Blogger Jessica Segarra wanted a new look for her site, The Novice Chef, that was eye-catching and made it easy for readers to find what they’re looking for. She wanted people to be able to save their favorite recipes, purchase her ebooks and easily sign up for her newsletter. It was also important that the new site offered this kind of custom functionality without sacrificing speed.
Digital Strategy & SEO: Because Jessica is an ongoing SEO client we already had deep knowledge of her brand and audience. This information was brought into her project, ensuring that the new site we developed matched her vision and resonated with her audience.
Website Design: We created custom icons that represent Jessica’s top categories, updated her logo and then worked closely with her to create a warm design that invites readers to learn more about her recipes. The homepage makes it easy to see her latest posts and also quickly dig deeper into her category archives.
Custom Programming: The Novice Chef includes functionality such as the ability for readers to save their favorite recipes and also create their own recipe collections on the fly. For example, a reader can create a “Breakfast” collection and a “Dinner Ideas” collection, then sort recipes accordingly. When readers sign up for an account, that sign up process integrates with the MailChimp API so that they can sign up for her newsletter at the same time.
The Novice Chef also has enhanced search functionality such as type ahead features that automatically guess what someone is searching for on the site, a filterable recipe index and automatic sub category navigation on her category archives.
Pagespeed: The new website is fast and highly optimized, which makes it possible to score an A or B in every GT Metrix category despite having ads on the site.
I am really excited to share that I have a brand new website design! Check it out on desktop to really see it shine! If you have never had a custom website design done, it’s a pretty big deal. It’s like getting a fancy brand new car, with all the bells and whistles! I worked with Swift Horse Marketing and can not recommend them enough if you are looking for a designer/developer team!
