Website Design | February 2009 | M.McKennedy
The 'Old' Moonlight Lady Website
Back in 2007 I was hired to design a custom website for The Moonlight Lady which offers New England vacation cruises based out of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont. The original site had a unique, rustic look (as does the boat the Moonlight Lady) and used tabs, and hidden divs to keep users from leaving a page. As a matter of fact nearly every page had it’s only Contact Us section – the idea was to give users a simple way to get more information about the cruises offered which helps covert these users into leads. There was a bit of the web 2.0 look and feel to the site.
Several months after the Moonlight Lady website went live I was informed that there was a new project manager working for the Moonlight Lady and that she wanted to take their services to a bigger company – one who specialized in hotel and tourism websites. They were looking to simplify the website. I wished them the best of luck.
Vermont Discovery Cruises - The 'New' Site
A year later and the Moonlight Lady is back! I was contacted back in December of 2008 about the possibility of taking over the existing Vermont Discovery Cruises website. I looked over the template created by this other company and saw the possibly of greatly improving the site without deconstructing it. One of the first things I changed was to convert the Flash-based slide shows to something a bit more search-engine-friendly. I switched them to html/javascript slide shows. Also, one of the most obvious changes was that the site need to use title tags on all links – this is basic SEO (search engine optimization)! I was also tasked with adding new tours complete with custom graphics and stock photography, as well as customized Google maps for each cruise route.
New cruise tours have been added and lots of clutter has been removed. When the client needs something added/changed and/or modified I get things done in a day or two – depending on the priority (as opposed to the rumored three weeks it was taking the other company). I provide a high level of service that keeps my oldest clients (it’s been over 8 years now since I signed my first client) around and through word of mouth keeps new clients coming in.
The Moonlight Lady was the first client to leave me for my website design services and now they are back! Vermont Discovery Cruises offers a variety of overnight vacation cruises throughout New England and Canada. Take a cruise on the Moonlight Lady – as they say Relax, Refresh, Recharge, Connect on board this unique Lake Champlain vacation!
