Below you’ll find testimonials from several of my clients who are either bloggers, mom entrepreneurs or small businesses.
Design, Maintenance + Marketing
We operate a specialty business making and selling suitcases for safely transporting wine, so my web, social media, seo, sales portals and creative needs are somewhat unique.
For more than a year I’ve had the opportunity and pleasure—yes, pleasure—to work closely and collaboratively with Vanita Cyril. The simplest and most direct manner of expressing how positively we feel about Vanita is that she is amazing! Period. Full stop.
When we began working together on our web needs, I was working with another firm as well as Vanita. The other firm was not providing me with what I needed, what I contracted for and what I was paying for. Vanita helped extricate me from a no-win situation and led us in the development of our new web site which has received accolades from our users, our staff and colleagues and other professionals in the field. She knows what she is doing, will find answers if she doesn’t know them initially and is constantly thinking about how she can improve and strengthen what we do.
Without reservation and with complete confidence I recommend Vanita Cyril for any work for which she believes she can handle. If you are fortunate enough to be able to work with Vanita, I am certain that you will come away feeling well served and grateful that Vanita is on your team.
Barry Wax, President (Current Client – Testimonial date: 10/2015)
VinGardeValise, Inc
Home of the VinGardeValise®
–www.VinGardeValise.com
Design and SEO
I highly recommend working with Vanita at The Strategic Mama, she has helped my site do a complete turnaround. She helped me move everything over from Weebly to WP and build a new site from the ground up. With her knowledge of SEO, I have seen an increase in search referral traffic go up 50% in the last 28 days. If you are on the fence deciding who to use for your site redesign, you’ve found her! – Jennifer West, PinkWhen.com
Design, Branding, Marketing Mentoring
The only thing Vanita Cyril has more of than talent and SEO know-how is patience. I know this because Vanita encouraged me to step away from an established blog and guided me through the rebranding process.
Prior to connecting with Vanita, I was struggling to find my online voice. She helped me narrow my focus and held my hand during the entire design process. The end result is a professional, SEO optimized website that I feel confident navigating.
I highly recommend The Strategic Mama for SEO training, website design, and blog consulting. It was worth every penny.
– Poppy Marley, Facing40.com and Funnyorsnot.com
Design, Blog Move, Maintenance + Search Engine Markeing
Vanita is the genius who designed my blog. She found out exactly what made me tick, listened to the voice of my posts and created a design that matched me perfectly. And if you think all the little whimsical icons came from my fertile imagination…whilst I’d really like to take the credit, I cannot tell a lie…Vanita came up with the all those concepts. And I think they’re pretty cool.
For anyone who has experienced less than stellar followup, you need Vanita. It seemed she was always available and I kid you not when I tell you, she even got up from her sick bed to support me. She genuinely wants to help and goes above and beyond to make sure you’re happy.
What more could anyone ask for? A genius designer and a wonderful support.
To say I’m happy would be an understatement. The only other thing I have to say is thank you. Thanks Vanita for your brilliance.
Elle Sommers (Current Client – Testimonial date: 07/2012)
LivePurposefullyNow.com
Design + Blog Move
When my former blog needed help making the leap to a different hosting company I knew I was in good hands with Vanita. She came highly recommended to me by other trusted bloggers and it gave me such peace of mind to know I wasn’t going to lose any hard work.
Thanks to Vanita’s design, my site looks fresh, clean, and better still–the foundation is strong. No more slow-to-load, faulty blog issues. She continues to be my wordpress guru.
Thanks again Vanita! –Sarah Reinhart of the Sunday Spill
Design + Search engine Marketing
I own multiple domains, run multiple websites and blogs, and even create/manage websites for others. I can write HTML and CSS from scratch. I’m quite well versed in the whole “make a site” and “make it pop” thing. What I am not the slightest bit proficient in, is making that website for a business, with all the SEO and accoutrements that come with it. Neither of my personal business sites were doing much of anything and I didn’t know how to make them work for me. The economy being what it is, though, I *needed* them to work for me. I tried a crash course in SEO and about twenty minutes into the first webinar my eyeballs were bleeding and I was hopelessly confused. This was not working out well at all.
So, what to do?Vanita Cyril.
