Outcomes
38% increase in page views on the site
36% of website traffic from organic search
Harper Stone were engaged by Crown Lands and the Department of Industry in March 2019, to design and develop a new online Crown Land Managers website, to provide information and support to their wide network of Crown Land Managers (CLM).
Over 42% of the state of NSW is Crown Land and is used for a wide range of activities including caravan parks, community halls, aged care facilities, sporting grounds, surf clubs, halls, child care facilities, rural fire service sites and many more. These sites are managed by over 1,200 Crown Land Managers many of which are volunteers.
Prior to the development of the CLM Website, the managers accessed the majority of information from a printed handbook and through support from the staff at Crown Lands.
"Thanks to James and the team at Harper Stone for partnering with us to develop the Reserve Manager website. It was seamless process working with the team throughout the entire web build. James helped us stay on course and the team were able to deliver a great product as per our schedule. I have no hesitation recommending Harper Stone." Justin Popp, Senior Policy & Project Officer, Crown Lands
The project commenced on the 11 March with a full-day session facilitated by James at the Crown Lands Newcastle office working closely with Kylee Warner, Justin Popp and Kylie Butler from Crown Lands as well as Peter Moloney from Department of Industry Communications Team, Warren Andrews from the Department of Industry Digital Enablement Team and Karina Bray, who would lead the content writing stream of work. During the session we were able to cover the core website objectives, to identify the key primary and secondary users of the website, define the measurable markers of success, document key journeys for the primary audience and also review the content structure that had been developed in an earlier phase of the project.
The project had an aggressive timeline working towards a launch to coincide with a new Crown Land Manager Portal with the design templates and content to be designed, developed and created.
Following the workshop, we began the design of the home page and templates. Working closely with the core project team, the designs were able to be refined to produce a clean and modern design that reflected the departments branding and featuring the dramatic imagery they had available. The new Crown Land Managers website has delivered a centralised location for Crown Land Managers to access information, as well as templates and forms and to showcase the work of this hardworking group of Crown Land Managers.
During the project a number of small pieces of additional design work were also delivered. These included a set of infographics that were used to simplify some complex processes and information, a series of tables and also some feature imagery to promote the Community Engagement Strategy and the Annual Report.
Since the website launch there has been a 38% increase in page views on the site, with 36% of traffic acquired through organic search.
The Crown Lands team have been amazing to work with and the new website provides a modern and effective resource, to help support their wide and diverse group of Crown Land Managers.
Technologies
Squiz Matrix CMS
Funnelback Search
Services
Business Analysis
Design
Matrix Implementation
Funnelback Implementation
Content Creation
SEO
Timeline
Website Design and Development - 11 March - 14 June 2019
Content Migration and Testing - 17 June - 15 September 2019
Site Launch - 27 September 2019