The Super Town of Albion Revitalization organization, better known as the Albion S.T.A.R. Team, has a mission I care about. It is, essentially, my home town's "Main Street" organization, led by a group of volunteers who work hard to make the downtown square a community meeting place and a thriving commercial center.
My interest was first peaked when my husband and I purchased a downtown building. We moved into the third floor apartment and opened an art gallery. My husband, a multi-faceted artist who primarily enjoys creating original oils on canvas, opened Noble Art Gallery on the first floor and maintained a studio on the second floor. As downtown business owners we took an interest in activities that might help bring more people through the gallery's doors.
Fast forward a few years, and although the gallery closed for reasons not solely related to lack of traffic, I found myself working exclusively in economic development at the Noble County Economic Development Corporation (EDC). My job as Marketing Director allows me to consistently look through a lens of "best practices" at how companies and organizations are using digital technology to enhance their efforts - or perhaps are not yet doing so.
When I reached out as a new volunteer to assist the S.T.A.R. Team, I did so noting the organization's website had not been updated for quite some time. I was learning more about what the mission is, who is involved, etc., and noticed the site did not reflect the progress the organization has made in our town. My offer to do some updating was met with an enthusiastic "yes" and, upon receiving the credentials, updating I did!
About a year passed when the organization's board president let me know the website editing platform on which the S.T.A.R. Team's site was built was about to go through a major overhaul and the domain name would be expiring soon. He noted this might be an ideal time to launch a new website - and I agreed!
The S.T.A.R. Team became my first paid client under my new company, Catchy Creations LLC. It could not be more fitting to have a small, non-profit group with admirable ambitions be the first chance I get as a small business owner to do good work and help transform the community I love!
Here is how the S.T.A.R. Team website looked in February.
BEFORE:
The new site went live in late March 2021.
AFTER:
The key design change to the Albion S.T.A.R. Team website was the choice to make the home page really highlight the beauty and opportunities available in town. Information pertaining to the organization itself were moved to other pages in order to make the website more appealing to the people S.T.A.R. Team hopes to engage.
In an effort to really increase the promotion of downtown businesses, an entirely new section was added to encourage site visitors to "Explore" Albion and to engage in doing business here:
The project came in at under $1,000 from start to finish, including a full year of website hosting services.
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