Website Redesign: Pharaoh Scents

This client sells aromatherapy sprays made with essential oils. The feel of the new site was to be very slick and atmospheric, fully themed with the product line.

While not the worst website out there, it sure needed help. The sprawling white pages were too bright with little imagery to compliment the text. It was a design that worked with monitors available at the time of creation (i.e. 1024x768 or smaller), but with today's laptops and large desktop monitors, the dynamic layout was very strange looking.

The central work included nice clear recreations of the logo and other artwork, new product photos, and top-to-bottom code rewriting. It lacked even the simplest elements like H1 and ALT tags! This website had a full range of typical deficiencies, never mind SEO.

Online shopping will be added to the site in coming weeks, but the redesign is basically complete. Work will now continue towards improving the search rankings and driving traffic, with ongoing adjustments to the content and copywriting, as well as reaching out through social media. There are also several legitimate directories this company should be in that are specific to the products they sell.

Top-Ranking Success: Naylor Systems

Naylor Systems manufactures very high quality marine equipment like aluminum docks, boat lifts, roller ramps for boats, and much more.

They're a market leader in Ontario, with over 50 dealers selling their products. By virtue of their genuine popularity and credibility the website was actually ranking ok, the main issue was the look. Extra planning was needed to ensure smooth redirects from old pages, clear on-topic content, and continuing ranking success.

This was another tale of a site built by a prior employee and now outdated and not representative of their business. The photos were blurry, the layout confusing and inconsistent, product information was both old and not prioritized well, and the look was late-1990s at best. Not to mention the automated Flash slideshows with background music! I hadn't seen such a thing in years. I thought the internet was free of such insanity!

Many of the photos sent by the client were taken during a thunderstorm, with dark skies. And since this redesign was occurring in October and November (when people pack up their docks and equipment), there was no chance to get better pictures. Much time was spent to salvage these otherwise good photos.

The website really turned into an online sales brochure, focusing on the details of their products. A lot of information is provided, yet the site remains simple and easy to use. Some of this was accomplished by putting non-core information in pop-ups (using pure CSS, so they work even on Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP!). Great client, great business, and now a great new website with compliments coming in!