Re-envisioning an award-winning Managed Service Provider's brand and website

Project: End-to-end website design & build, branding

Role: Sole integrated brand designer + UX/UI designer

Industry: Technology

Tools: Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, Bootstrap, Microsoft 365, HubSpot

Duration: 2017 to 2025

Discover: Understanding the problem

The business website had grown to 325 pages over six years, with more than one hundred orphaned URLs containing highly specific content that was attracting little to no traffic.

With fierce competition in the IT MSP space and 250 other providers identified as providing similar or identical service solutions, the brand needed a refresh to revitalise and realign it to the industry sector.

The website chat facility was being used mostly by existing customers or jobseekers to obtain support or enquire about employment, which translated into time-consuming activity for Marketing and Service having to collate request information from one system and pass this into another.

Define: Shaping the requirement

Wаnstоr required a streamlined website solution supported by strong thought leadership collateral, taking performant page content and combining this with relevant data onto new URLs.

Business objectives were transforming rapidly, meaning core service propositions required review to bring them in line with marketplace and competitor offerings.

Server response time meant site speed was also a factor, further highlighting the need to distil content down and ensure that search agent crawl time would be optimised on fewer URLs with richer content.

Develop: Realising the solution

Working with the Head of Marketing and Commercials Director, a new site structure was agreed with content for migration mapped to new sector and solution areas.

A redeveloped brand language was deployed to a staging build with an SEO specialist engaged to assist in defining and futureproofing the new sitemap. 

Deliver: The result

The new website showcased a modern UI and simplified UX, putting concise service solutions in front of prospects in less than two clicks from any page, whilst directing existing customers and jobseekers to relevant content.

Over a 36-month period the website was refactored once more to optimise technical health for the Core Web Vitals, thereafter achieving scores of 80% to 92% for Performance, Accessibility, Best Practice and SEO in both the Mobile and Desktop categories.

During this time a design system was scaffolded to allow consistent development of the brand language over time based on input from the new Marketing Lead and to provide improved clarity around customer and staff communications to internal teams.

With a new website in place, focus was shifted to identifying key content and collateral required to support business objectives, including research reports, case studies, and TechTalks.

Overview

• Evolved the brand across digital, social and print channels with a simplified, modern look
• Achieved 80% to 92% Core Web Vitals scoring across 205 pages for Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices and SEO for both Mobile and Desktop metrics
• Steered the visual design of all content across the business, from corporate and internal platforms to white paper, research report, case study and customer impact story documentation, along with all social, HTML email and presentation content across the business
• Strengthened brand resonance within the UK MSP space with a view to building awareness of Managed IT and Cloud services
• Undertook two full website builds to deliver performant, accessible content
• Collaborated with stakeholders to design and build a comprehensive library of thought leadership content comprising white papers, customer impact stories, case studies and research reports to support business growth
• Created consistent customer-facing and internal documentation to reinforce brand credibility