Not once, but twice.
Vanita Cyril.
Vanita has thoroughly redone both of my business sites, she’s getting their names out there (using whatever SEO voodoo it is that she does) and along the way she’s done so much more, even going so far as to bring out the very best in me and my services. She genuinely *cares* if your site succeeds, and she lets you know it.
She’s done so much more than SEO and a couple of redesigns. I cannot begin to properly sing her praises. She is both honest and constructive, authentic and genuinely interested. In the process, she helps you to get to the bottom of what you really want to do with your site — YOUR vision, not hers — though she also gives you suggestions and things to mull over, things that you may have never even considered.
And then she brings your vision to life.
Twice.
Mystic Tarot has existed online for five years now. It’s never really done much, I have a small client base that’s built up over the years and that’s that. Or it was.
And then there’s Sew Gaelic. My baby, my pride and joy, my reason to get up and smile when I contemplate the “work” ahead of me that day … Sew Gaelic would not even EXIST if not for Vanita Cyril. She encouraged me to take my talent and my passion and *do* what I really wanted to do.
Hire her. You won’t be sorry. -Kathleen Helms via Facebook Mystic Tarot and Sew Gaelic
SEO Strategy
“Vanita is professional, personable, efficient and very knowledgeable about SEO and best business practices. I hired her to move my website for me and she did it in less than the estimated time, with no downtime issues and minimum disruption.
I recently worked with Vanita again for my new website to ensure that it is SEO optimized and she did it within a day, complete with an evaluation and a recommended strategy.
I highly recommend Vanita for any SEO and WordPress-related work.” November 5, 2012
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
Blog Move
Vanita literally saved my blog! I was in crisis mode with server problems and a slow-as-molasses load-time when I sent a frantic email to Vanita. She responded right away and was able to figure out the problem and save my blog. She is also a whiz at WordPress themes so she worked her magic and came up with a kickin’ visual for my blog! Whether you have immediate blog problems or want a larger blog makeover, Vanita is the go to gal! She is wonderful to work with!
*****FIVE STARS***** – Sarah of House Crazy
And
I’d been debating for months whether or not to hire someone to help move my blog when I decided to become self hosted. I’d heard that, if I had the guts, I could do it myself. When it came right down to it, I fully realized that I didn’t have the guts, or even the slightest amount of know-how, to get the job done properly. Thankfully, I had Vanita. Vanita turned what would have been an absolute mess, had I tried it myself, into an exciting experience. She was there for me from the minute I sent her the first email asking for information, with guidance and tips, reassurance, and support. I first talked to her on a Thursday, and by Tuesday of the following week, my new site was up and running beautifully thanks to Vanita. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience! She is a consummate professional, and I don’t know what I would have done without her. Thank you, Vanita!
Design, Development, Search Engine Marketing
I have had the privilege of working very closely with Vanita. She helped me create and complete www.2createajobnow.com and www.canditaylorjeter.com. There was a lot of hard work in developing the structure and designing those sites and Vanita handled each challenge with patience, professionalism and a great sense of humor. She checked in with me every step of the way to make sure I was satisfied. I would highly recommend Vanita for any kick ass social media task you need to complete. Thanks Vanita for going the extra mile!
Warm Regards,
Candi Taylor-Jeter
Entrepreneur Coach & Career Developer
“The thought of moving domains completely overwhelmed me, so I contacted Vanita. She came highly recommended by a close friend, Alison of Writingwishing.com, and I can certainly see why! Vanita is friendly, professional, and so very patient. She answered any question I had and explained each answer in terms I could understand. She kept me informed of each step throughout the process. Vanita moved all of my content, comments, and photos without a hitch. I am so very glad I chose to work with her. I would highly recommend her to anyone for their WordPress needs!”- Kimberly from Reflections of Now formerly Mama’s Monologues.
SEO Disaster Fixer
July 30, 2012
I recently contacted Vanita Cyril to help me with some issues with my WordPress blog. I explained to her that I had recently paid someone to move my blog to WP, but they never finished the job. There were errors, issues I didn’t understand, and missing posts. She fixed them all!
She is an excellent communicator, explaining to me just how much it would cost upfront to assess the damage on my blog, and to repair it. She emailed me the details step by step about how she would go about it, and in very little time, she had my blog up and running again.
