The Scrub Daddy sponges all come in bright colors and have unusual shapes. During the brainstorming session, our web development team came up with three design concepts and ended up choosing the most dynamic one with a vibrant color scheme that blends into and complements the product’s design.

High Country Healing
Creating a cannabis website design was a new challenge for our company. Since the cannabis market is still developing, it was an amazing opportunity for us to contribute to the evolution of a fast-growing industry in the US.
High Country Healing is an established chain and the go-to place for marijuana enthusiasts from all over Colorado, but their lack of an online presence was making them uncompetitive in today’s digital world. The client needed a bright, youthful marijuana website design to show off the company’s values and brand identity, as well as let visitors explore products quickly and easily.

Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School
We were tasked with creating a high school website for Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School. The private high school for low-income students needed the site to maintain their image as a progressive, modern education facility. In the process of designing the school website, we decided to go for striking styles and contrasting effects that looked neat and clean. We also incorporated the official school colors and ensured that the site reflected the school’s values and message.

ziyou.life
Our web development team was recently tasked to create a website redesign for Ziyou.Life, a company that offers radiology business consulting services. The site connects professional and recreational athletes with a network of qualified medical experts that can provide a second opinion on questionable diagnoses or decisions made by their attending physicians. Below, we explain our web development process for this radiologist consulting client.

Presidio Dance Theatre
Presidio Dance Theatre is a San Francisco-based performing dance company specializing in rigorous Vaganova style ballet, folk, and character dance training and performance for children and adults. We wanted the dance studio website we develop for this client to create an accurate representation of the services their dance school has to offer. We decided on a combination of clean lines and beautiful, high-resolution photos that perfectly capture the atmosphere of the studio. This dance school website now has a mobile-friendly design complete with a robust function and features.

Boulder Prolotherapy
When it comes to quality orthopedic medical treatment, you won’t find a better clinic than Boulder Prolotherapy. We were quite excited to design a physical therapist website for this client and help them find more patients to take on. After experimenting with a few concepts, we opted for a doctor web design that we think best reflects Boulder Prolotherapy’s mission and personality.

Genesis Training Academy
Genesis Training Academy is a Colorado-based gym that offers professional boxing, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts training. They wanted their gym website to better reflect their core values and attract more prospective clients. With the redesign of the client’s boxing website, our main objective was to create a concept with bold, dynamic tones to emphasize the energy and passion of these sports.

EcoThrive Builders
A well-developed house building website is the best marketing tool there is. It is vital that new visitors are impressed by your web design, navigation system, and content provided. If you want to provide quality user experience, the site also needs to be viewable across a number of different devices.
Our new client, EcoThrive Builders, knew that. EcoThrive Builders is a team of green builders offering a wide range of construction services to high-end clients. They asked us to design a clean website that highlights the company's most important hallmark - sustainable, environmentally friendly home building solutions.

North Penn Cleaning Solution, LLC
North Penn Cleaning Solutions is a cleaning and organizing company that provides customizable and specialized cleaning programs to a variety of clients across Southeast Pennsylvania. They won’t just clean your house - they will also teach you all about decluttering your personal space.
The client needed a home cleaning services website with a web design that would reflect two main types of services they offer - professional house cleaning and cleaning lessons - at once. The general message they wanted to send to potential customers was: get both your home and your soul in order!

VainGlory
Here’s your backstory: 5 tough bearded military men decided to start their own company offering the best beard care on the market. What did they need to do first? You guessed it! A website. And not just a website, but a powerful marketing tool with e-commerce website design that does exactly what it’s supposed to do - helps them sell the product.
Vainglory wanted their hair care products website to be a minimalist space where they can feature their best projects for potential customers. In the future, they are planning to take their business global, so we needed to keep that in mind when developing the site.

Breck Ironworks
Breck Ironworks™ is a metal fabrication shop that manufactures artisan fire pits – an interesting, one-of-a-kind product. The client’s old metal fabrication web design was so out of date that it was holding them back from attracting more business partners, as well as new regular customers.
As a result of our efforts, the client’s custom metal fabrication company website is full of life and makes for an engaging, comfortable user experience. One of the key requirements was that the website was responsive and could be viewed on any device, be it a phone or a tablet. We worked hard to ensure that audiences using different kinds of devices are able to enjoy browsing the site. The new site responds to user behavior and automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and resolutions.

