Crib Cafe

Crib Cafe is located in Riverton, New Zealand and has some seriously good food and coffee.

The design from the site was really fun to think about and implement as the owners have a great sense of style and are great personalities in their own right. This gave me alot of free reign and ideas in terms of design.

Functionality wise the site is fairly simple, it allows the client to edit the banner image and contact information easily. It does however, have two new cool features,

1. The location map (Google Maps) has a custom style to it which sets it apart from the generic colour scheme and location pins of most Google Maps. The design was so funky and custom that I couldn't use a generic design for the map too.
2. It also allows the client to edit the particular menu items shown including allowing the user to create entirely new menus as well as edit items (price and description) of existing menus.

It is run on Silverstripe software which is well known for its capabilities as a CMS to allow the owners to easily edit their food menus etc without the help (and cost) of a developer.

On top of designing and building this site in Silverstripe I also,

1. Bought several URLS (which all point to the same site) and changed their Name Server details to point to the host,
2. Set up hosting and uploaded the site to the host.

You can view the site here, Crib Cafe 

Home Page Design, I wanted it to be funky and surf related. The logo was already existing and matches the off the wall design. Riverton is a surf town so the surf image was appropriate and accurate to the identity of the cafe and town itself.

Custom design Google Map from Snazzy Maps - includes a directions link that will open up Google Maps and navigate you to Crib Cafe.

Example of a CMS editable menu - as a new menu is created the site can be updated after logging into the CMS.

The Home Page at mobile size (iPhone6/7/8)

The Cafes opening hours also at mobile - can be edited in CMS as desired.

The menu at mobile size - easily readable.

Pacrim Post Blog Site

I am currently in the process of baking up this fresh new site ... stay tuned for details.

The Meeting Place Cusco

NOTE: This business has since removed the site from server but I leave it here as a demonstration of the things I've done in the past. It happens:)

I came across this cafe and volunteer organisation while travelling in Peru and noticed that they had an old site which had become infected with viruses.

My job was to remove the viruses and rebuild the site with a pre-existing design. In this case I created the theme from this custom design and put it into Silverstripe CMS.

Silverstripe was well suited to the job as it can take any front end theme (a collection of front end code) and make a theme out of it. On top of that Silverstripe framework and CMS allow any part of the design to be editable by a non developer in the future. Making it so is part of a discussion I had with the client in the beginning of the project so I could make the necessary aspects editable but once that is done its editable easily in the future. As such any design can be turned into a Silverstripe site.

This site is also hosted on my own server space providing free SSL Certification (the 'https' bit of a URL) and free email account and web mail account online to manage your inbox.

Banner Image: The design called for a large attractive image on most pages. Silverstripe CMS allows a user to add and remove any image the User wants. If you have the image on your computer you can easily add it here.

Home Page: The design called for custom images from their various projects. Each one links to a page on the site. The client wanted to be able to change the page which these images link to on the site in the future and also change the images. With Silvers

Page Content: Add in your own content and images - change and edit at will.

Footer: Editable content details via the CMS. If the hours change in the future the CMS user can change these on the website easily too.

Paradise Ziplines

Paradise Ziplines is a new tour operator in Queenstown, New Zealand.

I designed and built this site with the concept of a sales funnel in mind. I also knew that this site should be very image based. As such I focussed the design on a home page which was impressive in terms of images but also was uncluttered and has obvious links to the smaller end of the funnel, ie the tour pages.

With these points in mind I created an image slider on the home page, used an auto writer to display info without taking up too much real estate and provided obvious buttons to booking and tour pages.

As with many tour companies Reviews are very important. I created a CMS where the staff at Paradise Ziplines can enter real client review info from Trip Advisor. These are displayed in various places around the site but also used to give Structured Data review information that can be read by various search engines so that these reviews (including ratings can be seen in search results). This sets out Paradise Ziplines from other tour companies before a user has even entered the website.

The client, as usual with Silverstripe, can edit various content, FAQs, tour information and images.

