Exciting news: COL Website revamp is live
I am excited to announce my website has been refreshed and wanted to tell you a little bit about what’s new and what’s enhanced from before. Here’s a Q&A about the site!
Why have you refreshed your website - your “old” website looked professional and had a lot of great information so what’s your motivation?
First impressions count. Visitors to my website need to know what I do in a short time frame or else they will move on (apparently that time span is just 50 milliseconds for users to make up their mind about your website!)
My previous website was professional and looked great. When I launched my very first own business, I really liked it, no, I loved it. And I cried when I saw it. Cried tears of joy. BUT that was 5 years ago. The site had a LOT of information stashed there. So I did a content audit. After 5 years in business, it was the right time to take a pause, and give the content a good shake and a good scrub and polish. So this is a “spring clean” essentially as I have thrown out the items that are out of date, and don’t serve me or my potential clients any more. Now it is more streamlined and reflects my current business and goals and it is more user-friendly and my potential clients and people who want information about how I can help them, can find the information they need.
2. So tell us a bit more about what’s different on your refreshed website? Sure! Here’s five things that are different:
Adding color elements: It should be pretty obvious at first glance that there is a sprinkling of a couple of new signature colours that team up nicely with my core aqua-blue brand colour. I was after consistency in the “aqua-blue” and she’s still there as I simply love this colour. Teamed up with the aqua blue is a beautiful “mulberry mauve-purple” that I.just.love - it reminds me of richness and of pinot noir grapes just harvested. There’s also a “rose-ish gold” in there too, that is reminiscent of my hair colour and colours in the clothes in my photos that appear on the website. Now THAT rose-ish gold discovery was all down to Sarah Moon not me - such a pro in website design). All in all this now forms into a modern and clean colour palette, that is strong yet feminine. Just like me.
Upgrading to the latest version of the hosting site: On a technical note, I’ve upgraded to the new 7.1 version of Squarespace. It has an array of options for new layout and fonts and other functionality so upgrading made this an obvious choice. I wanted to move to a more modern typography and make it new and impactful. Matched with this simple font you will see I’ve now incorporated a secret cursive font which adds a subtle dramatic feature to key words across the site. It gives a unique personalised approach to my new website which I think is sleek and modern and just a bit playful! Don’t you love this feature?
Professional photos over stock photos: The stock photos in my old website were such a godsend originally and worked with my budget at the time but commissioning a photo shoot with a professional was such an investment. When YOU are YOUR brand, nothing makes more sense than having your own image on a website that reflects who you are. It’s not about vanity. My main goal was to present as professional but fun to work with and I think Tia Haygood nailed it.
I can’t recommend highly enough, the dream team I worked with to carefully place the right photo in the right part of the site - Sarah Moon and Andrea Shirey who have all the great design and SEO ideas and also with my local dreamteam in Laura Marushima and Jayne Nakata who gave plenty of input and ideas and they are also so much fun to work with
My brand message is now more defined and niched than it was in 2018 and presenting information that people get as soon as they hit the site is crucial! Who am I and how can I help you? In 2018 I had a LOT of things listed that I could help you with and now that my business has evolved I understand my strengths and how I can really help people, my offerings have been distilled and refined down to mission critical so you can easily understand what I do for them.
I added my company’s values and mission:This was something I new was there from the start and they are in my law firm operational SOPs but I never really laid them out. So this was a way to keep them in mind every step of the way and personally I like other sites that do this so I emulated what I like.
3. Your tagline has changed - what does “Lawyer on Board” mean?
It’s essentially a play upon words on the one hand but it is also actually describing what I do. First, I am a lawyer sitting on a Board (a couple of Boards in fact) so this is factually true. Second, I have a podcast which is called Lawyer on Air, so Lawyer on Board is an extension of that brand, and is a playful way of aligning what I do (outsourced legal counsel) with the brand of “Lawyer on Board”. Essentially “get on board with the legal team in a business” or the C-suite to be a support as an outsourced legal counsel at the core of what I do, so what better way is there to describe me other than “Lawyer on Board!” I hope you like this too.
4. What features of your new website do you love the most?
Oh that’s a hard question to answer as there are so many cool new things I love! But here we go:
The introduction of the new signature purple/mauve x rose-gold tones
The cursive text here and there that accentuates key words
The section about what I like to do outside of the office - this is a bit different to a list of hobbies. I hope you find things about me here that you didn’t know before
My Media page! I never imagined I would EVER have such a page devoted to me and so I am so proud of this collection of copy for people to utilise when they have me as a guest on a podcast or introduce me as a speaker at an event. It’s a dream time saver to have all this information in one spot to direct people to.
The photos which the brilliantly talented Tia Haygood captured, which are encased inside archways, to harmonise with the curves in my logo (did you notice this?)
Synchronising the tiles for the blog page and the podcast page so they look like branded siblings is a total culmination of brand cohesion. I absolutely love seeing this tie up across the site so the whole personal brand sings in unison.
5. Finally time for a shoutout - tell us about the team you worked with on this project - who are they?
– Web Design Dream Team: No matter the industry you’re in or how old your website may be, I recommend Saran Moon & Co. They really get the ideas in your head and bring them to life and propel them to living reality.
– Photography elements Dream Team: If you are looking for the top notch photography I have, you need look no further than Tia Haygood and her team at Top Tia Photography. These photos were taken with the website redesign in sight in November 2021 and it’s pure joy to see them alive on the screen eight months later in July 2022.
– Daily support, ideas generation and copy proof-readers: Laura Marushima and Jayne Nakata - I cannot thank them enough for their brilliance and support throughout!
I hope you also like the new website and that you take time to have a look around and see what you can find that you like about the website features.
Tell me what you think! As for me, it’s time to go celebrate this project launching!
Catherine O’Connell, Catherine O’Connell Law July 27, 2022