Project Summary
Michelmersh Brick Holding PLC is the group behind some of the most well-recognised premium brick brands in the UK and Europe.
They approached us in 2022 for the redesign of their suite of websites along with the design and build of a brand new website.
They wanted all of their websites on a single framework that would allow them to be easily cloned to provide the foundations for any child websites for new or acquired brands, reducing the time and cost of getting new brand sites live.
We have launched 3 websites so far with 3 more in production. The live websites consist of their group website, MBH Plc which sits at the heart of their new multisite network, alongside the BIM Bricks and Sustainable Brick websites.
The new sites provide a premium look and feel. They are far more representative of their group and high-quality brands. We also focused on greatly improving usability for their users and team, creating user journeys to satisfy the needs of their diverse audience, and a content creation experience to give their marketing team the control and freedom to easily craft on-brand pages and content without the need for code.
Deliverables
- SEO Migration Risk Assessment & Report
- Discovery & Strategy Workshops
- High Fidelity UX Wireframes
- Page Layouts Designed
- Mobile & Desktop Viewports
- Bespoke WordPress Theme
- WordPress Multisite Development
- Custom API Integrations
- Browser & Device Testing
- Redirect Mapping & Implementation
- WordPress Training
- Analytics & Goal Tracking
- Ongoing Support & Maintenance
The Challenge
Michelmersh approached us in 2022 for the redesign of their suite of websites, starting with their main group website.
They wanted all of their websites on a single framework that would allow them to be easily cloned to provide the foundations for any child websites for new or acquired brands, reducing the time and cost of getting new brand sites live.
They wanted to remain on WordPress and had investigated WordPress Multisite as a potential solution, but other agencies they spoke to told them that Multisite wouldn’t allow them to do what they needed.
When they approached us we assured them that it was very much possible and were able to provide examples of multisite networks we’ve built that do exactly what they were after.
Aside from this, their existing sites were looking dated and didn’t offer the best user experience, which meant that they didn’t reflect the premium nature of their brands.
The websites were also hard to use for their marketing team, offering little control over their content, and requiring developer help for most tasks.
Objectives:
- The redesign and development of 6 website within a multisite environment
- Improved usability across the each website - with improved UI and UX
- Deliver a look and feel that represents their premium brands of bricks
- Code-free updates and full control over content
- The ability to create pages and campaigns without the need for developer help
- Technical support available from an agency when we do require help
- Increased brand awareness
- Improved lead generation, with CRM integration
- Easier and faster time to launch when acquiring new businesses
- To be seen as a leader of industry and not a follower - reflective of sustainability work, and being first to embrace BIM data
- Serve their diverse audience with effective user journeys
Workshops, Content Mapping & Wireframes
All of our website projects kick off with Discovery and Strategy workshops, where we interrogate the brief, and solidify the goals and objectives for the new website.
We initially held 2 workshops with Michelmerch to delve into the target audience, user data, website goals and objectives for each site, with a focus on the initial parent site, MBH Plc.
We also carried out additional kick-off sessions for each subsequent website, to build on those initial workshops but with a focus on each child site.
User personas were created to represent the groups that need to be served by each website, and user journeys were designed, alongside the sitemap and content plan.
From the findings of the workshops, we were able to wireframe the key page templates for desktop and mobile views. Showing the client where important content blocks would sit in relation to each other, and how each of the user journeys would flow through the sites.
Wireframing is paramount before any visual design, which can distract from noting any key usability considerations.
The workshop included:
- Analytics Review
- Competitor Analysis
- User Personas Creation
- User Flow Creation
- Content Outline Creation
- Website Sitemap Creation
- Moodboard Creation
- Conversion & Website Goal Planning
- Page Template Allocation
- Integration & Automation Discussion
- Content Migration Planning
- SEO Benchmarking
Design System & Page Layouts
Once the wireframes and prototypes were tested and signed off, we moved on to visual design, with the creation of website visuals for both desktop and mobile views.
The design process was informed by our UX research and as with all of the sites we build, delivered fully responsive websites that deliver a seamless user experience across devices.
This process was carried out for each of the 3 websites and is being carried out for the 3 websites yet to be launched.
Considerate & Scalable Design
Development Of
Bespoke WordPress Themes
For every website we build, we create a bespoke theme (never using off-the-shelf themes). This improves usability, removes bloat, and ensures that the websites can be scaled and built around the business, strictly following the approved design visuals.
It also allows us to build in required functionality, reducing the number of plugins required and it ensures a completely unique website tailored specifically to the client.
The new websites provide a range of features and functionality to meet the needs of Michelmersh and its diverse audience.
- Follow On Scroll Header
- Facade Designer Integration
- Downloadable BIM Data
- Case Studies
- Blog & News Area
- Inspiration Gallery
- Website Search Functionality
- Careers Section
- Custom Product Importer
- Landing Page Builder
- Investor Stock Ticker
- Website Switcher For Multisites
- Image Zoom On Product Photos
- Page Transitions
- Testimonials Widget
- Investors Section
Integrations
The sites have a number of integrations with key tools to ensure that the Michelmersh team has everything they need to manage the marketing and sales process.
Development included key integrations with SalesForce, Investis Stock Data and Mailchimp, along with their Façade Designer tool.
MBH PLC
The first website to launch was the group site, which is the parent site of the multisite network. This site performs many important roles and serves numerous audiences.
The website provides users with their full range of bricks, from their various premium brands, managed with a custom product importer. It also provides BIM files and additional data for the construction industry, architects and developers. This is something Michelmersh have been leading the way on.
The website also provides a section for their investors and stakeholders, providing share price, regulatory news, financial statements and more.
BIM Bricks
The BIM Bricks website is the dedicated home where Michelmersh provides the most up-to-date BIM files for their products. These are the highest-quality brick files on the market and Michelmersh were the first UK brick manufacturer to provide these files. They were years ahead of their competition.
This site also uses the custom product importer.
Sustainable Brick
The Sustainable Brick website is more of a standard brochure-type site, which is designed to be a resource for industry news, innovation and information regarding sustainable clay products. Highlighting technology advancements, decarbonisation strategy projects, investments and initiatives.
It aims to provide specifiers, homeowners and house builders with an understanding as to why clay brick, the oldest manmade building product, is pivotal in a sustainable built environment for the future.
Michelmersh has been a trailblazer in their industry in working towards net zero.
SEO & Performance
For SEO to be truly effective, it needs to be considered from the outset of a website project. We audited existing SEO performance and managed a careful migration to mitigate the risks associated with website redesigns on organic performance.
We carried out redirect mapping and implementation, set up Yoast and organisation schema, ran a post launch broken link check, submitted sitemaps to Search Console,
We also implemented their GA4 analytics tracking, set up conversion tracking for all new events and any altered existing events, and set up Google Tag Manager and Search Console.
- Premium hosting - private server
- CDN
- Caching
- Image Optimisation
- CSS, HTML & JS minification
- Careful SEO migration and redirections
- 404 cleanup
- XML Sitemaps
- SSL certificate
- Schema markup
- W3C & WCAG 2 Compliance
- Google Tag Manager set up
- Yoast implemented and set up
- Mobile first design
- GA4 conversion tracking
- Search console setup
The Results
The launch of the Group site has been a great success, as have subsequent launches of BIM Bricks and Sustainable Brick.
Our careful SEO migration meant that no negative impact was felt from the redesign and all important performance metrics are up.
For the period from launch until the time of writing this, the year-on-year stats reported for MBH Plc from Analytics show:
The website was very well received, winning Silver for B2B Website of the Year in the 2024 UK Dev Awards.