If you want someone you can trust, and be there for you, Vanita is the person to call. She’s professional, awesome, and tech-savvy. I plan on working with her again in the very near future.
Karen Hug-Nagy creator of:
Mommies In Orbit, Raising Kids, One Orbit At A Time.
and
Vanita is superb to work with both on a professional and personal level. Her no-nonsense approach in handling problem is impressive. She helped me transferred my problematic website to a new domain and went above and beyond to figured out what went wrong with my old website. She guided me to make the transfer as smooth as possible and boost my SEO ranking. I am so thankful to have worked with her and would highly recommend her to anyone. -Maureen, Scoops of Joy
Blog Move
“if you want to do it yourself, you can. There is enough information and you just need brass balls. Which I don’t possess. So I called in a tech whiz – Vanita Cyril. People, she is FABULOUS. A work-at-home mom of FOUR, Vanita is friendly, professional and so very patient with my many questions. Vanita moved my posts, pictures and comments, fixed all the broken links and did the site redirect (i.e. if you type in my old URL, you’ll land on this site) within days. I cannot say enough how awesome she is and highly recommend her services to anyone who needs help with moving domains, or just any WordPress stuff.” – Alison Lee of Writing,Wishing (formerly Mama Wants This) excerpt from her awesome post on changing domain names
Design
“When I first decided I wanted a new look for my site I thought I should just upgrade from a basic wordpress theme to something personal but I had no clue what I actually wanted. I know I wanted to work with someone who understood what being a busy Mom is and where I’m coming from on a daily basis, I needed a site that worked for me; it had to be easy to manage, post, navigate, and depict the real me! Vanita worked her heart out, she made me dig down deep and find the reason I really wanted to blog and the reason why I want to help others, she reminded me to be authentic and honest – the two qualities I value the most – with the decisions I was making because the site was going to be my “baby” and I was the one who had to live with it not her. The experience working with Vanita was amazing she took what little ideas I gave her and turned it into a masterpiece that I not only like but LOVE, it is way more than I ever expected. I feel that she can work miracles and I am truly honored to work with her.” RealMomma.com
Blog Move
“once I got that mythical authorization code, Vanita worked her magic to get my site from Blogger to here completely intact! I didn’t lose as much as a parenthetical phrase! Not only that, but she did it quickly, efficiently, and affordably. My biggest fear was that I would lose the 370-some posts I’ve written on my old site — that’s a 500 page book’s worth of writing, folks, and the thought of that disappearing scared me more than a birthday party at Michael Meyer’s house. But I shouldn’t have worried, Vanita is a pro and now I’m rockin’ the WordPress.” IASoupMama – A New Home
Search Engine Marketer
“Vanita Cyril is the perfect Mommy Blogger SEO Expert. I had met her through social media and she clearly gets it. More importantly, though, she gets results at very reasonable prices. After I accidentally switched my permalinks the same day as the Google Panda release, my traffic was obliterated. She knew exactly what to do: redirects, no follows, key words, sitemap submissions and more. This doesn’t make sense to you? You must talk to her! As a result, my Alexa ranked dropped from 450,000 to 250,000 and it continues to drop. Plus she’s really fun to work with!” PragmaticMom
Design
“Vanita at After Bedtime Blog was such an amazing resource for me!! I was recommended to her by another blog designer who couldn’t do wordpress and I’m so glad! Vanita was timely, responsive, professional and was very patient with helping to bring the vision in my head a reality. And as you can see it,makemewings.com, became a beautiful reality! She is such a resource! Completely budget friendly, transparent and full of integrity. She is always upfront with the amount of time and cost for the services she provides! I hope you invest in yourself and brand by investing in Vanita and After Bedtime Blog! You will NOT be disappointed!” Miata
Design
“I can’t say enough about Vanita’s work. She took what would have been MONTHS of trepidatious, mind bending work for me and turned it into an pretty exciting “before-you-know-it-it’s-done”experience . It was just as fun as redecorating your home and a lot cheaper, to boot. Vanita worked closely with me, asking me questions, getting to know my needs and the message I was wanting to get across to my readers. The website came out to be so much more than I could have ever dreamed of on my own Its a great balance of clean and fresh with funk and character. Easy to navigate leaving no headaches for the visitor of the site and myself. I’ve gotten so ,many compliments on it.
