California NORML

Cal NORML website homepage

California NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) has been active online since the 1990s and required a redesign. The site has undergone multiple redesigns at the hands of many designers over the decade, so it was inevitable that the site began to sag under the weight of prolific content, redundant systems, and accumulated code cruft.

Our first task was to migrate the site to a new web host where it would be accessible to the CaNORML staff, as well as to save the organizations hundreds of dollars per year.

Working on a staging site, we analyzed the workings of all the plugins, and deleted about half them due to redundancy and outdatedness. Structural changes were made to create a better user funnel. The old off-site advertising system was replaced with an updated management plugin. The business directory was updated after years of running on an old version and the listings themselves were improved with better fonts and images, as well as structural adjustments. The site’s header received a rearrangement of elements as well as the addition of an English/Spanish language option. The Mega Menu was cleaned up and reorganized.

Since CaNORML publishes prolifically, much was done to improve the presentation of blog posts, including new fonts, reworking of headers, categories and tags, the addition of a Related Posts plugin, and a new layout for the Blog page. The site’s footer was also re-arranged, and a quick contact form was deleted and linked to the main contact form, which was also reworked. SEO was also examined, and a new program of optimization was begun and is ongoing.

Along the way, we offered education support to CaNORML staffers in the areas of best practices and SEO, and provide a monthly maintenance program.

Tasks: Migration, web design, development, SEO, maintenance. View Site


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