Category: CREATIVE FUTURES: Professional Practitioner (S5)

New website – check it out!

Check out my portfolio website –http://www.veronikalesnakova.co.uk/

If you like what you see and you have a project in mind then I’m happy to hear from you.

The final evaluation

The project has been a challenge in many ways starting from find a client, arranging clients meetings, time management, designs, working with a client and customising the designs according to needs of a client and finally using two different frameworks together to create the final product. All of that has been extremely challenging but as the project proved, everything was well managed and the client is happy with the product which is the most important thing.

Choosing WordPress and Foundation to create fully dynamic website for the client was a good decision as it allowed learning in wide area. These two frameworks are completely different the way layout and files are structured and learning how it is all managed and how it works together had to be done. WordPress is complex and powerful content management system and this project showed that it can be used for more than blogging. There are many different ways of using WordPress and for this project, creating own theme had to be done. Foundation is front end framework that has mobile first approach which allowed better understanding of how responsive websites are done. Pinegrow web editor was used to build static version of the website which then got converted into dynamic WordPress site.

Involvement with community of practice was done throughout the full project as these two frameworks were never used before and there were a lot of problems along the way. However, involvement in communities of practice allowed to expand on methods of independent problem solving which will be useful for future.

This project allowed to get a feel of what it is like to be a freelancer and deal with clients on one to one basis. Also it provided valuable experiences in trying to explain technical matter to people that know nothing about this subject.

Overall, the project was success in every aspect and a lot of learning took the place. The client is happy with the final product and it will go live in next two weeks.

 

Client’s evaluation

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Kingston BC Webpage

My name is Samantha Sullivan BSc and I am club secretary for Kingston Boxing Club. I am writing on behalf of the club to give reference for Veronika Lesnakova.

We are based on Hessle High Road in the Old Whaling Museum premises. Our registered charity commission number is above. We teach amateur boxing skills and run fitness classes to and for the local community. We are an affiliated boxing club, our governing body being England Boxing. This enables our members to compete in bouts and championships locally and nationally. We also offer dietary and nutritional advice to promote healthy living. Along with this we in still life skills such as discipline, self confidence, manners and general respect for others. We encourage social interaction between members from all different backgrounds.

We keep people fit, healthy and active. We hold boxing shows and events regularly where all the community can view and participate in what we do. We currently train both genders from 5 years old up to open age. We have nearly 200 members and over 2000 facebook followers. We believe this is fantastic for a local community club, run solely by a team of volunteers, who all have jobs and families to run. We are showing continuous growth and development as the years go on, and we are confident this will continue into the future. We have members from disadvantaged backgrounds and different social, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Non members benefit from the shows we put on for community entertainment.

We improve the local environment because our facility offers a hub for all different groups of people, who want to focus on something positive and learn something new. We help give people peace of mind. We can also benefit people by improving the well being of those experiencing exclusion or prejudice within the community. We remain accessible to everyone by keeping subs to a minimum. The whole community can benefit from what we do.

When Veronika approached me and asked if she could create a web page for our club, we were happy to consider the idea. She was polite, enthusiastic, and wanted to help. When taking into account how popular our current Facebook page is, and how we are continuously growing, we decided an active webpage would be a great opportunity to expand and move forward even further. Whilst dealing with Veronika throughout her project, she has been vivid with her vision for the site, and thorough with her explanations.

She has also been understanding and accommodating when taking into account what we want to achieve from the website, and how we plan to use it. As volunteers with limited technology knowledge, she understood straight away we need a site that is simple to manage, but effective. She has been flexible and patient when requiring information and meetings from us also.

Now Veronika has informed us her project is nearly complete, we have asked that she give us a lesson in how to edit and manage the page. She agreed straight away and is happy to help with this. We look forward to seeing how the page will help the club become even more established, and what advantages it will bring to us and our members.

Yours Faithfully

Samantha Sullivan
Kingston BC

Reflection on the last client meeting

Purpose of the last client meeting was to show the final design of the website to the client and also go through functionality of back-end. One to one tutorial on how to manage the content of the website has been explained thoroughly and all questions followed have been answered so the client has no concerns for the future.

The client is happy with the design of the website but also with content management system and thinks that it is simply to use and straight forward, which was one of the requirements for this project. This was important because the client’s technical abilities are not at high level.

The client’s concerns were how to log in to CMS which was thoroughly explained and agreed to create a document with all URL links and information needed to log in to admin of CMS. Another concern was hosting and domain side of the project which has been tried to sort out for quite a long time because the club already has hosting and domain but it is managed by private person and contacting will need to be done. The client was assured that hosting and domain side of the project will be dealt with and sorted. Also, explanation of how hosting and domain providers work was provided.
Advice not to use mobile phones to take photos for the club’s website was suggested and explained why to the client, but instead of mobile phones use professional camera for better quality photos. However, the client will continue taking photos with mobile phones as all members of staff take photos and then upload them to Facebook fan page. All that can be done is to suggest better way of doing things to the client and it is up to the client if it will put it in practice.

Overall, the client is happy with the full website both back-end and front-end and it has been agreed to go live within next two weeks.

SEO – XML sitemap

XML site maps are there for Google to easier orientate in pages of your website. This helps with SEO.
There is sitemap generator called XML-sitemap generator that automatically generates sitemap.

This is the main page of this sitemap generator. Simply add full URL of the website and click ‘Start’.

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Sitemap is ready to be used –

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Follow the instructions that are provided.

Download the site map and put the file in root folder. In Webmaster account open ‘Sitemaps option’ and press on ‘Add sitemap’. Then type name of the file and submit sitemap.

tracking code

That is all.

At the moment there is an error message. All recommended adjustments were made however error message is still there. Luckily, the sitemap is still pending in process window therefore decision to wait 24 hours has been made to see if the sitemap works. This is because both Webmaster tool and Google Analytics accounts have just been created.

SEO – Google Webmaster Tools

Google webmaster tools is a tool that helps to find out if the website is easy to find in Google search, check errors in the website for easier fix to make the website appears in Google search results in high place.

Google account is needed in order to access this tool.

Webmaster tools helps to check if users link to pages of the website and how often the website appears in Google search results. This way it is possible to find out what pages of website are mostly visited by users and focus on most visited ones. Good feature of Webmaster tools is that if there is any issue with website, it will automatically send an e-mail to make the admin aware of existing problems.

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Click here to visit the site.

Setting up an account

As mentioned above, Google account is needed to sign in. After logging in, add website that requires to be tracked and it will ask for verification. Simple press on ‘Verify now’.

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Another page will provide all information needed to verification of the website. Recommended method is safer way to go. Follow instructions and click ‘Verify’

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After clicking ‘Verify’, successful verification of ownership.

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This is working screen –

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At the moment, dashboard is empty as it just been created. The admin automatically received e-mail providing more information on what to do next –

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The next step is to add site map for easier orientation of Google in the website witch helps with SEO.