TL;DR
We migrated the Neil Soundy website, along with all of its content and data, over to WordPress from the previous Ballyhoo Refresh platform. We also added multisite, allowing NSFS to promote various services under the same umbrella.
Project Overview
The Neil Soundy Financial Services website was created in 2017 using Ballyhoo Refresh, however the platform is no longer being supported and therefore the website needed to be migrated to another platform.
We carried out the website migration to WordPress, ensuring that the site maintained its features. Whilst doing so, we also incorporated WordPress multisite as the company wanted to expand the services that they offer.
Who are Neil Soundy Financial Services?
Neil Soundy Financial Services is a father-and-son team that specialises in providing advice on buying properties and remortgaging. They are able to apply for mortgages on behalf of their customers, tracking the case and supporting customers throughout the journey. They pride themselves on excellent customer service, seeing a case through from application to offer.
Project Brief
NSFS needed their website to be migrated to WordPress, whilst still maintaining it’s functionality and content. We’ve been working on the search engine optimisation of the site for years and have achieved some amazing results so it was imperative that rankings were maintained after the migration. In fact, moving to WordPress will provide us with access to tools to even further improve search engine optimisation. Their migration needed to also include:
- Admin access to add and change content
- Easier and more flexible content management
- Multisite integration to allow for management of extra services
Our Proposal
Working with our client, we identified key deliverables:
- Migrate the website to WordPress
- Integrate WordPress Multisite to manage multiple websites from a single dashboard
- Improve Search Engine Optimisation
Look & Feel
The Neil Soundy Financial Services has aged well since a 2017 redesign project and therefore we only needed to maintain the look and feel of the website, keeping it the same when migrating the website over to the WordPress platform. The client also didn’t want to undergo too many changes all at once, leaving any potential design updates to a later date once the dust settles.
- #HTML5
- #CSS3
- #WordPress
The Technical Details
First, we migrated content from the NSFS website to a secure development area, exporting content in a format suitable for the in-built WordPress content importer. We began to re-engineer the Ballyhoo Refresh template to convert to a clean and custom WordPress theme. We mapped the original URLs to the URL structure dictated by WordPress to generate search engine friendly URLs. This also ensured that search rankings weren’t damaged when moving the site. We then set up a series of search engine friendly redirects where any URLs differed.
We placed the website on the WordPress platform, on our own Green servers here in the UK.
SSL
We retained the SSL certificate that was on the previous 2EA website, ensuring that the website was safe and secure for users to browse. This also helps with Google search rankings.
SEO
Beyond launch, WordPress now gives us more tools to easily help improve the NSFS site in terms of search engine optimisation, allowing us to easily manage meta tags, page titles, image alt tags/descriptions and more. This allows the website to grow and appear higher in the search engine results pages.
We also have an ongoing marketing contract with NSFS and work on their SEO monthly, generating quality content, updating factors that affect search engine rankings and helping them to reach their target audience.
Multisite
Whilst migrating the website to WordPress, we have set up multisite functionality. This functionality was required due to NSFS creating an upcoming new sister service that they want customers to search and find a dedicated site for. This website was created in the same layout as the parent NSFS website, with an alternate colour scheme, text and images. We also created the content and sourced images for this website.
WordPress Multisite allows website admins to quickly and easily switch between the backend of each website at a click of a button. Shared functionality makes the sites more efficient and cost-effective to maintain too.
- #SASS
- #JavaScript
- #JQuery
How We Can Help
If you are looking to migrate your website to WordPress, or need a new WordPress website designed and developed, 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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