Coffee XTC

The Brief

Coffee XTC makes a regular appearance every Thursday at my local market in Axminster and over the years I’ve got to know the owner so we worked together to build a website he is proud of.

The old website

The old website consisted of a full-sized image slider behind the logo, phone number and email and did very little to promote the business.

Another issue was that the website lacked any form of navigation, and the only text was the main phone number and email which were actually embedded in an image so weren’t selectable. Against the white background it was also very hard to read.

Objectives for the new website

The primary goal for the new website was to create useful content for visitors such as dates and times online, or any information about the business. The website also needed to promote information about upcoming events and booking information for wedding catering.

As well as the primary goal, the website needed to fulfil the following points:

Content needs

• Where to find Coffee XTC
• What they sell
• History about the business / information
• Simple contact method

Technology needs

• Responsive on all devices (mobile, tablet, desktop)
• Findable on Google/optimised for search engines
• Accessible (font type, size, colour)
• Easy to update

On the technology side, I looked at what the site was on, which was Wix and decided that it made sense to keep using it based on the simplicity and the budget. Whist many of my website solutions are built using WordPress, I’ll always assess how the end product- the website- will fit the client’s requirements, expectations and budget.

How I developed an accessible colour scheme

I needed to create a simple colour scheme that matched the branding which I could use for the link colour, menu colour and headings. I did this by using a colour picker on the logo and horsebox:

Once I was happy with these colours, I used a free tool from Google to check the contrast ratio which informs you how easy it is to read text in this colour on a white background. Always aim for at least 1 green tick.

How I improved the SEO

As the original website was just a single page, there was no information for search engines to crawl so searching in google (or other search engines) didn’t produce any links to the website. For each of the new pages that I built, I added the primary search keyword, page description and thumbnail image for each page in the SEO settings.

Using keywords in the title and meta description

I also made a custom website favicon:

To build the templates I used a combination of a pre-made template in Wix with manually laying out the content using the guides to achieve a clean look.

The outcome

Coffee XTC is now on Google!

A search for “coffee xtc” now shows relevant and useful information:

..and even searching for a specific location, brought up the keyword “Axminster” in the Events and Bookings page.

This showcases the importance of SEO and how it can positively impact how people find your business.

We’re both really pleased with how the new website looks and it’s clear that with the SEO improvements Coffee XTC are much easier to find.