Red Feather Development Group
- Using traffic data from Red Feather's website, we optimized their homepage to drive new visitors to most important sections of the site.
- By integrating Paypal with Red Feather's merchandise page, Red Feather supporters can purchase merchandise and give donations through a simple online form.
- Red Feather has seen a ~20% increase in traffic since launching the new site as a result of several Search Engine Optimization tweaks.
Overview:
Red Feather Development Group (RFDG) is a nonprofit doing amazing work with sustainable housing programs on the Hopi and Northern Cheyenne reservations. Founded by Robert Young over 16 years ago, Red Feather assembles volunteer teams from around the world to raise a straw bale home in twenty-eight days. Homeowners and the community are directly involved with the construction as well.
Challenge:
Red Feather's current website was impossible for them to update. Everything from swapping out project photos to pushing recent news announcements required a 3rd party to be involved for editing the code. In addition, the nonprofit had world-class media attention and press mentions ranging from Oprah to Dwell magazine to be organized and called out. Finally, care had to be given to the corporate sponsors with heavy-hitters like Stanley and Moen.
Solution:
On a site redesign, Digital Wax Works starts with collecting data. We began with installing Google Analytics to get a sense of what the traffic to the website was doing and where people were getting lost on the site. From here, we worked on simplifying the navigation to make it easier for users to move through the website. We also streamlined the volunteer process by making applications available online, installing a shopping cart for accepting donations and buying merchandise, and finally integrating Flickr, YouTube and Facebook icons across the site.
We also put together a custom Flash slideshow with the Red Feather trailer being able to be viewed right off the homepage. (Preliminary meetings revealed a trailer video of Red Feather's work narrated by none other than Robert Redford and soundtrack by former RFDG board member Stone Gossard along with Pearl Jam - a gold mine for a redesign web project.)
Results:
Employees have full control over the site's content and photos from recent builds are being uploaded to Flickr and pulled automatically onto the site's project pages. Most importantly, Red Feather's Board of Directors was thrilled with the site's redesign and improved functionality. Traffic is up and more people are learning about the good work this innovative nonprofit is doing.
"Red Feather Development Group has worked with several different web-designers in the attempt to develop our new site, but none of these groups were able to deliver a product that worked with our organization, our members or our corporate sponsors. The crew at Digital Wax Works did a fantastic job of updating our site's design, integrating a shopping cart, and providing our staff with all the tools and training necessary to manage the site ourselves. All of this was done on time and on budget, which is a rarity in today’s business climate." - Robert Young, Executive Director
