Message Systems 2012 End of Article

Message Systems 2012

493 words published on Jan 1, 2013

We updated the Message Systems website with a fresh new look for 2012. This project was a team effort of 4-5 people throughout the timeline, with a contractor here and there for more specialized tasks.

You can see images of the previous version of the Message Systems site in an earlier post.

Message Systems Homepage
Homepage

New Features

  • Cleaner look and feel, with much stronger branding. The logo and company colors have been updated to translate better from our live and print identity to our digital identity.
  • Flexible navigation structure generated from a basic, tiered unordered list and then translated via JavaScript and CSS3 into every navigation need on the site. It’s as close as we could get to using a CMS without taking that step.
  • Full Marketo integration allowed Message Systems to track, score, and analyze every lead that came through the site.
  • More consistent calls to action, and results for clicking on them across the site.
  • New Video page to display earned video content. Integrated with a new corporate YouTube channel. In addition, the webinar pages have been upgraded for better usability and consistency with the new videos format.
  • Upgraded Careers section of the site, to drive recruitment efforts and make the excellent company culture more accessible to the public.
  • New social media sharing features for targeted outlets (including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Plus) using the ShareThis service combined with selective PHP insertion.
  • Tons of new SEO features like schema tagging, tracking tokens in URLs, and dynamic meta tag generation. All coded in a user friendly way for content managers to easily use.
  • Rolled back several “form walls” where we required users to provide their contact information to view certain collateral. Those forms are now only used for “best practices” and other “how to run your business better” kinds of guides that content managers work very hard on, and can greatly benefit the user for free.
Content page
A sample of a standard content page.
Videos page
The new Videos page was tied with the new corporate YouTube channel.

My Contributions

  • Assisted the company’s Senior Graphic Designer in the user experience and visual design of the site.
  • Managed the entire project and played the role as primary stakeholder in all future website production.
  • Coded the entire site primarily using: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript (jQuery), and PHP.
  • Managed off-site contractors for selected design, SEO, and development tasks.
  • Upgraded the company’s Blog Theme (WordPress based) to better suit these website changes and to enable several of its new features into the blog portion of the site.
Careers page
Upgraded Careers section of the new site.
Global Offices page
A lightweight interactive world map displaying the company’s international presence.

Results

  • Site traffic increased by over 400% 6 months after the redesign.
  • Sales Qualified Lead Generation originating from the website increased by 80% in 2012.
  • Web-based projects and changes within the Marketing department were made three times faster and with less manager interaction.
  • Because of the increased blog and social media activity the company has gained about 20% more followers on Twitter and LinkedIn.