Cutters Landscaping LLC
Cutters Landscaping is a reputable team of landscape designers with a roster of high-end, luxury clients that expect the best in all their dealings with a landscaping company, down to their lawn care web design. When we set out on this project, we knew we had to develop a site that is first and foremost aesthetically impressive. Every little detail on it had to represent the client’s main service - landscaping - in the best possible light. Our main challenge was to ensure optimal user experience without compromising simplicity and create a more elegant look for the client’s lawn care website.

CertSimple USA
When it comes to taxes, our new client, CertSimple USA, is always ready to help you keep your head above the water. However, over time, their old design has lost relevance and took a back seat to new competitors. To regain popularity in the local area, CertSimple turned to our web design company for help.
This time, our goal was to increase the client’s brand awareness with the help of modern solutions and allow users to quickly learn more about the company's activities and get in touch without using much effort.
With the ever-growing importance of e-commerce for businesses, you shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to create a strong connection between your company and your customers through gadget screens. Today, we will tell you how to do this with the help of a creative and eye-catching design.

Eagle Eye Video Surveillance, LLC
Eagle Eye Video Surveillance, LLC is a Seattle, WA-based company that offers premium-quality CCTV cameras and other various security camera systems. The goal set for us by the client was to create a simple yet stylish and modern web-design.
After putting our heads together, we’ve come up with a cyberpunk-ish concept that combines interactivity, strong imagery, and simplicity. Here’s what we did to make it pop.

Mix & Mary, LLC
Mix & Mary LLC is a Texas-based company that specializes in the production of chili vodka under the Bloody Buddy brand. In order to beat competition online, they wanted to create a simple, attractive mixed drink web-design that would reflect their message and values. Enter the Direct Line Development team.
As a result of our efforts, the landing page turned out to be as simple as possible while remaining informative and engaging. The unique layout & visuals help to grab and maintain the visitor's attention.
Direct Line Development does much more than just modern drink website designs. We have +1000 completed custom projects across 70 industries under our belt. From lawyers to marijuana dispensaries, we helped a variety of clients achieve their web design & SEO goals. Wanna be next? Connect with us today, and let’s get started!

Advocate Construction
Advocate Construction is a Colorado-based company that specializes in residential and commercial roofing services and insurance claims. Advocate Construction is a name associated with quality; however, their roofing website design wasn’t quite living up to the clients’ expectations.
We bounced around some ideas during the brainstorming session and finalized a cohesive concept that we ran by the client.
Color Palette
Choosing the colors is everything: make the wrong move, and a more visually-oriented visitor will leave your site in a heartbeat. Our final choice was to create a design dominated by orange, dark blue, and white colors. This is a very modern combination with a lot of contrast and movement; it is perfect for a company that wants to be seen as a dynamically developing organization that moves with the times.
Animation
During the design process, we added an animated element to the header at the very top of the homepage. This isn’t common for roofing contractor websites, so our goal was to make the client's site stand out from competitors and grab visitors’ attention as soon as they open the page.
Layout
Positioning the modules on the website is a science of its own. We took the time to place various elements on each page in a way that makes it easy for both visitors and Google’s web crawlers to browse the site.
Converting Elements
Among other benefits, the company offers visitors a free inspection - that’s a tempting offer that needs to be plastered all over the site in order to lure in new customers. We made sure to position several bright call-to-action buttons and other elements throughout the pages.
Results
The minimalist style of this custom roofing web design lives in harmony with bold animations and bright colors. The client’s joy after seeing the final result was through the roof (no pun intended!).

Blue Valley Heating and Cooling
Today, the best cooling and heating companies have well-designed websites with animation effects and user-friendly interfaces. Our client, Blue Valley Heating and Cooling Company, had a website with outdated design and lots of wording. Clearly, it is impossible to compete in this market without a modern, functional website today.
This heating and cooling company needed an expert web-design team to create a new one: modern, minimalistic, and responsive to inspire their visitor to browse more and convert them into paying customers. At Direct Line Development, we created a custom design that met all the clients’ needs.