I was very happy with the site and after being in the public eye for over a year now the sales funnel has proven itself to work well.

The site also gets alot of contact form submissions as well related to bookings so the user experience is very practical as well.

You can see the site here, Paradise Ziplines

Home Page - image dominant background slider. Simple sales funnel and basic price info (ie the buttons) leading users deeper into the site.

Tour page including real client reviews and ratings and tour map - all images on page can be viewed in a pop up style gallery also. Review data is also duplicated in Structured Data so they will show up in search engine results in Google, Bing etc.

A page just for reviews. They can be entered by a CMS user and then are displayed around the site in various places.

FAQ page with expandable questions and answers.

Example of a Gallery Page that can hold videos or images in a pop up style overlay.

Example of Mobile Menu - clear and easy navigation at mobile. Mobile traffic is on par if not very similar with desktop in many sites now.

Example of gallery image in pop up style overlay. Looks good and is usable even at mobile.

Wachaque Surf Hostel

NOTE: This business has since removed the site from server but I leave it here as a demonstration of the things I've done in the past. It happens:)

Wachaque Surf is a hostel in Huanchaco, La Libertad, Peru. Huanchaco is a small surf town on the Gringo Trail. Famous for its traditional reed boats and a super consistent left hand beach break.

I created a website for them based on a theme (front end template) that I have produced over the last few months. This theme is designed to get leads by combining the ability to attract Google Seach traffic and designing with a Sales Funnel in mind. Huanchaco is a town with great opportunities to rank in Google because it doesn't have al lot of great information out there already about it. It's a niche waiting for somebody to take hold of. Wachaque Surf Hostel now has the oppotunity to do this.

Specifically the theme has the potential to generate a lot of leads in two main ways. 

• 1) It has a blog so that the owners of Wachaque surf can generate their own content to attract Google search users to their site. On top of this I wrote an initial blog on Huanchaco - it's surf, food and things to do their as a traveler. This was a long peice based on my own experiences there and based on a 'how to' post I wrote on writing content for search engines. You can read the tips here (22 tips to write great blog posts) and you can view the blog I wrote for them here.
• 

  An example of the Blog Design on Wachaque Surf Hotes's website

• 2) After giving them the ability to get some traffic the next thing for me to focus on was to convert this traffic into leads. To achieve this I used my experience in the travel industry to add 'Call to Action' butttons. The idea here is that after a user has read the content they can quickly click a button to either learn more about what they offer or book a room quickly through a link to Trip Advisor. These users would quite likely be wanting to go to Huanchaco and as as such Wachaque Surf Hostel is well placed to offer them the services they need when they arrive.
• 

  Call to Action (in blue) Buttons that convert blog traffic to leads.

I also created a contact page with Google Maps and contact form as well as a booking button (to Trip Advisor) and a Gallery page so they can display what Huanchaco looks like (lots of beautiful sunsets) and what the facilities and rooms look like.

Prana Pacifico

NOTE: This business has since removed the site from server but I leave it here as a demonstration of the things I've done in the past. It happens:)

Prana Pacifico Eco Lodge and Retreats

Prana Pacifico is on the remote Colombian Pacific Coast near Nuqui and is nestled in one of the most biodiverse places on earth and has some world class surfing.

This area of the coast is not well served by information in Google and as such I thought I could help them.

What did I do for them?

Content Creation

I utilised my knowledge of keyword research and SEO to write articles on the area they are in to attract users and hence clients for their accommodation and retreat style services.

This entailed doing keyword research in Google (based on suggested search terms and related searches info in Google Search) to understand what people (largely tourists) were searching for related to the area.

It is obvious from the research that Prana Pacifico had a very good opportunity to take hold of some of the search results as for some results the information was old and not very accurate.

Based on this research I wrote 10 articles on the area. I will give you some examples at the end of this article.

