Backstage at the 10-Day Website Makeover

Written by Jaren Green | 04 March 2010

In response to those who think our 10-Day Makeover is too fast or too shallow, here's a quick look behind the scenes...

1. The Makeover idea was born on Feb. 18, 2010. The purpose was to jump-start a select group of websites. The buzz is focused around 10 days, but the actual work starts a few weeks before and continues for months.

2. There are six current members of the Makeover Team with combined experience of more than 80 years. We are marketers, writers, webmasters, SEO consultants, designers, usability analysts, business architects, and salespeople. Watch for more information about our Workforce in mid March.

3. Is there drama behind the scenes for this first Makeover? Yes: hosting issues, team members and clients traveling, first-time jitters, social media changing the game, all team members are virtual, and not enough hours in the day!

4. Speed comes from process. Above all else, we are process junkies. We started early by putting analytics on most of the old sites. We used the statistics (along with individual client meetings) to develop functionality plans for each website. The discipline behind this planning comes from years of process mapping. We are familiar with the core on-line best practices and apply them liberally. We may skip over a few things for the jump start, but we promise to cover all the bases before this is through.

5. We don't behave like artists. We called this thing a makeover, but the "look" of a website is not our focus. There are ugly websites out there that make money and pretty ones that never get visited. We like websites that make money.

6. The maintenance and improvement of a website is important to us. We plan for future updates based on client resources, skills, and personality. Thousands of small companies are stuck with a website that does not fit them. They cannot update it and get very little value from it. Our goal is to provide a long-term solution for the future success of a company.