Bob Lalasz
Crisp visual branding, a clear narrative and an easy-to-manage website
“My website was difficult for me to update, invisible to search engines, breaking down piece by piece, not visually compelling and didn’t reflect me enough.”
Bob Lalasz, a solo consultant, works with researchers in a strategic advisory role. His expertise is transforming research leaders into public experts.
Bob launched a simple Wordpress site when he started his business several years ago. He had never been satisfied with either the look or the backend. He cobbled together the site using DIY tools. It was difficult to publish pages he felt happy with. As a result, the site languished and things started to break.
He needed crisp and clean visual branding, an accessible narrative about his work and a website he could easily manage on his own. Bob also wanted the ability to add pages and features to the site without the headache of plug-ins.
He was having a hard time finding a web designer who was reliable and would keep the project at a reasonable scope.
PROJECT GOALS
Easy to maintain website
Optimized presentation of thought leadership
Clear messaging
Visual Branding
SERVICES PROVIDED
Visual Branding
Collaborative messaging
Custom Squarespace website build
Wordpress migration
BEFORE
AFTER
What we didBranding and Messaging
After conducting a series of in-depth interviews, Bob and I collaborated on his messaging. He shared feedback from clients while I mined our interview transcripts for key phrases that encapsulated the value he brings to his clients.
I had Bob create a mood board and used it as an input for a visual language to use on the new site, his podcast, LinkedIn header as well as his Substack, his main publishing platform.
Wordpress migration to new Squarespace Website
Bob is a talented and prolific writer. His Wordpress site stored years worth of blog content. Part of building the accessible narrative about Bob’s work was deciding what content to move over to the new site and what to retire.
Ultimately, Bob created four long-form articles as flagship content for the new website. We left the rest of the content on a staging site on his Wordpress hosting account.
Search optimization didn’t play a major role on this project, however I did implement some best practice SEO. I created redirects from the old site to the new Squarespace site and submitted the new Squarespace site to Google Console. This ensured Bob didn’t lose any SEO equity he already had, and even gave the new site a boost.
The Result“Relieved. Proud. Very grateful. Excited to direct people to the site, which is the first time in the history of the firm I can say that.”
“Your process was streamlined and very professional. It was clear early on that you were very thorough and conscientious, which has not been my experience with the vast majority of design/develop firms. You helped me fix a problem that had been frustrating me for years, and the end result is somehow both beautiful and also me.
You also pushed me to think and talk about my business in new, compelling ways I wouldn’t have reached myself. All of this happened within a process and methodology that inspired total confidence — I have advised clients on four web projects this year and ours in comparison was by far the most organized”