Interesting website project proposal that can be read about here in communication form, it shows that not every business website proposal is met with a contract / award of work and that there is a lot of work that sometimes goes without reward. The following discussion was for a members pay for inclusion online gallery.
[Website Designers to Website Owners] Was nice meeting you and talking about your website, had another look tonight and have spotted some other things I would like to suggest that needs fixing / improving (from a pure SEO perspective) that I can talk to you about when we next meet. When I get some time I will look at the functional side of the site but the more I look at the site the more I am impressed at its function in general.
[Website Owners to New Website Designers] That’s great, really hope we can work together, I think my business partner is going to get in touch sometime today to arrange a meeting on Saturday hopefully.
[Website Designers to Website Owners] Propose to keep this communication to you brief and to the point until we have a better understanding / idea of what’s required then we can create a project document and a final quotation.
Executive Summary
A website currently attaining 15 (approx) new advertisers / artists / clients per month (from 2000 visitors per month) is required to be relaunched. The relaunch project changes should tackle website functionality, usability and optimisation (SEO) as the website is not being profitable enough currently. The business model is an online gallery, a pure online venture from a previous ‘real’ art gallery owned and operated by the current business owners.
Ideas Not Discussed during our meeting
I thought more about your business when you left and thought you may consider you could ’embrace’ the artists that want to put their work online for free by offering two types of membership
– Free membership where you get a % commission of sales
– Paid Membership (that you currently offer)
Obviously this is a big change to the site, we didn’t discuss it and it will obviously involve some fairly big changes to the membership / sign up process, but thought I would include it as I believe this is what I would suggest to you if we were creating your website from scratch.
Notes / To Do List
Here is my list of notes from today and my list of tasks in priority order that you need to take to enable myself to plan / quote then relaunch your website
1, Enable transfer of website from the old website design / website hosting company. We will require full control panel / ftp / database access (including db and db user names and passwords) to enable us to get the ‘code’ and data prior to transfer then will require them to give us an ‘Auth Code’ to allow us to start the transfer. This transfer can take place immediately once we have the website code and databases transferred and can happen before any ‘real’ changes are made. Certain ‘quick and easy’ changes can be made immediately once we have ftp access.
2, Need Google Analytics access – You currently have no dynamic access – need yourself and myself to be given admin access given by owner of the Google Analytics account. (you will need a Google Account for this)
3, To arrive at an accurate quotation for time and cost we need you to review these suggested changes (below) and approve or decline them, this will enable us to get a better idea about work effort, time and cost for you
The following 20 Changes are indicated from a) to t) and are all important / valuable / beneficial to your website / business.
a) All pages with ‘images’ as the main ‘body’ needs to be converted to ‘real website pages’ and text, to enable the search engines to read and index them correctly.
To enable this transfer you need to provide the original text for these pages (obviously we can get one of our administration people to type it out but this will take longer / cost more and assume you have it in a document somewhere)
b) add the old part of the site to existing site (enable it to be seen)
c) Create ‘dynamic’ Social buttons ‘like’ and ‘tweet’ at the top of each page with the static ones on the RHS column or bottom of page
d) Investigate and fix spotters email – No email received after being ‘spotted’ (batch sending should be investigated) need immediate emails
e) Move ‘help’ and ‘welcome pack’ to be customer facing
f) Recommend the .com domain as the main domain (retain .co.uk but redirect it to .com)
g) Convert the external Blogspot Blog to an Internal / Customised one (WordPress Blog)
h) Technical SEO (no 301 redirect and no non www. redirect)
i) W3C compliance
j) Front page should have a tagline and description of what the site’s purpose is (move the browse gallery to ‘gallery’ page)
k) SEO – remove website name from all page titles (not needed)
l) SEO – Page headings to be used (H1, H2)
m) SEO – page meta description / meta keywords to be created and used
n) SEO – Add ‘alt’ tags on all images – this will require admin / program changes
o) Need to enlarge images when they are clicked on.
p) Need to enlarge maximum collection allowances (add changes accordingly)
q) The buy button ‘go to paypal purchase from this artist‘ should be changed to ‘buy now’
r) Image titles should be mandatory
s) Profile text should be unique (not copied from other websites) Perhaps this ‘hint’ needs to be put on the site when profile text is input there is no easy / cheap technical way to enforce this.
t) SEO – Link building and article writing
4, Need artwork / logos as ‘layered’ image – ideally in Adobe Photoshop format
Other
a) Artists ‘help’ file to be amended to encourage photos to be labelled appropriately (leopard print should be called ‘leopard.jpg’)
b) Backlinks should be thought about – ideally you can make them compulsory (or give a £10 discount on yearly fees if they are put on a website)
Outstanding Questions / Issues
a) We need to be able to join / use site to fully identify the system ( no email received from ‘spotters’ email)
b) Need admin access to the site (think you showed me but need access then to review the backendl)
c) What is the currently blank page used for? (think you said they pay more to be included)
d) What’s the difference between the two main galleries?
Current System Bugs that need to be fixed
1, When you click ‘view shopping cart / checkout’ after putting items in your basket you get an error from this page
[Website Owners to New Website Designers] Loved the proposal! Unfortunately due to cash flow problems, myself and my business partner are dissolving the business. I hope to return to this industry in the near future and my first port of call will be you, as was extremely impressed with your ideas and proposals.
[Website Designers to Website Owners] That’s a real shame to hear but what are you going to do about the website? I am happy to transfer it to us and host it for you until you decide what you want to do, can also leave it down for a respectable period but its key that you don’t lose the website code / domain name
[Website Owners to New Website Designers] I’ve made a deal where I walk away from the site entirely, my business partner is taking on the site, and the debt. It may well be that she can make a go of it despite the heavy debts, although I will not be a part of it. All the very best and if things change we will come back to you at Delicious Webdesign.