HELPSTAY
HelpStay is a skills-based volunteer startup that exchanges work for accommodation in countries all around the world. I got involved with this early-stage startup by doing a HelpStay program myself. After completing my HelpStay on the island of Crete, I cold-emailed the CEO, Shay Gleeson, with feedback on how to improve the website to build credibility and reach new audiences and he wrote back to hire me.
Interface language, Interaction flows
Helpstay Website
To begin this project, I immediately suggested a few changes to the interface to improve the education of HelpStay. The initial homepage featured a search bar, a few "Stays" (volunteering projects) and two call-to-action buttons. One, to become a Host, the other, to become a Helper with little context on what either of these roles entailed.
Some of the changes for the new site included categorizing different project types and putting them above the main fold so that when a user reached the homepage they'd have a better idea of what to do and what HelpStay offered.
Allowing users to search both by location and task type would be an important addition as the prior limited to location and tasks types were not organized as they had all been manually submitted by hosts.
These changes alongside updates in imagery and language have helped decrease the bounce rate from HelpStay's home page and increase click-through rate.
Other initiatives to increase credibility and build community included reaching out to users that had completed a HelpStay program asking them to leave reviews, developing out a social media calendar and creating an SEO-optimized community blog called, The Journal.
Content marketing / editing
The journal
I've lead several core initiatives for sourcing and editing influencer content for Helpstay's community blog, The Journal. This has included creating an email template for HelpStay's newsletter distribution and creating content guidelines.
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