PRO PORTFOLIO / CASE STUDY
Website Redesign for a Chicago Small BusinessRe-imagining an outdated website for an established tattoo parlor and piercing shop.
Who?
Chitown Tattoo – a reputable and well-established tattoo and piercing shop in the heart of Chicago.
Why did they reach out?
Chitown Tattoo’s website was very outdated, with images the size of thumbnails; the site wasn’t mobile-friendly and lacked content. The website should look trustworthy, contemporary, and credible — especially with a creative business such as a tattoo shop.
Our findings
The website was not performing well in generating leads and having visitors reach out. The bounce rates were high, and the website was low on the Google Search totem pole.
The outdated design did not evoke trust in visitors – which is especially damaging for a business that creates something as personal and permanent as a tattoo!
Completed work
Keyword Research
I conducted keyword research for a pretty competitive industry in Chicago. Since ranking organically for vague keywords like “Tattoo shop Chicago” or “Best Chicago Tattoo” is difficult and takes time, we opted to instead rank for long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific keywords with a lower search volume but are easier to rank for. Example of a regular keyword: “Tattoo Shop Chicago” vs. long-tail keyword: “Best Tattoo Cover Up Chicago.”
Content revision
Once I compiled the list of keywords we wanted to rank for, I moved on to compiling questions for the owners, so they could create website content around what visitors care about.
We came up with a FAQ page that answers the most commonly asked questions:
- How long is the healing process?
- What documents do I need if I am under 18?
- How much does a tattoo or piercing cost?
- Can I go swimming after getting a tattoo? and so on
This was a great opportunity to add organic keywords to the page while providing visitors with helpful information. As a bonus, people are more informed when realizing that this is a legitimate, trustworthy shop that knows what they are doing.
We also presented reviews of the business on the site since, on average
90% of consumers check reviews before deciding whether to do business with a company.
Good content includes a mix of useful keywords (5%) and genuinely helpful and informative information (95%) that keeps visitors on the page and, most importantly – makes them trust and like you enough to reach out. After all, re-creating a website isn’t about just getting visitors on your site and hoping a few of them stick; it’s about high conversions and building a reputation.
Menu, design, and images
We simplified the website menu, made it easier to contact the team and find directions to the tattoo shop. The previous site was missing the personal aspect of being able to reach out to someone, which makes a website seem static and untrustworthy.
We emphasized large, high-quality images that show off the work and allow visitors to acquaint themselves with each artist’s personal style. A professional photographer snapped images of the interior and exterior of the tattoo shop and took portraits of the artists.
It’s difficult to overestimate the impact good quality pictures have on a website and how much blurry or small images can bring one down.
Regarding the design, we added some light tattoo-esque imagery that wouldn’t take away from the actual artwork images and spiced the design up with a distinct font and red colors to further the brand recognition.
Results
What changes did we see?
After redesigning the website, we started to see an almost immediate uptick in the number of visitors and people reaching out. Unfortunately, the website lacked analytics data, so we didn’t have many comparisons. However, in the first six months of launch, we saw these statistics:
- The average monthly number of visitors grew to around 3,000
- Mobile users make up 90% of total users, when before it was close to 0% due to a non-mobile-friendly site
- Just the contact form on the website receives ~1-2 legitimate leads per day (up from zero)
How much did this project cost?
Let’s recap the list of changes made to the site:
- Changing the design along with the menu structure
- Helping polish content and guide the content creation process
- Setting up analytics software for better tracking
- Adding high-quality imagery
- Making the design mobile-friendly
- Researching and adding relevant keywords
- Linking internal pages to each other
You can expect a similar project, including content revisions, technical fixes, restructuring and redesigning the site (including hosting), and keyword research, to be in the range of $5,000-$7,000.
Every website is different, and it depends on how much work needs to be done, how competitive the market is, and other factors. If you’d like your free website review with actionable fixes, please reach out HERE.
