Client: Stillwater Music School

I audited and analyzed Stillwater Music’s website and recommended ways they could improve their content findability, user experience, and content quality.

• Audiences: Students, parents, donors, instructors, job seekers

• Goals: Increase visibility

• Objectives: To find content gaps, assess findability, quality of content, and effectiveness of the course purchase process.

• Actions: Analyzed site content and summarized actionable recommendations.

• Deliverables: Audit checklist with detailed analysis, content inventory, SEO analysis, sitemap

• Strengths: Homepage clearly conveys the mission. Tone is welcoming and consistent. The content is very scannable. Human-centered language is well-used across the site. CTAs are clear and emotionally appropriate. Visuals enhance content. Program descriptions are clear. Audiences (students, donors, parents) are clearly served. Strong directional guidance.

• Opportunities: Some content is outdated or misdirected. Lacks personal stories/testimonials. Readability is too high-level in places. No sitewide search tool. The “What We Do” and “Our Programs” menu items are somewhat redundant. No entry point for job seekers. Headlines lack punch. No personal testimonials or personal stories. Not easy to view the class schedule. Keyword visibility has dropped sharply since Sept 2024. Missing/empty H1 tags on many pages. Meta descriptions are missing on most pages. Images lack alt text, and many are out of focus.

• Recommendations:

  • Add personal stories & testimonials
    Collect and feature stories from students, parents, or teachers with names, photos, and quotes to build trust and engagement.

  • Fix SEO structure & metadata
    Ensure every page has a proper <h1>, add missing meta descriptions, and improve alt text for all meaningful images to boost search visibility.

  • Improve readability across pages
    Simplify language to a 6th-grade reading level where appropriate—especially on staff, instructor, and instrument pages.

  • Consolidate and streamline navigation
    Merge redundant menu items (like “What We Do” and “Our Programs”), and remove unnecessary pages like the separate social media page.

  • Add search functionality & a job-seeker entry point
    Implement a sitewide search tool and create a clear, optimized pathway for job seekers with a dedicated “Work With Us” page.

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