Beginning in the mid '90s with Premier Industrial Corporation's first ever website, through two major website reworks at Proforma and Therma-Tru, I led the creative development and site structure and navigation efforts. At Premier (later Premier Farnell, IPD North America) I was part of the steering committee for site design and supervised execution. While at Proforma, I was part of the redesign committee that modernized the website in 2003 that resulted in increased site efficiencies and better aesthetics and navigation. For Therma-Tru, I led the team that redesigned the site by improving channel categories and implementing consumer segmentation research into the site design and navigation.
The following illustrations and bullet points represent the strategic changes for the Therma-Tru website...
Old Therma-Tru Website
Launched in 2002 with overall traffic averaging 90k visits per month for 2005
Static content for both navigation and site architecture
No business category or consumer segmentation
Trade portion of website was very generic with no content for specific trade channels, distributor, dealer, contractor or architect
Product information was not dynamically driven by a product database which required maintenance of 100s of static pages and product line exclusions, such as steel door products
Dealer locator was limited and could not show more details such as showrooms at dealer locations with Therma-Tru products
Limited site search abilities that resulted in very broad results
External web developer expense of $90k
Updated Therma-Tru Website
Launched in 2006, traffic increased to an average of 125k visits per month (compared to 90k in 2005)
New, more consumer friendly design
Site revisions target both trade and consumer audiences with 70% of site visits by consumers-in support of brand management goal of increasing overall brand awareness beyond trade professionals
Further site segmentation to support consumer insights research
Find your style = Entryway Passionate (1st)
Choose the best = Simply the Best (2nd)
Start a project = DIY (3rd)
Added a new trade portal with an average of 6k visits per month
Dealer/Distributor
Builder
Remodeler
Architect
Product pages are dynamically generated from a product database and now include the full breadth and depth of product offerings (including steel door products)
Product pages also include product attributes such as ENERGY STAR and Tru-Defense®.
New dealer locator allowing users to search for dealers and dealers with product displays (at top of the list)
New search tool that generates more accurate results
External web developer expense of $0 (site redesign and revisions managed and created with internal resources)