Jenna Gates, Web Developer and IT Project Manager
Welcome. My name is Jenna Gates and I am an IT project manager, freelance web developer, and an active canine rescue volunteer and advocate of responsible dog ownership.
Having recently (July 29, 2008) moved to Indiana, I haven’t found and started a new "real job" yet, so my freelance web work has become my full time work for now. I’m having the most fun with WordPress blog customizations at the moment, but my projects aren’t limited to WordPress. My primary concern is creating intuitive structure and navigation, so your users can find the content you’re putting online. See my web development page for more detail.
I am no longer providing freelance tech support/help desk services and technical project management in New York City.
Latest Web Project Launched
Pierson Bark Park: piersonbarkparks.com
The Client
Pierson Bark Park is a privately owned, four acre canine recreation area in Fishers, Indiana. I met Heather Pierson shortly after moving to Indiana.
The Need
Heather had a website but was ready for a redesign. Her content was out-of-date and she had no idea how to update it herself. The link to get directions was broken and she was also unhappy with the restrictive layout of the site, primarily because of the extremely small content area. She wanted to maintain the existing identity of the site and also needed to be careful to maintain her Google rankings.
The Solution
The new Pierson Bark Park site is in WordPress, so Heather can easily make her own content changes without worrying about accidentally breaking the layout or format of the site. I created a WordPress theme using the same colors and some of the same graphic elements from the original site, so the site is still familiar.
There is much more focus on the content in the new site than there was in the previous site. We’ve also made it more useful by adding more content and by using the Google Maps API to include an interactive directions page for new visitors. I put 301 redirect instructions in the .htaccess file to maintain the existing page rank and incorporated some SEO WordPress plugins to optimize the pages and hopefully improve their rank over time.