Sales Funnel

I created several buttons which triggered enquiry forms. These were placed strategically in blogs with relevant content. For example, in the blog about 'Best places to stay near Nuqui' we describe Prana Pacifico accommodation as well as other options and in this we places a button which triggers a form which allows a user to enquire about booking a room.

Figure one below shows the button (created with standard HTML) and figure 2 below shows the Form which is triggered (created using Pop Up Maker and Contact form 7 plugins) and the fields which are required to make the enquiry. Enquiries are emailed to the owner who will organise the booking.

NOTE: One benefit of this is that there is no commission involved in getting leads like this as there are from bookin.com (at least 14% commission) for example.

Figure 1. Example of a button as part of a sales funnel style design

Figure 2. Example of a enquiry form triggered form which sends an enquiry to the be booked and paid for.

Measurement

The measurement of success of the blogs is being handled by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to track each time a form is submitted (Google Recaptcha to decrease the chance of bots submitting the forms). This will allow the owners to understand their conversion rate (users who translate to people who fill in forms).

These blog posts will take approximately 6 months to get to the full potential (close tot he amount of people they will be seen by based on its rank in Google Search results) but will rank in google within a few days.

Closing the loop

In the coming months I will monitor traffic on the site and use the measurement methods above to gauge which posts are most popular and which ones gain the most enquiries. Watch this space as I report back in several months time on the results of the blog posts in terms of page views and leads.

Examples of blog posts I wrote for Prana Pacifico

• - Best places to stay near Nuqui, Choco, Colombia
• - How to get to Nuqui from the USA and Spain
• - Where and how to surf near Nuqui, Colombia
• - Trip and Activity expenses for Nuqui, Colombia
• - How to get to Nuqui, Colombia
• - Is it safe near Nuqui, Colombia

Tupperware New Zealand

I have been involved with Tupperware NZL since late 2020. Tupperware NZL has a large and loyal customer base and a very specific business model which requires a lot of custom coding by myself and our small team of developers to maintain.

As a result I have become very familiar with how to customize WordPress including its Theme/Child Theme pattern, creating custom plugins, customising existing plugins and keeping its speed maintained given over 100 plugins.

My role on project ranges from project management, spec development and execution of coding tasks.

There is a small developer team also where we use GIT processes to manage our code.

Much of the site is mobile optimized including the front end sales pages (shop, product, checkout and cart and other public facing pages) but also more complex business admin pages which are behind a login (where sales people manage their sales for example).

Tupperware NZL currently maintains a 3% conversion rate which is at the top end of the e-commerce average and there are plans to increase this with Frontity Web App Technology.

Frontity is a WordPress framework for creating REACT JS Web Apps and will provide a much more seamless UI for users as well as speed advantages all while keeping the data and CMS of WordPress.

Better Developer Docs

Better Development Docs is a blog with an end destination as a 'monetized CV' of sorts. The blog content is based on my learnings as a professional developer. This content can then be monetized via Advertising, Affiliate Marketing and Paid Courses in related areas.

It's in its early days at the moment but the basic business model is to write content which is highly correlated to Google Search Phrases for those in the developer community (especially WordPress being the most popular) as a way to garner views. The more views the more it can be monetised.

It currently has less than 30 pieces of content but when there is 90 or more (and given about a years time through early to mid 2023) there is easily potential to make (via private Ad Networks) $1000 USD p/month. As the site gets towards 30k views per month affiliate and source income also becomes possible.

In addition the design uses a customised blog theme which has had alterations made in order to optimize the written content in Google Search Results. Specifically,

• Addition of Google Schema to each page which allows Google to better understand (and therefore present the sites content to relevant users)
• Custom Blog Template which sets a specific pattern of content to each post which is known to rank well in Google given recent algorithmic knowledge (bolded intro for snippet results in Google Search, in page menu links, YT link, code blocks and easily readable sections for example). Technically these are not difficult but they provide a highly Google Search friendly template for each piece of content.
• SEO basics like redirecting all versions (www, non-www, http and https) of the site to the https, non-www version.