Kevin Ozee contacted me in early 2018 to work on his website. His previous developer had to take leave due to illness.
One of the most challenging situations in my job is taking over an unfinished project. Unfinished products are incomplete for a reason. Second Wind’s site was relatively well done. However, every website also utilizes a specific process for its development. Websites are as diverse as the content they represent.
Why Did I Accept the Project?
Generally, I tend not to pick up half-finished projects for the reasons mentioned. I met Rob Hawes soon after moving back to Maui. Rob has served Maui for years with his business, Tradewind Graphics. He is an awesome guy, and I consider him a friend. He had been having difficulty serving his clients due to cancer. Because of the unique context of the situation, I was willing to offer whatever help on the project that I could.
About Second Wind Maui
Second Wind is an ideal client. They are a long-standing and locally owned Maui business. They have been a central hub for the community of water-sports enthusiasts for over 30 years on Maui. They sell surfing gear, windsurfing gear, kiteboarding gear, foil-boarding gears, stand-up paddleboards, and even slingshots. They also offer lessons and rentals.
My Involvement
SecondWindMaui.com is one of the more critical sites I have worked on. The site includes around 200 unique pages and a live surf forecast webcam. The execution of the project can be split into three significant milestones. The first is the site launch; the second milestone would be the content I added; the third would be fixing the site’s spam.
The Site Launch
The first goal was to get the site up and working correctly so sales could be processed. The business owner, Kevin, built most of the site’s pages while working with Tradewind Graphics. The previous Second Wind Maui site was not optimized for mobile devices. We launched the new WordPress site in March of 2019. We used WooCommere, which is an extension for WordPress.
New Site Content
After launching the site, I produced four blog posts for the site, which was a great help to search engine rankings. I also created static pages for some of the more significant sections of the site. I don’t usually do photography, but I was able to take some professional-quality photos. The physical Second Wind Maui store location has excellent natural lighting, which helps when producing quality business photos on a budget. I also created a staff section on the site, including pictures of the staff. I usually contract photographers for my site, but this was a simple enough task that I could do myself.
Getting Rid of Spam
The site had been working great for most of this year. Kevin contacted me because he was having issues with spam. He also liked some of the directory/category pages I had created earlier, so he asked me to make more. Dealing with spam can prove challenging; sometimes, the path to a solution can take some troubleshooting. I was able to fix his spam issues, even though it took a bit longer than we anticipated.
An Ongoing Project
I was unsure when I would feature their website on my work samples. I am continually working with Second Wind Maui, working with them to improve its digital presence. As they are constantly improving as a business, I didn’t want to write this post earlier because of our ongoing relationship.
Continued Results
Second Wind Maui has broken many records this year for various business sectors. They continued to benefit from increased traffic to their website. If one were to search for their services online, Second Wind Maui would surely be one of the first sites listed.