Let's Build a Website

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-owner of ToTravelToo, a travel lifestyle website that predominantly focuses on the baby boomer marketplace. We also create print media and content for brands. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Let’s Build A Website?

We initially had a Facebook page. While traveling for over a year, we planned to move to a website, and we created content as we went. The web developer we chose turned out to be a graphic designer who didn’t deliver and shied away from building the WordPress site that we wanted. We terminated the arrangement with our developer and got as much intellectual property and collateral back as we could.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Let’s Build A Website built our website in WordPress and assembled our content for us. We compiled all the places we’ve visited in the last years and created 60 accommodation posts organized by categories and countries. We sent them to Jodi (Creator/Web Designer & Web Trainer, Let’s Build A Website) in Word docs. She launched our WordPress in March 2015. 

We’re now in phase two. Jodi has redesigned the website. We’ve chosen a more sophisticated Divi Theme, which gives us a more personalized look and feel, a specific course of action, and fewer plugins. We have two systems running and a development environment that we’re building now. In the meantime, we have our original WordPress theme.

Our content, locations, and interaction with videos and different media we want to put on are constantly changing. Divi is a bit more technical, and we wouldn’t want to get involved in the code, which is why we need Let’s Build A Website to be able to protect us from that. Jodi is a very detailed coder who can dive deep into HTML. She can work at a high level and make things simple.

What is the team composition?

We only work with Jodi.

How did you come to work with Let’s Build A Website?

I did a Google search, and Let’s Build A Website popped up. After looking at their profile, what I really liked about Jodi was that she taught people how to build a website and offered courses. Many reviews said that she helped people create their websites in hours and days. 

I called her and explained what I needed. She was located 20 minutes away, and we met that day. We laid out the handwritten plan of precisely what we wanted. Fifteen minutes after the meeting, we got a phone call from her saying she sent us a link to what we were looking for: an outline of our website. It had a homepage, an about us, our branding, and a couple of our Word docs. It wasn’t perfect, but the outline impressed us, so we agreed to move forward.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent less than $5,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2015, and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There are so many themes in WordPress to choose from, and Jodi chose the right one for our current site. Our visitors have found it easy and straightforward. However, Jodi knows that things change over time and that the theme we’re using is now outdated. Google penalizes us because it’s not as mobile-friendly as it should be. The backend work we’re doing with her for SEO will put us in a better position with Google’s algorithms and increase our domain authority (DA).

Jodi is an SEO expert as well. She’s excellent at helping individuals and companies curate a website and advise them on SEO best practices. She keeps up-to-date with technology. She’s delivered everything up to this point, but we’ve put the project on hold until we get back to Australia in November. The new site will probably launch in February 2020.

How did Let’s Build A Website perform from a project management standpoint?

Since Jodi is our admin, we allow her full access into our site. We have complete trust and confidence in her. She’s very responsive and doesn’t overcommit. We can send her an email that the site is down, and she knows what the issue is and fixes it. We tell her a hard deadline, and we might break the deliverables into smaller chunks. We’ve never had a time where she’s been delinquent. We don’t have many project management tools because she’s brought more of an intuitive approach to development. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Let’s Build A Website is really good at building a website. Jodi has the ability to help clients understand through training courses and video tutorials.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have no qualms about using Jodi. I recommend that she do more online subscription courses and create a business model where users buy the videos, the content, and an online subscription to build a website. I think she could scale up, but she’s more of a code cutter, web builder, trainer, and deliverable person than she is a business person. A business person would make a go-to-market product with more platforms and would outsource more and have more people working for them. She’s at that threshold of change, which she can do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do your research first. Don’t waste Jodi’s time by having her clarify for you how to frame your business. She’s not a business planner or a marketing strategist. You need to know who your competitors are. You need to research and look at what it is you think you need for your business. Then you need to draw that up in a diagram of what it looks like.