kevinleary.net

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve had positive feedback on the way the new site looks and how easy it is to replicate pages, add content, and make changes. The internal feedback has been great. I wouldn’t necessarily say there’s any external data which shows a particular increase in impressions. It’s difficult to attribute because the majority of our traffic comes from paid advertising, which fluctuates based on how much we’re willing to spend each month. We don’t have a lot of organic traffic, and when we launched the main website we didn’t do a good job of building SEO content. This is something we’re working on fixing now.

We went from a system which required making phone calls every time we wanted to change the headline on a page, to being able to log in and make changes on-the-fly. We’ve integrated the website with MailChimp, whereas before we had been using a .Net platform, so integrating with anything implied weeks of work and thousands of dollars. Now, we can set up an API and have things running in a day or two.

How did kevinleary.net perform from a project management standpoint?

Primarily, we used simplistic channels like email and conference calls for communication. I sat with my front end developer and designer on the phone with Kevin, hashing out some more complex things, and discussing ideas. Everything else was done through email. If there was anything technical being used, it was GitHub. My designer and frontend developer used this to work without overwriting the code Kevin was working on. Github brought a lot of this best practice to our team, so we don't waste time.

What did you find most impressive about him?

After working with developers as often as I do, you begin to see tiers of people. It was clear, after one to two projects, that Kevin is a smart person and a great developer. He can install just about anything we give him, including some complex things. He solved everything basically on his own, without asking us for too much help or ideas. Once we start building complicated projects, like the coverage calculator, it becomes clear we have a good developer on our hands.

Are there any areas he could improve?

There’s always a push-and-pull when working with a freelancer because everyone wants everything within 30 seconds. When there is an internal team, we can run to someone’s desk and have them switch what they’re doing, but freelancers have multiple clients. Kevin’s quickness to respond to random emails could be improved. We’ve talked about this, but he told me he may have three other clients, so he can’t look at emails during a complex project. It is what it is, but there’ve been times when I wished I could have gotten something done sooner.