Julie Schafer is a travel planning expert who started her journey to a new website because she needed private pages, custom forms and the ability to take deposits from group travel and wedding / honeymoon clients. You can visit her site here.
Julie had a clear vision of both her brand identity / logo and her website. Ann at Marketing Acuity helped her zero in on her must-have features and crafted a collaborative scope of work that involved training Julie while also developing her website. This means Julie is part of the process of crafting her own site, and has the skills now to manage and maintain it. Because Julie will need to create custom pages, forms and deposits on her own as she works with her own group travel clients, learning how to do this from the very beginning is a smart way to develop her own site.
We looked at several platforms, including SquareSpace and WordPress, but Julie decided WordPress was the best fit for her. Ann set up her server, installed a theme that matched Julie’s vision and scheduled interactive training sessions to build the site. Julie’s homework was to insert her copy, images and content on her own site, while Ann worked to customize features and code for Julie’s ExploreTravelbyDesign.com site.
Ann and Julie also discussed ideal URLs (important in a competitive, crowded marketplace) and selected two, a primary URL and one including her name, with a domain pointer on the latter. A lot of potential clients might remember her name with “travel”, go searching for her, find her by the URL that is similar, with a redirect to Travel By Design, where her website actually lives.
Project details:
- WordPress platform
- Theme: Ascendant Pro
- Features: Custom easy form development with deposit features: WPForms Plus
- Built in blocks editor for design & layout
- Custom logo design
- Custom pages for all clients, protected with a private URL or a password (built in)
Independent travel planners need to have their own websites, and their own social media accounts to work with their clients’ unique travel options.
Group travelers have packages, options to select room types and pay deposits, and can do so from easy-to-use tools that any travel pro can manage. This win-win of both serving Julie’s needs and her client’s needs offers her a successful way to grow her business!