Austin Area Plumbing
Most plumber website designs you have encountered on the wild web probably looked outdated and overstuffed. Our client’s site was no exception. Austin Area Plumbing got in touch with us with a simple request: to make their site look clean and modern and make it stand out from dozens of local competitors.
And so we got to work. The additional challenge we were tasked with is to ensure the new attractive, memorable plumber web design is in line with the client’s corporate colors and signature design theme - baseball, as these elements are used on the other websites owned by the client.

Key to the Rockies Real Estate
Located in Summit County, CO, Key to the Rockies Real Estate is a team of local real estate brokers with extensive knowledge and experience in real estate marketing in Keystone, Breckenridge, and surrounding areas.
The client’s slogan is: “We have the keys to your next home!” Unfortunately, their original realtor website design wasn’t quite up to par with their standards, nor was it making it easy for visitors to embark on a hunt for a new property.
The team of brokers enlisted our help to develop a simple but stylish and user-friendly web-design that wouldn’t be overloaded with too much information or unnecessary, overcomplicated design elements.

Collex

Salvatory Law Office

Mel's Pizza

Philadelphia Party Planner

Steiner, Segal, Muller and Donan

Ben Manis Plumbing

3rd Floor Media

Decker Benefits Solutions LLC

Lynmar Builders

Castle Oaks

Babbo's Italian Grill

My Sister's Choice

iNerd

Global Conservation

PALs

Bambo Jambo

Bergey Group

Evolut

Mile High’s Finest
Our client, Mile High’s Finest, is a top-rated supplier of pure CBD products in Colorado. With an outdated website that did not allow learning more about their products and creating leads, they failed to attract many potential clients. Therefore, they came to Direct Line Development for the best website and web design to build for a CBD business: one that would boast a trendy design, extended functionality, and powerful content.
CBD website design is an eCommerce project, and one of the challenges in such projects is to keep the structure straightforward. It should include various pages with information about the company, contact info, test results, and many product pages grouped by categories. All the above have to merge into a clear structure that is easy to navigate for users and simple to crawl for search engines.
Reviews
the project
Web Dev, Design & SEO for Photography Business
"The results have been great, the design of the site is awesome—everything is top-notch quality."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I work for Love in Media Photography. We do wedding photography, corporate photography, headshots, photobooths and more.
What challenge were you trying to address with Direct Line Development?
We hired Direct Line Development to provide digital marketing support. More specifically, we wanted a new website and new leads on Google.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Direct Line Development created our custom-built website using Python. Based on our design preferences, they provided several options and incorporated the one we chose. On this platform, they’ve built a functional booking module and incorporated animations, as well. Additionally, they’ve integrated our site with Instagram, so the posts populate on both platforms. They’ve ensured the site has an easy-to-use CMS.
Additionally, they provide technical SEO support, focusing exclusively on organic traffic. They write content for us every month, also working on backlinking and crowd-marketing the links. Their team is also working to optimize the site’s speed.
What is the team composition?
There have been at least 10 people working on our project from Direct Line Development. A project manager, head designer, graphic designer, copywriters, and SEO specialists have been helping us.
How did you come to work with Direct Line Development?
We followed a referral and chose Direct Line Development.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent $5,000 on the website and the monthly fee is $1,500.
What is the status of this engagement?
We’ve been working together since May 2019.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We’ve already started to rank higher for keywords like “professional photographer near me”, “wedding photography near me” and “photobooth rentals”. Their monthly reporting shows that my ranking has improved and we’ve gained more leads through the website.
How did Direct Line Development perform from a project management standpoint?
Their team is very responsive. We communicate a few times a month, if not weekly. It’s easy to get them on the phone and get a follow-up within 30 minutes to an hour. If we need something changed, even after a deadline, they accommodate it. We primarily speak through email, text message, or monthly phone calls.
What did you find most impressive about them?
The results have been great, the design of the site is awesome—everything is top-notch quality. We like the fact that their work is custom, not like a pre-made template.
Are there any areas they could improve?
The development of the site took over three months, so even though it’s custom work, it would have been helpful if it were done more quickly.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
A project is a two-way street. As far as communicating and setting your business goals, make sure you’re involved in the process. You’ll get a better product if you don’t just set your requirements and forget about the project.
the project
Python Web Dev for Electric Go Kart Company
"I can’t think of anything they did that I have an issue with."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the vice president of Speed Raceway, which is an indoor electric high speed go karting facility. We have two locations, one is in Horsham, Pennsylvania and the other one is in Cinnaminson, New Jersey.
What challenge were you trying to address with Direct Line Development?
We had a WordPress website made in 2012, but it was far below the standard we set for everything else in the company. The site was crowded, and although it functioned semi-well, the mobile speed was poor. It wasn't designed well and failed to represent our business. Our competitors had vastly superior websites, so we needed to make a change.
Our old website used embedding. We use a Club Speed operating system to run everything in our building including our timing system for our laps, our fail system for the go-carts, our accounting system, and all of our frontend and backend operations. We needed to embed Club Speed into our site, but we also wanted our site to look better.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They worked on our entire site using Python. I described my vision for the look of the site and showed them what I liked about our competitors’ sites, and then they did the rest. They brought my vision to life. They managed and executed the design aspects such as colors, graphics, and content flow. They improved our site’s operation speed, and added the desired flare to its design. Before hiring them, our site look like plain embedding coded and displayed using Times New Roman font on a white background.
They helped make the desktop and mobile site look clear and run quickly and concisely. They executed various specifications for us such as enabling event booking online. They were the first firm to execute this for Club Speed, and to successfully connect the API on the backend to allow booking. They perfected our reservation system, and they wrote it into our coding. They also helped us sell leagues and summer camps online in site coding, and helped improve our online system for processing and selling gift cards.
They are working on SEO now, which they kept in mind while building the site. We paid for an 18-month package, which started this month.
What is the team composition?
I mainly worked with two people, Anna (Project Manager, Direct Line Development) and Greg (Sales Manager, Direct Line Development), and I worked with developers through them. I didn't have to deal with 30 different people, which was great because I didn’t want to interface with too many people.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together August 2017 and continue to work together. We may eventually implement electronic gift cards or other such updates and changes.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I don't have a lot of statistics because the site launched recently. I know we had a strong first weekend, and with their help, our e-commerce has increased significantly. We've never had as many reservations as now, which can only be attributed to their hard work and attention to detail. From the font to the background, everything flows well and looks ideal. Over the last five years we’ve received many complaints about online errors with gift card sales, but now we don’t have errors and purchases with gift cards are processed immediately.
We have so many new customers, but we haven't announced the new website yet. We want to wait at least two weeks before making an announcement, so we can find and resolve any bugs and make sure everything runs smoothly. I talk to most people who book with us and ask for their feedback, and everybody remarks that the site is smooth and user-friendly.
How did Direct Line Development perform from a project management standpoint?
When I requested an online event booking feature, we weren’t sure if they could implement it; they said it was possible and got the job done. We didn't follow a strict timeline because we weren’t sure how much time the site work would need. Despite this, the new site runs great, and everything was delivered relatively quickly.
We could have done better as the clients because we asked for certain features late into development. If we had our specifications set ahead of time, development could have proceeded faster. We met on site at our office multiple times. The majority of our communication is through email or phone. If I tell them I need to speak to them in person, they don’t hesitate to come in.
What did you find most impressive about them?
It's worth noting that if you work in this industry, you’re most likely using the Club Speed operating system; they have built the best website for it. Our competitors’ websites are all inferior to our site now. They have a lot to offer, and I know they're already working with a couple of other companies.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Any problem I had was on my side and my team. I can’t think of anything they did that I have an issue with. They had to do a lot of integration work, and it was the first time anyone has really done the type of work they did.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Take a month to think about exactly what you want and ask for it. Don't add specifications six months into development, which is what we did. This has bothered me because we set ourselves back by doing this.
The new website and SEO efforts from Direct Line Development have contributed to a significant increase leads and several keyword rankings. Their team is effective, communicative, and accommodating, making any changes requested, and looking to continually improve efforts.