I recently had a great client, a well respected Sydney-based corporate governance and consulting firm called Global Treasury, approached me with a request to help them conduct an inexpensive website freshen up for their existing corporate website, built using an open-source CMS (Content Management System) called Umbraco.
Their main concerns were the dated / lacklustre appearance of the site, along with some constraints imposed on them easily updating the site content and page structure via the CMS.
Much of these updates had to historically be done by engaging their former web design / development partner and would, by implication, cost Global Treasury time and money.
So, with these requirements in hand, myself in partnership with a fantastic Umbraco developer, Matthew Skilton, embarked on a day’s (yep, that’s 8 billable hours) worth of work enhancing both the front end of the site and many of the features of the back-end (CMS) including the following features:
- Introduction of a new feature banner across the top of the homepage (the client was able to select an image they liked for us to integrate) including overlaid, descriptive text
- Introduction of 2 x new page templates to be applied to pages in Umbraco
- Introduction of a new WYSIWYG (‘what you see is what you get’) editor in the CMS (pictured below), providing the client with more easy to use content editing features
- Background colour refresh (green to a more neutral, lighter grey)
- Larger logo and contact details (including clickable email link) in the site header
- Condensation of the two-level primary navigation bars from the existing site into one simple, uniform navigation bar
All of this work was completed in 8 hours (equivalent to $520) one week after the client briefed the project in and is due to be deployed live this coming week. The client was delighted and sent me the below note once the job was complete:
“Dear Jen, I am writing to express my sincere thanks to you in helping us re-develop our website. You transformed our website in the 8 hours as agreed and delivered well above our expectations! Your creativity and sense of flair I envy – you are simply a gem. To take our website from the state it was to where it is now – we are all very thankful to you. Keep up the great work!”
– Leah Louey, Global Treasury Services Pty Ltd, Sydney.
This no doubt made my week! Below are some screengrabs of the site before and after this day’s work was complete and also the new look WYSIWYG editor in the CMS. Just goes to show how a short period of time and a small investment can make a significant difference to your web presence.
