Posted by Ricky O'Neill
The pains and pleasures of rebuilding your company website
How you know when it’s time to make the change
- Your site looks lost on modern screens, not making use of the full 1024 x 768 pixels available
- Organic growth of the site has outstripped the original templates
- It’s been a long time since your website was your most up-to-date marketing tool
- You find yourself producing web work for clients that is way beyond the technology on your own site
- Your branding has changed and your capabilities increased
The previous incarnation of cognac.co.uk (there have been three in total), was launched in the summer of 2005 and was designed, built and written by Tom and Ricky over 10 ‘pizza and beer’ evenings.
In keeping with the web trends of the time, we chose a minimalist layout with lots of white space. (For geeks: It was an asp site sitting on the CMS, ‘XPLODE’, by Fuse8).
It was designed for 800 x 600 browsers which were in the majority in 2005 and it was a left aligned two column layout, with three or four template variants dependent on the content.
The original 10 pages organically over a three year period. Whilst we tried to ‘take our own medicine’ and incorporate visuals and apply visual communication principles – we were always limited by our initial templates and because we weren’t using the CMS (Content Management System) to it’s full capabilities…
Cognac.co.uk V3.0:
At our Quarterly Strategy Meeting in August 2008, we decided that a brand new website was a company priority with a deadline of October 1st 2008 – in readiness for our appearances at VizThink Europe (www.vizthink.co.uk )
There were several reasons why we needed a new site:
- The site was miles behind the web work we’d been producing for our clients - visually, technologically and from a coding perspective. It was out of date, and did not reflect our best work .
- It had fallen behind Cognac’s new image. We had been subtly re-branding all of our collateral and sales presentations for some time, but the website was a project too large to ever fit within the timeframes of client work – which of course always takes precedence.
- It did not showcase all of the things we’d learnt about visual communication over the last 5 years. Having written a book on it (www.thevisualadvantage.co.uk ) – we were becoming embarrassed that our website was not practicing what we were preaching.
The shifts that have happened in web trends
- Confident design statements
- Use of entire width of browser
- Intelligent use of flash animation
For the last few years bbc.co.uk has been at the forefront of best practice web design.
The world of web design advanced at a tremendous pace between 2005 and 2008, and design trends had changed quite dramatically too. Leading web designers were making much bolder, more confident, statements with their design work. Websites were now using much bolder colours, using the entire width of the browser and making intelligent use of flash animation once again. During the initial waves of ‘accessibility madness’ – there was a tendency to strip everything out, to ensure accessibility. Now there is a more intelligent approach to accessible design that makes use of things like flash and video, but in a more measured way.
Approaching ‘The Home page’
- Consider over 97% of web users have the ability to view flash content
- But keep accessibility in mind, create a hidden static version of the page
- Spend your time here – focus on the message and the structure
- Consider what problems your audience is looking to solve and bring solutions to them
We decided we would take advantage of the fact that most users can now view flash content and create a dynamic and engaging homepage – showcasing our visual communication skills and making it quick and easy for visitors to quickly see what we do, and how it can benefit them.
Always keeping accessibility in mind, we also created a hidden static version of the page. If a visitor does not have flash installed, they see this static version instead, which looks just as nice, but is not animated.
We spent most of our time on the home page focussing on the message and the structure. We began by updating our own big picture this formed the basis of the home page and underlying website and could then be replicated across other collateral.
We focussed on the client and the problems they might be looking to solve when they arrive at our site. We wanted to bring our solutions to life and so each section has both an animation and a quote from a relevant case study. We’re also aware of the most common questions people have about our approach (why ten minutes? How does it work? Why visual?), so we put the answers bang in the centre.
To blog or not to blog
- Look beyond a simple blog and use strands of content that are easy to filter
- Make updating your content easy
- Maximise your SEO
Check out The Info Hub - http://www.cognac.co.uk/info-hub/
We noticed that almost all new websites, or rebuilds, came with a blog as standard. We were not convinced that people knew WHY they had a blog and thought that maybe it was just because everyone else had one. We didn’t want to do this - we wanted something more. In the previous version of the site, the blog had been Tom’s personal blog – which is great, but now we want to include the whole team, post relevant info for the visual communications industry - and provide a real service, that people will want to subscribe to, and return to often.
The Info Hub is made up of several ‘strands’ of content, which can be filtered using the content icons (top right). This means visitors can quickly get to what they are interested in, without having to wade through weeks and weeks of random blog posts and without having to pick their way through a messy ‘tag cloud’. Want to know what events we are organising? click ‘events’ Want to see what kinds of visual tools we’ve been raving about? click ‘tools’.
Using a collection of fantastic widgets and apps (flickr, google maps, RSS feeds etc etc) – the Info Hub is a dynamic information portal that the entire Cognac team can contribute to (thanks to our completely custom CMS which all staff have access to - pending approval!).
Beware the pitfalls
- Treat it like a client project. There is a danger that because it’s an internal project, it will be cast aside and always put behind other work. DO NOT fall into this trap, the site will suffer as a result, and you will be sick of it before you’ve even launched. To avoid this pitfall we put our marketing team in the role of ‘client’ and the design team as ‘supplier’, each had to comply with the normal rules of engagement which ensured deadlines were met and professional decisions were made.
- Strict Project Management and Task Owners. Keeping to a strict workflow and series of milestones will help the project run smoothly. Keep everyone informed of progress and of any slippages in time. Chase content providers regularly and offer them help if they start to slip behind.
- User Testing. It’s something that often gets forgotten when time runs short, but it’s vital. Not only are there the practical tests – i.e. cross browser checking, flash players required, etc – but testing on your clients and partners will give you a real sense of how the site is coming across to the outside world, and a chance to change it before you launch.
Why it is worth the effort
- Gets you noticed by Google = increase your audience
- Improves your Page Rank = increase your audience
- Improves SEO = increase your audience
- Money well spent – ultimately an essential sales & marketing tool
Feedback on the site has been incredibly positive, and most importantly, feedback has been unsolicited! In one day we received over 20 messages of congratulations and praise for the new site.
Traffic to the site has remained consistent - which for a switch of hosting and a loss of many historic links, is an achievement in itself! We are obviously looking to grow the traffic, and one of the things that is already having an impact on this is The Info Hub. As a relevant source of information for our industry, it is getting noticed by Google – which is helping our Page Rank, and in turn our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
In addition to the main site, we also have several ‘landing pages’, specifically built to appeal to people looking for certain solutions (e.g. www.communicatechange.co.uk and www.communicateprojects.co.uk ) – which are helping our SEO greatly, and let Google know what we are all about.
The new site has made the whole team proud, and they no longer feel they have to apologise for it! We’re even using it as a sales tool – e.g. to give remote presentations (www.cognac.co.uk/multimedia), and to increase interest in our Partner Programme (www.cognac.co.uk/partnerfaqs).
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I hope these experiences and tips will come in handy if you are considering rebuilding your own company website. If you are, and you have any more questions – please feel free to fire them at me directly, or call me on 020 7084 7742.
Ricky O’Neill BA(Hons), FRSA,
Creative Director.
Filter Info Hub Content:
vizthink
briefings
articles
events
books
PR
blogs
photos
tools
podcases
