Kobayashi + Zeitguys

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President of American Marketing Association

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The American Marketing Association Toronto Chapter

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Kobayashi + Zeitguys to accomplish?

• Migrate hundreds of pages of content away from a slow and security vulnerable Elementor site
• Dramatically improve the security profile by greatly reducing plugin and theme bloat and a need for "administration" level access for basic content editing roles
• Improve the SEO/AEO/GEO/AI Search technical foundation setting the stage for future optimizations
• Rebuild the site on a modern WordPress foundation, improving performance, accessibility, maintainability, mobile usability, content structure, and long-term governance.
• Refresh the look of the site with a focus on User Experience Design and strong Information Architecture
• Create a stronger platform that AMA Toronto’s volunteer teams could manage more confidently utilizing the latest with WordPress Gutenberg block editor, Full Site Editor, and modern CMS tools such as reusable Pattern templates

SOLUTION

How did you find Kobayashi + Zeitguys?

Referral

Why did you select Kobayashi + Zeitguys over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Kobayashi + Zeitguys were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

KZ led a full website redesign for AMA Toronto, from discovery through launch & post-launch support. They audited the legacy site, gathered and consolidated hosting/CMS/analytics and other access. Ran visioning workshops to define goals & a preliminary BRD. Information architecture followed, producing a sitemap and an Information Architecture.
Design leveraged the existing site as a concept & introduced cleaner more modern UX. Development covered custom build-out, content import, a custom staff/member post type, forms, and an events system. They assembled and populated the staging site, ran a client preview/training session, then completed internal QA and client UAT before deployment via a structured go-live checklist.
Post-launch, we provided a hypercare period, SEO/analytics monitoring, and a lessons-learned debrief. They also delivered user training and a prioritized enhancement roadmap. KZ owned design and technical execution; AMA Toronto reviewed and approved milestone deliverables

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

158% increase in form submission conversions

Average engagement time increased 29% from 34 seconds to 44 seconds

Google Search Console CTR increased from 7.9% to 9.0%.

Core Web Vitals performance improved from 73 to 95

Core Web Vitals Total Blocking Time improved from 361ms to 123ms

GTmetrix security improved from D to A+

PressVuln Critical vulnerabilities were reduced from 7 to 0

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The team demonstrated outstanding project management throughout the entire engagement. They consistently delivered items on time and were highly responsive to our needs, despite managing a particularly complex stakeholder environment. As a decentralized organization, we had nearly 20 individual stakeholders and portfolio leads who needed to contribute information, provide feedback, and align on the website’s vision, purpose, content, and priorities.
The team did an exceptional job bringing these different perspectives together and keeping the project moving forward. They also worked through a substantial archive of legacy information, helping us determine what needed to be updated, retained, reorganized, or removed.
Throughout the process, their communication, coordination, and follow-through were excellent. Their project management support was one of the strongest aspects of the engagement and played a significant role in bringing a complex project successfully to completion.

What was your primary form of communication with Kobayashi + Zeitguys?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What I found most impressive was their ability to collaborate and keep all the moving parts of a complex project aligned and moving in the right direction.