YGSD Training
How I fixed a website that was barking up the wrong tree
The Challenge
YGSD Training is a dog club offering training classes and socialising for German Shepherds.
Having started out as part of an association, when they made the move to become independent they were forced to create a new website inhouse, due to a limited budget.
The DIY site wasn’t attracting new members and they desperately needed to increase awareness of their newly re-branded club.
The Solution
As a new website was not within the client’s budget, I carried out an audit of the existing site’s user experience, messaging, and search engine optimisation.
My findings highlighted the need for a restructure of pages and the main navigation, to prioritise key messages, calls-to-action, and their location.
By repositioning existing pages, they avoided the need for a costly rebuild and visitors were able to quickly identify what they offered, where the classes took place, the low cost of membership fees, and how to sign up.
Keyword research was conducted to identify the best searched words and phrases to use in their page text and meta data – a crucial process to optimise websites for search engines, giving it the best chance of ranking highly and helping local people discover YGSD.
Once the right keywords were chosen, I refreshed the website copy to make the messaging stronger, easier to read, and more compelling.
Revised website is
top dog!
Within a month of the website updates, the site was ranking better on search engines and visitors almost doubled.
Now an established dog training club in their own right, membership numbers are buoyant and YGSD has a loyal pack of German Shepherds and happy owners!
John Hepworth, YGSD Training
Relaunching our training club under a new name presented us with a few challenges. Kirsty produced a concise menu that set out very clearly the areas she would address and how she proposed to do so.
Kirsty provided us with a vital "fresh pair of eyes" and pointed out things that would never have occurred to us otherwise. She is a very talented professional who we would happily recommend to anyone
Still think you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?!
Underperforming websites don’t always have to undergo expensive rebuilds to start playing ball. With the right eyes and some strategic tweaks, there could be life in the old dog yet!
For a website review and help to improve visitor numbers and conversions, contact me to get started.