Screenshot of AzTA website homepage
Sometimes, the biggest enhancements happen behind the screens. These invisible, “under the hood” adjustments may not be as flashy as a new, shiny logo. Still, they can be just as impactful for functionality, accessibility, and the ever-sought-after SEO rankings.
Hop Studios has been making these improvements for our client, Arizona Transit Association (AzTA). This non-profit statewide organization is committed to bettering public transportation in every Arizona community. With a mission to administer leadership in the funding, advocacy, and education of public transportation services, it speaks for the public and private sectors in advocacy and education for services and programs related to public transportation.
Although their site didn’t require a design upgrade, they needed some major changes to the back end. They enlisted Hop Studios’ help to act as a technical liaison for a PCI Compliance Certification to ensure the protection and security of credit card data on their site. We also upgraded their CMS platform, several add-ons, and migrated their Liquid Web server.
Any website that processes credit card transactions needs to be aware of PCI Compliance to ensure the security and protection of sensitive data. The Liquid Web migration was the first step. Liquid Web offers PCI-compliant hosting environments that satisfy the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requirements. With their secure servers and networks and 24/7 support, they assisted us in getting AzTA’s site PCI compliant.
Once that was set up, we upgraded their ExpressionEngine CMS from EE6 to EE7. This upgrade supported improved security and boosted performance and functionality. We also upgraded several add-ons to their latest versions, including Freeform Lite, JCOGS Image, and Low Alphabet. Although these upgrades may not have affected how the website looks, they greatly impacted and improved the performance and functionality of the site.
One of the significant “invisible” improvements we made to the site related to accessibility. An often overlooked but extremely important part of any website is making sure it’s accessible to everyone. In AzTA’s case, we added aria labels to pagination links, which allows individuals who are using screen readers to know where the “next page,” “last page,” “previous page,” and “first-page” links are located. We also added focus styles for the main navigation, allowing users who can only navigate via keyboard to access all site sections using the “tab” button. These will allow for an improved user experience for a wider group of users.
Impressive things can happen behind the screens. Not everything that improves a website is flashy and new. In some cases, invisible upgrades can have the biggest impact on performance and functionality. Most recently, we optimized the 404 page to help enhance SEO and Google rankings by allowing search engines to better index their pages. A properly optimized 404 page can also improve user experience by helping users navigate to relevant content, ultimately reducing bounce rates.
Hop Studios looks forward to continuing to work on the Arizona Transit Association’s site and watching them pave the way to a brighter future in public transportation.
