Requirements

We were approached by Dundas Castle in mid 2019 to carry out some website development work on their WordPress website. The goals of the project were to resolve several technical issues in the backend that were limiting the functionality of the current design. While improving the look of some areas on the front-end, making it both up to date and user friendly. As well as improving the users journey to lead to more conversions overall. Whether that be for wedding enquiries or general events hire and bookings.

The problem with having a WordPress site and neglecting the backend for a long period of time (in this case years) is that many updates need to be performed. These include theme and plugin updates and WP version updates. This can then lead to front-end breakages when elements are repaired in the admin area.

To overcome these issues we opted to move the entire site to a staging area. This would ensure that the live site was still visible and functional for users. As a result, ensuring that the client wasn’t missing out on business by taking the website down while the work was being carried out.

Over the duration of the project we worked to upgrade every area of the sites architecture bit by bit, ensuring it was all running seamlessly together and on the latest versions before publishing the new, improved site live.

Once the environment was safe and stable, we performed an SEO audit, making recommendations and integrating SEO best practices. This was then followed by a minor re-design of the initial layout making fixes and improvements to deliver a quick return on investment for the client.

We continue to provide Dundas Castle with ongoing website hosting and website support and maintenance ongoing.