Challenge
The number one intermediary for health insurance in Massachusetts merged with the number three intermediary to form a powerful presence in the Massachusetts health insurance market. Both companies had multiple websites to serve their various types of customers, each with their own specific needs. Each website had its own internal system, used their own databases, and each had different formats. Every time any content was changed, it had to be done by an IT department, often manually changing the same content on different websites. The content was not as dynamic as wanted or needed.
The combined company wanted a single, integrated website that could handle the needs of all their customers. The new internal system would to provide critical day to day functionality to employees in multiple locations. The website would be used to expand the business into new geographic areas throughout the United States. The client wanted a site that could draw in new customers and provide their existing clients with the tools they needed – a website that could strengthen their position in a very challenging health insurance market.
They were also aware of the importance of search engine strategy and were looking for sound advice in an industry where best practices are constantly changing.
Solution
The first challenge was merging the internal systems. An independent study confirmed our own recommendation that one of the systems was better than the other. We then moved forward with the following changes:
- Add new functionality to the chosen system to handle different features
- Expand the chosen database system to support fields and/or tables
- Data map the other chosen system into the new modified system
The discovery phase revealed a number of requirements that our information architects and user experience designers then used create the foundation for a successful visual interface. The client was kept in the loop during the enitre creative process, from wire frames to polished screen shots, to ensure the designs followed the company's overall marketing strategy and branding, and to make them aware of how the new interface served their different types of customers.
Since site content needed to be updated frequently, and by marketing personnel rather than bogging down their IT staff, we chose Kentico, a content management system (CMS), to allow the users to change the content.
The designs from the previous phase were then coded, and our developers rewrote some of the original functionality in order to merge the sites and improve performance. The site was then debugged, usability tested, checked against all major browsers, and then moved into Kentico.
While the client was adding content into Kentico, we were busy devising their engine strategy. We ensured that the site's code met all of Google's requirements, and then helped the client select a focused list of keyword sets that would give them the best chance at gaining meaningful search engine visibility. Then we tailored the site's code and body copy to support the chosen keyword sets. Google Analytics is currently being used to measure the site's search engine performance over time, track changes base on content updates, and we also manage their Adwords campaign.