smsassist.com redesign
SMS Assist's four-year-old website needed a revamp as did its spacey-looking logo. We tackled both, though my role was solely focused on the website piece, which we are refreshing with an all-new look and feel, a new CMS, new content that reflected SMS Assist's value proposition, new imagery, new SEO strategy, and more.
I found the perfect design and development agency to partner with and turned to my own Content team, the domain experts that they are, to introduce our brand, our programs and services, and why we're different from other facilities providers.
Work began on March 1, with an aggressive April 30 launch goal that paused because of COVID-19. As of May 29, website work will begin again -- and we will set our sights on finishing what we started, with limited resources and continued Sales team needs, all while working from remotely from our homes.
A new information architecture
I used brand personas, user research, customer journeys, stakeholder input, and current site performance to determine the information architecture, then the top navigation, and then page priority. It took several whiteboard sessions, conversations, and versions before landing on the sitemap below.
The old smsassist.com is going to go from 429 pages to what you see below, plus press releases and blog posts, for a more deliberate and thoughtful experience.
A phased approach
This is about getting your hands dirty. No task is too small. Throughout each phase, I'm setting milestones for the team, reviewing site content, hosting daily check-ins, collaborating with the agency, securing buy-in from stakeholders and others, migrating blog posts and press releases, managing integrations, and more.
Discovery
Audit the site and use performance data to determine new IA and navigation.
Prototyping
Implement keyword strategy, design page templates, begin content creation.
Development
Build pages, develop in testing environment, wrap up content creation and approvals.
Testing & Launch
Test functionality, apply metadata, and secure leadership final approval.
See the difference: The old and the new
