Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce
Since 1906, the Greater Olean Area Chamber of Commerce has been the leading business organization in the greater Olean area. They are the Southern Tier’s largest business organization. As such, their work includes lobbying local and state leaders, developing programs, enhancing workforce development, and working to support the small business owners, large corporate entities, non-profit organizations, manufacturers, and residents.
But the organization’s website didn’t match its stature as a pillar of the greater Olean area. An outdated design was the least of its problems. The site was difficult to navigate and even harder for the Chamber’s small team to update. Worse, the site wasn’t mobile-responsive, a deficiency that not only reduced its visibility on search engines but made it difficult for visitors to find the information they needed while on-the-go.
I made sure they got the presence they deserved.
Kind Words
“The Chamber worked with Kristen on a complete overhaul of our website—it was a great experience. Kristen is very knowledgeable, asks the right questions to gauge what the customer actually needs, very thorough in everything, and very patient with staff with training.”
The Before
This is a screenshot of the Chamber’s home page, taken in October 2021. Exposed brick only looks good in homes and offices.
A Redesigned Website
I brought the Chamber’s website to WordPress. Using the Divi Builder, I created a custom design that includes presets—pre-installed settings for elements like buttons, hero images, paragraph text, and headlines. The presets not only make updating the site easier for a small staff of people with no coding or development experience, but they ensure that every element will be brand-aligned.
The new design also includes custom elements to accommodate a searchable Member Directory, the most important page on the site. Finally, I created a new sitemap for the site that makes information far easier to find by organizing it and making use of anchor tags to help visitors navigate.
The site is full of subtle animations, clear calls to action, and crisp copy that spotlights the Chamber’s important work on behalf of the community it serves.
