A site redesign for Lismore Turf Club – a racing venue and event and conference function centre here in Lismore.
The Turf Club’s existing site was in a ‘.com’ domain, and hadn’t been updated for some time. Unfortunately, they had difficulty in keeping in contact with the developers who were based outside the region, and so, came to me to redesign the site, and ultimately move it to a ‘.com.au’ domain, and work with them on ongoing site management, and management of their Fb page.
We’re still trying to get control of the ‘.com’ domain, but that should be resolved soon. This highlighted for me (again) how important it is for businesses to own their own web domains and hosting, ie: organise it themselves so they have complete control over where it is and what happens with it (I’ll post separately about that particular issue!!).
Even though this was a site redesign, because we had the luxury of a new web domain, it was essentially a clean start. Much of the old content could be re-used, all of it needed t to be rewritten. We’ve added a new event calendar, a sponsor logo scroller, video, image galleries, friendlier forms for sponsors and hospitality packages. An easier renewal process for members and other functionality has been discussed.
Posting regularly to the Fb page, even in just a short period of time (only a couple of weeks), has seen new likes, and more engagement with Club patrons which is terrific! We’ll be adding new features, eg fashion and style tips in the lead up to the Lismore Gold Cub – the highlight of the local racing calendar, in September.
I’ve used WordPress, with a fully customised premium theme. It’s easy to navigate and responsive. Work included:
- WordPress install, theme selection, and subsequent customisation
- Image selection from existing set
- Install and customise the usual plugins! For example, Facebook, Yoast, Google maps, and others to optimise the site and help with client site management.
- Event calendar
- Video
- Complementary Fb banners
- Search optimisation – a work in progress!
- Testing (particularly to make sure the site is responsive)
- Ongoing analytics monitoring,
- Identification of relevant sites for cross linking, etc.
- identification of sites where old details need to be updated – this can be a very time consuming business!!
Released: 10 July 2013
Visit the site: lismoreturfclub.com.au
This is the new site. If you scroll down further you’ll see what the original site looked like.
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And, this is the old site.
