Like many organizations just starting out, Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps’ initial WordPress website was a DIY website (with a bit of help from a WordPress-familiar family member). This is a great starting point for many organizations, but as you grow, a professional website becomes a must.
Because the site was built on WordPress, it wasn’t simple or intuitive for Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps (ESCC) staff to update and maintain, so a lot of the language was aspirational: “we will do X,” rather than “we’ve done X.” The website also had outdated plugins and PHP, no SSL certificate, and very few clear calls to action as website visitors explored the website.
We set out to build a new website using ESCC’s existing logo and colors and worked together to choose a font pairing that better represented the brand. We chose to build on Squarespace so that staff could easily update the website whenever needed with no fear of crashing the site — and to avoid monthly website maintenance costs required for WordPress websites. Client autonomy was the goal, and Squarespace is the best way to achieve this.
Once we had a good website plan in place and had determined the colors and fonts we wanted to use for the new website, we started building on Squarespace. Like most of my Squarespace website projects, we kept this site simple building with just the native blocks and tools in Squarespace. This means everything is fully and easily editable by ESCC going forward — no need for extra subscriptions or coding knowledge.
We also worked together on collaborative copywriting so every page of the website speaks to the intended audience and clearly expresses the next step website visitors should take.
After receiving client feedback and doing a full round of revisions, we were ready to launch the new site and say goodbye to the old, clunky, not secure WordPress website. The launch process was seamless, and after sending a couple videos on how to edit the website, I sent ESCC their website owners manual so they had everything they’d need to manage the website going forward. We set up analytics tools and tested contact/email signup forms and they were off to the races.
A website alone doesn’t transform a business or organization, but it’s an important piece of the puzzle. Checking ESCC’s Google Search Console data for the first three months after the site was launched, clicks from search were up 31% year over year, impressions from search were up 92% Y/Y, and their average position in search had improved from 26.9 to 20.5 Y/Y.
I’m not claiming it’s related, but this summer ESCC started its season with its largest crew network to date. I’m not saying it’s not a tiny bit related to looking way better online. 🙂
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It was a joy working with Jessica, she was very responsive, efficient, and patient. I appreciated her communication and feedback tools, which allowed our work to be completely virtual, something that worked very well for me. She was great at listening to ideas and interpreting our vision! We now have a wonderful website that embodies our organization’s identity.
Paola Flores, Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps
