The Brief
PAUL Partnership is a Local Development Company, based in Limerick City. They work with local communities that have benefited least from economic and social development and aim to promote social inclusion and improve the quality of life of people living in Limerick City.
They do this by:
> Working directly with individuals to support them to access employment, enterprise, education and training programmes
> Supporting local community-based organisations to develop and deliver social inclusion services and supports at a local level
> Building the capacity of individuals and communities to have a say in the policies and decisions and that affect the quality of life in their own communities
They implement programmes and actions across a number of areas, including: Community Development, Employment Support, Enterprise Support, Education and Lifelong Learning, Early Years.
My brief was to firstly modernise the look of their website. The homepage appeared cluttered, containing superfluous information and blurry headings. The slider needed modern images to properly convey the services on offer. The WordPress and theme software were also out of date.
PAUL Partnership staff were proficient in editing the website in general but there was a training need to ensure that they were fully aware of all options available to them on the Content Management System (CMS).
Our Approach
We generated and carried out a plan for achieving PAUL Partnership’s goals. We did the following:
=> we changed the theme to a more lightweight, modern, SEO-friendly theme with more crisp headings and a premium, light, full-width slider which wouldn’t show down the page load time.
=> we ensured that the new theme was responsive (i.e. mobile and tablet-friendly) for improved user experience as well as for search engine optimisation
=> we duplicated the style of the old site in terms of colours and fonts
=> we updated all software, mainly for security reasons as outdated software can be vulnerable to attack
=> we provided 2 training sessions to the staff so that they were fully proficient in editing their Content Management System in-house
The Result
The PAUL Partnership website has been modernised and has a clean, crisp look and feel.
It has also become more search engine friendly as follows:
- Pages load faster because the new theme is lightweight, with a light, but fully functional homepage slider. Google and other search engines use theme page load times as a ranking factor for search result pages.
- The theme is responsive and thus more easily navigated on mobile devices and tablets than the previous theme. Google and other search engines use theme responsiveness as a ranking factor for search result pages.
All software is up to date, making the website secure and fully functional.
The staff have received training to update the website themselves, so they are fully educated on the capabilities of the Content Management System. They do not need to outsource routine website changes.
You can visit their website at www.paulpartnership.ie.
Testimonial
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