Fordingbridge plc website by Maroon Balloon

 The brief

Following the success of its sister company Polyhouses‘ website redevelopment, Fordingbridge plc commissioned us to take on the the full overhaul of their main website. This was a big job – 50+ pages, 75 blog posts, 200 canopy and walkway case studies each with their own photo gallery slideshow.

The website needed a more modern feel with interactive engagement to meet the expectations of its varied customer base, which spans the retail, leisure, garden centre and education sectors. That’s as well as meeting the usual best practice usability, accessibility and SEO guidelines of course. The blog and numerous portfolio sections were earmarked to show the most improvement, with strengthened calls to action, so that conversions were increased – more people visiting the site, more clickthroughs to enquiry and contact forms.

 The solution

As ever the first stage was to tear up the original sitemap and rework pages and sections into a more logical and user friendly structure. Once this was done (with input from SEO experts Fandango Digital) the wireframing process began, where Strohacker Studio became involved. New, image-heavy design layouts were put together and the build began.

Thanks to focus and clarity in the collaborative planning process the build was smooth, albeit long, with continued valued input from the SEO masters and the design guru. Heavily customizing WordPress we brought in new functionality where needed, such as masonry grid layouts for visual impact (driven by custom WordPress post types, metadata and JQuery), double opt-in newsletter sign up forms with integration into third party apps, a logo carousel, cinemagraph videos, ‘request a callback’ pop-ups, a downloads section where certain resources required email capture, backend form tracking and intelligent phone number tracking.

From the digital marketing perspective, the new blog looks clean, functions well and is easy to update. This ties nicely into Fordingbridge’s various social media channels, and calls to action are used liberally to drive visitors to the reach the end goal: enquiry form, phone call, email, contact form or newsletter sign-up.

Shortly after website launch, new complementary, editable email templates were set up so that outgoing newsletter campaigns and auto-responders carry the same branding, layout and tone of voice to complete the circle. As we often say, it’s all about consistency.

With a larger than usual project team (Fordingbridge, Maroon Balloon, Fandango Digital and Strohacker Design) we used Managing Director Tim Driver’s leadership and project management experience to steer the job through to successful completion.

 The result

In one word: happy. Feedback from Fordingbridge has been very positive, backed up by impressive web analytics stats and enquiry rates.

Customer feedback

“Working with Tim has been great from start to finish, really helpful and efficient. Our website went live on the deadline without any trouble. Would highly recommend Maroon Balloon.”

 Project details

Launch date: January 2017
Project type: Responsive website
Platform: Customized WordPress theme
Website URL: www.fordingbridge.co.uk

Fordingbridge website Garden Centres page by Maroon Balloon