Project Spotlight: Central Iowa Fencing

Like many small business websites, Central Iowa Fencing’s website had been built years ago.

While the owners had attempted to maintain the site over the years, eventually they found themselves in need of some adjustments and to fix a few errors. Unfortunately, their shared server was running an outdated version of PHP and their WordPress website was still running on version 4.x resulting in instability, errors, and security risks.

My first step was to download a backup of their website for development on a remote server. This allowed their existing site to stay live while I worked on an identical copy to minimize down time.

From there, I installed a fresh version of WordPress onto my development build and imported existing pages, posts, and media for re-use. Doing so would populate my build with their existing content and reduce development time.

I opted to not import plugins, as the original site’s developer had downloaded numerous tools for optimization and design needs. Doing so was actually counter intuitive because many of the speed optimization plugins were redundant and adding bloat to load times.

By starting with a fresh slate, I was able to build nearly an identical site that used just 12 plugins that the prior site took 22 to accomplish. Additionally, the new site incorporates intuitive admin side features that make changes far easier for the end-user to handle on their own.

Next, I adjusted the old design to work better for mobile devices. Originally, the site’s theme was cutting off some content in the header and footer including important navigational links and their “Get a Live Quote” button when viewed on small screen sizes. Since the majority of internet use takes place using mobile phones these days, it is imperative to ensure the same functionality for mobile users exists as for desktop users.

Lastly, I accessed their shared GoDaddy web hosting plan using delegated access to update their PHP version before overwriting their existing website to push the new version live. After verifying everything worked correctly, I accessed the original site to review the original URL slugs (i.e. /locations/des-moines) and setup 301 redirects so users/search engines that attempted to access non-existent pages would be automatically forwarded to relevant new pages.

As a small business owner, you likely wear many hats, but if you’re in over your head with your website or curious if your website has room for improvement to grow your business, it’s probably time to entrust your website with 515Hosting’s web design & SEO services.