In this case study, we explore how Fellswood Creative assisted Tiana V, a coach and consultant, in transforming her online presence. Facing the challenge of an outdated and content-heavy website, Tiana sought our expertise to create a professional and visually appealing WordPress website. Our collaboration resulted in a clean, easy-to-navigate design, a refined brand identity, and a user-friendly web space to showcase Tiana’s services. This case study highlights the key aspects of the project, from the initial design strategy to the successful launch, providing valuable insights for consultants starting or in their first year of establishing their consultancy.
Client Background:
Tiana V Coaching and Consulting offers fractional product management, tech team effectiveness consulting, and 1:1 coaching to tech leaders, with a focus on climate solutions companies. Tiana embarked on her consulting and coaching business journey with deep experience and a broad network. Her goal for her site was to have a simple space on the internet where people could read more about her and, most importantly, book time with her or get in touch with her through a form submission.
Project Strategy:
Tiana’s existing site had a lot of great written content already. The work for the new site mainly fell into 2 categories: visual design and organizing the information to make the offerings clearly delineated.
While Tiana’s emphasis was not on discoverability at the time of the website launch, the fact that we were building on WordPress allows us to prepare the site for any future wants in this area as well as any growth desired down the line. Tiana has the foundation to add pages, a blog, additional landing pages and any other content or functionality that would be appropriate as her business grows.
Logo Development:
Because of Tiana’s practical approach to her business identity, which sought a simple logo graphic representing nature in some way, we were able to create a logo that felt like a good representation of the consultancy while also reflecting some of the core values Tiana prioritizes in her work. We presented several icon options initially, which gave way to the more organic letter icon and to this we added some simple natural elements, eventually landing on the leaf. We played with several other elements, adding a surrounding circle, but simplicity was crucial and the lone T with the leaf, subtly creating a V shape as well really made the icon feel complete. The use of the icon will allow for brand recognition across social platforms, gradually allowing the icon to become synonymous with Tiana and her collaborations and work.
Website Development and Launch:
The timeline for the project was short on purpose. Fellswood had just launched our landing page product and we were experimenting with 1-2 week development time. This project had all the right characteristics fit well with this offering: a solid, organized foundation of content and one clear Call-to-Action (book some time).
With Tiana, we created a color palette for the site. We were going for calming colors that would help to bring some personality to a fairly minimal design.
With the color palette in hand, we set up a new WordPress install and started migrating and organizing content. We improved the color contrast of the headshot on the site and used a few simple visual graphics to help direct users eyes to our main call-to-action buttons.
We reviewed the site with Tiana and made a few final changes and launched the site on time.
Results and Impact:
After the site launch, Tiana blasted the new site out to her social network and received positive feedback. The site has had steady traffic and has all the pieces in place for expansion and growth as Tiana grows her business.
In Tiana’s words: “That was almost TOO easy! Jen was great to work with. She asked insightful questions and helped me think about what I want for my website right now as well as how my website might grow as my business grows. Very glad I made this investment in my business – my site looks clean and professional – a BIG improvement over the DIY version I started with. Worth it!”
As Tiana has needed to update her site post-launch, to add new testimonials for example, she has reported that updating has been super easy and she appreciates the convenience of being able to handle these changes on her own without having to contact Fellswood Creative every time. This is yet another benefit of using a very user-friendly platform to build on, especially for budget conscious small business owners.
Lessons Learned and Best Practices:
One of the key understandings from this work has been that, oftentimes, what someone needs in the early stages of their business is quite simple and straightforward. In this case, that is a single-page website, introducing the person/company and giving clear instructions for contacting. In this case, and as a practice, Fellswood Creative will make it standard practice to prepare sites for growth at this early stage with a few simple plugins and setup details.
Preparing a web property for growth can happen on any website building platform, however, we still feel WordPress and its modular nature allows for growth in almost any direction will remain our website management system of choice where possible.
A Final Word
It was a real pleasure to work with Tiana to craft a website she is happy with, which feels like it represents her and the work she does. Her ability to expand easily with her existing site will only grow as her business grows with few, if any, limits.
Tiana feels confident sharing her site with her networks and traffic is slowly but steadily increasing. Upgrading from her DIY setup was an appropriate next step and we were thrilled to help with the project along with helping to visualize and realize her logo mark for use as her presence as a consultant grows.
An Invitation
If you’re at the early phases of exploring consulting, a website can offer a space where potential clients can learn more about you, they can read testimonials/case studies and build their confidence that you are the right choice to collaborate with them or their business, and to get clear next steps they can take to get in touch and explore working together. If you’d like to chat about this to see whether you need a website at this stage, book a free call with Jen to get some clarity.