Case Study: Farmers Market Squarespace Website
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How I Revitalized Hollywood Farmers Market's Website in Two Weeks with a Vibrant Design and Easy Navigation
Overview
The Hollywood Farmers Market in Portland, OR, was in a tough spot when their old website crashed.
They couldn't update it, share weekly news & updates, collect donations, grow their newsletter, or even refresh the look and feel. In short, they were stuck. They needed a new site that was fresh and inviting, easy to navigate, and simple for the team to update. They also wanted to spotlight local vendors, musicians, and nonprofits.
That's when they found me.
One of their board members, an acquaintance of mine, reached out, knowing I had experience with quick and client-centric Squarespace webs designs. They were looking for someone who could understand their vision and deliver a fast turnaround, and I was excited to take on the challenge.
Objectives and Project Scope
The Farmers Market’s goals with their new website were to:
Create a welcoming design that reflects the market's lively, community-based atmosphere.
Make the site super easy to use for vendors, visitors, and volunteers.
Improve online visibility and make updates easy for the market team.
My Approach and Design Process
Website Strategy
From the website brief and brand questionnaire, I created a personalized 15-page website strategy presentation for them, including:
Brand Mission
Target Audience
Four Ideal Client Avatars
Customer Insights
Website Strategy
Custom Sitemap
Key Features to Include on the Website
Brand Board with Colors and Fonts
The purpose of the website strategy is to get clarity on their goals, audience, audience’s goals - and how to build a website that meets all of those goals together.
Content Guides
To help the Hollywood Farmers Market team maintain a clear and consistent message across their website, I provided comprehensive content guides and worksheets, including:
Content Structure Worksheets: These worksheets helped plan the content for each page, making sure the layout and messaging were consistent. They included suggestions for headlines, subheadings, and key points, making it easier for the team to write and organize their content.
SEO Content Guidelines: This guide offered tips on writing content that is good for search engines. It covered best practices for using keywords naturally, writing meta descriptions, and keeping the style readable and engaging.
Custom Design
I designed a brand new completely custom Squarespace site for the Hollywood Farmers Market in just two weeks. The design is clean, bright, and welcoming, with key strategic pages like:
For Vendors
For Visitors
For Volunteers
Donate
Hiring
About
SEO Optimization
I always prioritize optimizing my clients' websites for SEO. IMO, it’s one of the cornerstone foundations of a strategic website.
For these clients, I focused on several key areas:
Image Optimization: Resized and compressed images to make the website load faster. I also added descriptive alt text to each image, which helps search engines like Google understand the content and makes the site more accessible.(Read more about How to Optimize Images in Squarespace)
Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: I wrote clear and specific title tags and meta descriptions for each page. This helps search engines know what each page is about and encourages people to click on the site in search results.
Headings and Content Structure: Organized the content with clear headings (like H1, H2, H3, H4, P1, P2, P3). This helps search engines understand the site, helps screen readers easily read the page, and makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
Accessibility Improvements: I made sure the site followed best practices for accessibility. This included using proper HTML tags, good color contrast, and making the site easy to use with a keyboard. These changes help everyone use the site and can also improve SEO rankings.
I’ve written about accessibility in web design a few times. Check out all those blog posts here.
Training Tutorials
I provided personalized training videos and tutorials so the market team could easily update and manage the site. I use Loom to create specialized videos, reviewing how to do specific things that my clients need. I find this is so much easier than trying to explain something over email. Plus, these videos are available to everyone on the team, so they can always refer back to them when needed.
Results
We successfully launched the new website within the two-week timeframe.
The vibrant on-brand design and easy navigation received positive feedback from vendors, visitors, and volunteers.
Improved online visibility, with the site now optimized for search engines and mobile devices.
The market team gained the ability to independently manage and update the site, thanks to the training provided.
Client Feedback
“Absolutely love how simple and clean the site is. It looks great on mobile! The icon pack that you found is perfect, and I can't get over how perfectly you fit them to HFM's values.
You went above and beyond to capture the feel of the Market and reflect it in our website. All of our audiences can now quickly and easily navigate the website to find what they need and to get them to market!
Plus, the immediate response to any questions or concerns made it much less stressful. I was amazed at how fast the new website was built!"
I helped the Hollywood Farmers Market create a user-friendly, vibrant, and accessible website that reflects their community spirit.
This project was such a blast to work on! It was a big project, but we were able to successfully launch a site the board was thrilled with, in just two weeks.
Need to get your professional, client-attracting website live in just 1-2 weeks, with a smooth, collaborative process that captures your vision perfectly? Get in touch!
