Small business owners are often required to learn a LOT. Luckily for me, I have a lifetime learner mentality and a love for DIY. Rather than pay a web developer to design, optimize, and maintain a website, I learned, iterated, and executed.
SEO Overload
I started my web and user experience design journey in 2012, and quickly learned that SEO involved so much more than keyword density. I spent the next decade staying up to date on design trends, SEO best practices, and hosting options that help to bolster all of my ongoing optimization work. Unfortunately, the Wayback Machine doesn’t archive old Wix websites, so my first screen snippet comes after my pivot to WordPress in an effort to move my site up the search ranks.
If I were advising the young designer of this website today, I’d encourage them to either ditch the header image entirely, or to increase the image translucence in order to help make the site name more readable. I’d also encourage them not to be afraid of white space.
Simplify.
By the time I reached the final iteration of the Rocket Skates Recording website, I had picked up a better understanding of Gestalt principles, design trends, and the importance of accessability considerations. I’m really proud of how the site looked and behaved before I took it down. Again, this is a screenshot courtesy of the Wayback Machine, so you’ll notice that an image is missing. I had no idea at the time that I took the webpage down that I’d pursue a career in UX next!
Entrepreneurship taught me so much. I’m beyond grateful that I took the risk and pursued my passions as a career. I’ve gained so much unique perspective from my time as a business owner and music industry professional that I wouldn’t trade for anything!