SBDC Columbus

Ease of use on both the front and back end.

Technologies: Crocoblock, Display Eventbrite Events, Elementor, Gravity Forms, WordPress, WP Notification Bars

Services: Content Strategy, Design, Development, Project Management, Site Building, Website Redesign

The Challenge

Helping businesses thrive

The Ohio Small Business Development Centers at Columbus State Community College (SBDC Columbus) was in need of a website redesign. Their first objective was to have a more intuitive and visually appealing navigation and layout. This would make for a better user experience. Their second objective involved ease of use on the backend, including needing more layout options when building pages. Their old layout was restrictive, making it difficult to update pages the way they wanted to. And finally, they needed the ability to highlight important announcements. SBDC helps support businesses in the community by providing one-on-one advising, business training, and a variety of other resources. Because of this, the site needed to be informative and easy to navigate, making it simple for users to find exactly what they were looking for.

The Process

A two-part project

The first part of the project was time sensitive. They needed help building a temporary landing page. This page would guide users to a COVID-19 relief grant opportunity where they could apply for funding for their business. Our team designed a fresh page with information laid out in an organized manner, edited the copy, and optimized for SEO to help people find it. That work paid off. Even though the page was temporary, with an application deadline, SBDC received over 60 applications within the first 3 hours! In fact, they received so many applications that they needed to close the page after 48 hours – well before the deadline!

The next phase was addressing the website as a whole.

Our content team conducted a content audit, giving guidance on functionality, layout, and the overall navigation and presentation of information, keeping ease of use in mind. Our design team created and built a clean, uncluttered design, giving the site a fresh, updated look, and thus making the information presented easier to digest. And our development team worked to optimize some of the more custom elements of the site, including their events page, which is an important part of how SBDC helps provide information and training to the community. We also installed Elementor and conducted training with SBDC, addressing ease of use and providing more template options on the backend for their staff.