Michael Richard Murphy » SEO

Bay Road Grocery & Deli design refresh

Michael Richard Murphy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:46:52 +0000

I was really excited when I got a call from Mike at Bay Road Grocery & Deli. The convenience store, located at the corner of Volk and Bay roads in Webster, was an institution in my childhood neighborhood and I have fond memories of riding my bike with friends there for candy, soda and cap guns.

Bay Road Grocery had an existing website but Mike wanted to update the look and feel as well as remedy the site’s poor search engine rankings. As it turns out, most of the content (images and text) was embedded in a rotating-type javascript gallery. Not exactly search engine friendly. Or easily update-able.

As part of the refresh, I created a WordPress-based site for Mike with a custom theme. Using WordPress gave him the ability to get in and easily update the content on his site that changes frequently; like his menu, the kinds of lottery tickets he sells, and any lottery winners from his store. That also moves the valuable content that describes his store and the services he provides from obscurity in javascript code to plain search engine readable text.

The custom theme was created using proper, semantic HTML markup with the headings and structure that make search engine optimization more effective. Design-wise, the whitewashed plank header and weathered logo enhance and reinforce the nautical theme echoed throughout the store itself.

Krudmart: Product page and checkout process refresh and SEO

Michael Richard Murphy — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:59:11 +0000

Krudmart is a Buffalo New York-based e-tailer and street lifestyle website. While Magento is their e-commerce platform of choice, they wanted to upgrade some of the stock buttons and images that came pre-installed with something that fits in a little better with the aesthetic they’ve worked hard to develop. But skinning new buttons was just a small part of the larger project to make the site more customer and search engine friendly.

Although the site boasts loads of great content (mostly linked to from the homepage), it wasn’t well-organized and didn’t have a sense of hierarchy or direction. Everything screamed out to be clicked. Reorganization of the content on that page was designed to focus more on product sales (and featured products) and minimize the draw of the additional content (blog, polls, etc) which is secondary to the purpose of the site.

Product pages also lacked clear calls to action (adding to cart) so the redesign of those buttons focused on making them more prominent and noticeable. Customers would also become confused after attempting to add a product to their cart because confirmation messaging appeared at the top of the page; often not visible after they had scrolled down to read product descriptions. This messaging was moved to directly above the ‘Add to Cart’ where it was more obviously associated with the action on the button (and also always visible). A subtle fading (to white) background animation was also added to attract attention.

Like the homepage, the shopping cart itself was cluttered with lots of content and options, and the buttons were not designed or placed where they stood out. There also wasn’t any real difference in the appearance or location between the buttons for the primary action (checking out) and secondary actions like editing the cart or viewing related products. Along with creating a noticeable difference in the size and locations of the buttons for our primary focus (getting the customer to checkout), the layout of the shopping cart was also simplified to make it easier to use and digest the information contained in it.

In addition to layout changes on the homepage, product pages, and checkout process pages, underlying HTML code was modified to be more semantic and meaningful to search engines.

Lance and I were very happy with work that you did. We have nothing but positive things to say about your work ethic and we were very happy with the results. We saw a positive sales increase immediately. Thank you for your service as well as your dedication to our project. We certainly will be calling you for any future work. Thanks from Krudmart!-Christina Vinci

Boy Scouts of America Pack 48 blog

Michael Richard Murphy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:30:22 +0000

As a local Boy Scouts of America pack leader, Jon, wanted a website where he could easily disseminate information on upcoming pack and den activities as well as post pictures from those events.

I set Jon up with a WordPress blog that allows him to create and edit all the content. Author accounts for each den leader allow them to be responsible for all the content pertaining to their groups, offloading that task from Jon. Gallery photo management software allows Jon and the other den leaders to upload photos and create/edit albums. Parents and others, with the proper permissions, can browse the albums and even send photos to services like Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc.

Best of all, WordPress and Gallery are free open-source applications. Which helped Jon get a website with loads of well-supported features and still stay within his budget.

Embrasse-Moi Lingerie blog

Michael Richard Murphy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:25:12 +0000

Embrasse-Moi, a luxurious lingerie boutique in Pittsford, had a Blogger blog with loads of great content in the form of articles and fashion reviews, tips, and news. Unfortunately, since all that content was hosted on the Blogspot.com domain, none of their hard work was benefitting their own website, http://www.embrasse-moi-lingerie.com, with increased search engine ranking.

I set up a new WordPress blog on their existing domain and imported all their content so they wouldn’t lose or have to manually enter any posts or comments. They also really liked the design, layout and features of their Blogger blog so I created a WordPress theme that retained that look and feel as well as all the sidebar features.

Embrasse-Moi’s blog design and features stayed the same, their publishing process stayed the same, and now they get all the search engine benefits of having all that great content on their own domain!

Radiant Skin Clinic & Shoppe

Michael Richard Murphy — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 17:45:06 +0000

Carey needed to move her existing site to a new host and e-commerce platform. It was important to her that this move have minimal impact on her existing customers and hard-earned search engine rankings. I handled the implementation of the new platform and site design, data and security certificate migration, as well as redirection of URLs so bookmarked and indexed pages would continue to be valid.

Michael brought an idea I had to fruition. With his hard work and dedication to the job – my website has become the corner-post of my business. He has been a good sounding board, source for sound coding practices, and has vast knowledge on e-commerce platforms. I turn to him for all my IT needs.-Carey Whitmore