Teams Life Centre

Web Design & Copywriting

Bringing local community centre website into the modern age, giving them the tools and knowledge they need to self-manage their platform as they grow.

About the client

Teams Life Centre is part of Dunston Family Church. The centre is a pillar of the Gateshead community, providing amazing resources and support to people across the Team Valley and beyond.

The team approached us to build a brand new website for Teams Life Centre, which was previously just a page on their church site.

Teams Life Centre is supported by a number of organisations, including National Lottery, Gateshead Council and Ballinger Charitable Trust.

So, the new website needed to speak to both the current and potential supports of the charity, as well as local people attending events and activities at the centre.

Our approach

When building the new website for Teams Life Centre, a few factors were at play.

First, we wanted something accessible and easy-to-navigate, so visitors could quickly find out information, e.g. the new baby and toddler group or how to find the centre.

Also, we recognised the importance of making a professional platform that current and potential supporters could get behind. For example, the new website acts as a showcase for how the charity uses its financial support. Demonstrating to sponsors that every penny really does help.

And finally, we wanted to ensure the team would be well-equipped to manage the website themselves. Of course, we are always there for big technical issues, but we didn’t want them to have to come to us everytime they wanted to add a new supporter logo or change an image. We delivered a comprehensive training programme and provided information they could could refer back to, so the team felt comfortable making small changes to the website.

It’s really important to us that we don’t gatekeep technology. That’s why education is at the core of what we do, and we endeavour to give clients the tools and, more importantly, confidence they need to make small changes to their website. It’s their website, at the end of the day… not ours!

The challenges

Since the new website is the first proper site on the domain (previously it was a subdomain of their church site), we had to lay solid foundations for Google to recognise and appropriately rank the site.

Another challenge was that we needed to communicate with a very wide audience. From design elements to tone of voice decisions, every page should speak to both the potential financial supporter and Joe Bloggs looking for a cooking class. This was no mean feat, but we think we succeeded!

The results

What the client said

Working with Ellen from Content by the Sea was a smooth and pleasant experience. She didn't overwhelm me with jargon and was able to transfer my vision into a visually appealing and up-to date website.

As a registered Charity, we now have a platform for not only customers but prospective grant funders as well. Thank you!

Margaret Carlin, Centre Manager

Visit the Teams Life Centre website get in touch to talk about getting a brand new website you can actually use!