Vanita: I can’t thank you enough for your professionalism, your drive and desire to just GET IT RIGHT. Now, we just have to do lunch some time!! “ Chrissy from SoManyWays.net
Design
“I was depressed about the state of my website. I really wanted to promote my organization, but I felt hopeless and helpless. I felt like the site wasn’t presentable; the text was too big and the colors didn’t pop. I didn’t even have a logo. Enter Vanita. She literally made over every aspect of my site. She made it colorful and inviting. She found just the right color scheme and just the right pictures to make it all come together. Readership sky-rocketed and she even gave me pointers on how to make additions and changes, if I wanted to. She taught me how to understand basic html elements, something I was so afraid of for many years. She allowed me to walk with her through the process and to give my input at every turn. Finally, she pushed for perfection and excellence until the site was something we could both be proud of. I’ll always appreciate her for that and will recommend her to the WORLD! She’s an amazing sincere person and if you haven’t worked with her already, you definitely should.” Angel from Fight4YourLifeOnline
WordPress Developer Fix
“I was having a big problem with the front page splash on my “Structure”-themed WordPress blog so I contacted Vanita out of the blue and even though she had no idea who I was, she readily accepted the challenge and fixed my problem within a few hours. I’m much happier with the way my blog looks now and it’s all because of her. I have no doubt that she’ll find her place in this world wide web as a WordPress master.” Jonathan Kates
From Small Businesses:
Here’s a few recommendations. Please feel free to visit my Linkedin profile to verify the testimonials listed below and to read a few more.
Search Engine Marketing
“Vanita Rocks!
Vanita is a delight to work with, she is very creative and passionate in all that she does. She has a deep knowledge of SEO and is extremely smart in crafting content and structure that is as interesting and fun for the reader as it is useful and clever in increasing site traffic organically. She has a very strong orientation to learning and is constantly making sure that she has taken advantage of the knowledge and tools available.
Vanita is fully in, she does not take clients that she doesn’t believe in, so that she can genuinely be fully behind all of her efforts. Her down to earth, real persona, shows through easily. She is a passionate champion for her clients and a pleasure to work with, she has helped us to build out and inspire our audience.” April 17, 2012
Kim Evenson, CMO, Retrofit LLC
Social Media Consultancy
“Vanita is a virtual colleague turned quite real when hired as a social media consultant. Her social media know-how combined with practical, tactical advice is always spot-on. She quickly grasps how to harness the power of twitter, blogging, LinkedIn, etc to effectively bring that energy to business at hand. I whole-heartedly recommend Vanita, who is a pleasure to work with, both virtually and face-to-face.” June 28, 2011
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
Kathy (kate) Mayer
Design, Development and Search Engine Marketing
“Vanita gave our website a complete makeover. It went from being server space we paid for that listed our company’s info and services to an effective online sales tool that has been bringing us new customers on a daily basis. She is detailed and precise when making decisions and has always had our best interests at heart. I look forward to hiring her again for future projects and I recommend her highly.” September 16, 2011
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
Neil Nanda
Design, Development and Search Engine Marketing
“I hired Vanita to analyze our website. She was very blunt and called it an “online brochure” and broke it all down for me, explaining what my website should be doing for my business. She created a strategic plan starting with what services I provide, questioning how my clients can benefit from each service, she then redesigned the website into this living, breathing thing that has attracted more visits in the past year then my old website did in 5 years. She created content for each service page, explaining to visitors, not the technical jargon us industry guys would, but breaking it down to how the client would benefit.
From her efforts we can actually be found on Google’s first page for our services (not by our company name). She has coached me in utilizing social media and blogging. Which is hard to find the time for, but when I have the time, I can easily do so because of Vanita’s impeccable coaching skills. She has introduced me to networking workshops and meetups offline. I now have all these new ways to build relationships with potential clients and associates, both online and offline.
I highly recommend her, especially to the small business owner who is looking to grow their presence online to obtain more work for their business.” July 13, 2011
Top qualities: Expert, Good Value, High Integrity
Tony Budhu