TL;DR
We migrated an existing Joomla website to WordPress, with functionality to allow members to view news articles, updates and offers. The new website allows Bedfordshire Police Federation to reach and connect with members.
Project Overview
We first began working with Bedfordshire Police Federation back in 2008, supporting them with their first website and providing ongoing services ever since. Notably, in 2015, we redesigned their website using responsive techniques. Fast forward to 2024, when we were given the opportunity to fully redesign their website on WordPress to modern standards, ensuring they’re in line with the other regional Police Federation websites we have built and maintained.
Who are Bedfordshire Police Federation?
Bedfordshire Police Federation represents the police officers of Bedfordshire. They provide resources, offers, announcements and support for staff across the board. What’s more, they maintain a close relationship with service providers to advertise services specifically for Police members.
Project Brief
We advised Bedfordshire Police Federation that their website would be better suited to WordPress, as Joomla was making it difficult for them to maintain security and edit content. They had looked at other Police Federation websites for inspiration and also wanted to significantly restructure their site content. Within this brief, they stated that the website should:
- Allow admins to add, edit and remove content and offers;
- Showcase advertisers so that members can redeem discounts;
- Host a variety of useful and important information.
Our Proposal
As previously mentioned, we decided to use WordPress as it is one of the most well known Content Management Systems in the world – making it perfect for a content heavy website such as Bedfordshire Police Federation. We also proposed that the website have:
- Advertiser sliders and dedicated pages with static content;
- Member offers page with filters, to refine which offers members are interested in;
- Easy to navigate structure for content – separating into sections to make it easy to read and find;
- Dedicated holiday chalet page, showcasing information and a gallery of the welfare chalet they maintain for member use, along with booking forms.
Look & Feel
Design
Similar to the Cambridgeshire Police Federation website that we recently built, we decided to use a bright fluorescent yellow shade for contrast against the branded dark blue shade, to help draw attention to important sections and buttons.
The website needed to feel like a hub for members to quickly navigate and find information that they require, meaning that the menu layout was of utmost importance.
On the home page, we followed a traditional website layout, with a hero image and quick link thumbnails that allows members to quickly identify the section of content that they need, a news feed and an informative footer, including imagery where relevant.
The Technical Details
WordPress
We developed the new website on WordPress. The previous website was built on Joomla, and although it served the site well for many years, it had become hard to maintain and add content.
WordPress allowed us to code a custom theme from scratch, meaning we could customise and build the website to requirements. What’s more, admins can now more easily add content – such as new offers, news articles and updated documentation.
Members Area
The previous website had login functionality, meaning that members were required to register and login to view certain pages on the website. However, this presented a few problems – members found this hard to navigate and it meant that they could not simply browse through the content.
Therefore, the client decided to build the new website without login functionality, instead including a new Member Area full of useful information and offers. This shortens the user journey, making their overall experience better.
We then simply needed to ensure any content that should not be presented to the general public was not included in the migration of content.
- #HTML5
- #CSS3
- #WordPress
- #JavaScript
Content
Information Architecture
The existing website had a large amount of content, including a number of outdated pages and offers. Rather than migrate all of the content over, it is best practice to assess current content, to identify what should be added to the new site.
Therefore, we created a structure diagram to demonstrate how the content would take shape, in addition to a spreadsheet detailing all existing content, for the client to evaluate and specify which content needed to be added to the new website.
Content Population
Once the content was organised, we added it to the backend of the WordPress website manually. We created custom post types for advertisers and services. This allows admins to edit and manage the content going forward, especially when updating timely offers and adding new company advertisers.
We also exported and imported all blog posts from the existing website, allowing Bedfordshire Police Federation to identify outdated articles which we then removed.
Key Features
Who’s Who
As with the other Police Federation websites that we have created, we knew that it was important for members to be able to identify who to contact for the various services that the Police Federation offers. We built an advanced custom fields block to showcase the Federation team clearly, which we then embedded in the Reps page, showing team members and their contact information and role.
Advertiser Banners
Bedfordshire Police Federation offers advertising placement for service providers, allowing them to pass on member exclusive offers to their users. We added a banner area to the website footer for advertisers to promote their services on each page, as well as a dedicated individual page with content, external links and booking forms.
Welfare Chalet
Bedfordshire Police Federation offer a welfare caravan in Norfolk that members can book for respite, along with their families. We built a custom page for this, featuring a gallery of images, and a downloadable price list.
We also created a custom booking form, allowing federation members to fill out key information and input their preferred holiday dates to enquire for reserving the welfare chalet. Website admins are then able to receive booking enquiries via email, to contact members and take payment.
Support & Maintenance
Since starting work with Bedfordshire Police Federation in 2008, we have developed a strong relationship, and we have a support and maintenance contract in place for their new website, to provide support, complete tasks and answer any queries the Federation may have.
How We Can Help
If you are looking to get a custom website development get in touch now to see how we can help by calling us on 0121 295 5352, or sending an email to [email protected].
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