It's more than a month since my last post. A month since the first failure to launch.
We thought we were ready to launch a few weeks ago on the 31st October, but our "we'll fix it when it's live" message went down poorly with enough senior people that we had to delay launch until everyone had had a chance to change their bits and pieces.
Of course, this gave me time to fiddle too. Our development team at Wilson Fletcher has been very patient!
One of the biggest problems (now addressed) was the startling lack of US case studies. "Fine," we said, "send us some case studies, and we'll drop them into the site as soon as we get them."
Wrangles over copy were another big area of concern. This is entirely my fault. I have been most concerned with creating sound usable "buckets" for the content, and have not budgeted enough time or process to concerning myself with the content that goes into those buckets.
This despite the fact that one of the objectives for the site was to translate everything into Plain English (I'd want one of the Plain English Campaign's Crystal Marks if they weren't so godawfully ugly. Perhaps I could approach them about this...)
On the whole, the buckets are sound; the information architecture (IA) is good, and early/informal usability tests have identified only a few problems, the site is accessible (good not only for ADA/Disabilties Act compliance - which will quietly put us head-and-shoulders above the competition when it comes to CSR, but also for improved search engine visibility), and the content management system is simple to use, meaning that we can rapidly train contacts in every office to add and manage news, contact details, and the like.
The blog integration is exciting and new. With our Legal Counsels help, we will soon be the only large DAS/Omnicom agency network that I can find that will have both the minimum legal fig-leaves of a "terms and conditions" and a "privacy policy" page.
But we soldiered ahead and made the changes and jumped through the hoops.
Here's what we've been up to recently:
- We've invited all the heads of office around the network to check their office pages. Most of them have bent over backwards to help us out, and been most supportive. Thanks guys!
- We've had all the heads of practice check out the pages that are relevant to them. Again - they've been really helpful getting stuff to us!
- We've collected US Case Studies. Should you wish to get your case study up there, ask me, and I'll send you a template.
- We changed the strap that said "the global PR agency" to our old strap, "Many Minds, Singular Results". Our main reasons for running with the "global PR agency" were purely pragmatic. It's a clear sign-post to visitors who arrive at our site what we do (bear in mind that at present at least 25% of visitors arrive at a page other than the home page.) And it helps us push some key search terms into a heading-level page element, which is essential for SEO. Our current approach has led to us holding the undisputed number one spot for - you guessed it.
Today, we were all geared up to launch again, but have had another last minute change of plans. This is (of course) slightly frustrating.
Seriously, check out the new site!
We're still missing two pretty big bits of the site -- the easy office finder, and the whole careers section. They're due in release 1.5 of the site (which on the old production time-line would have been launched today.)
So - yes - I'm frustrated. But I'd rather launch with a site that everyone's pleased with than one that immediately gathers complaints.
Speaking of which - you'll see that we've added a "feedback" tab to the side of the new site. Please feel free to leave feedback and suggestions there!
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