Marketing with Sarena

About Marketing with Sarena

Marketing with Sarena is a specialist outsourced marketing partner for small and mid-sized accountancy firms that are serious about growth. Marketing with Sarena is run by Sarena Harwood, who has over 8 years’ experience in marketing for accountancy firms. Sarena also has a master’s degree in marketing and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Background

Marketing with Sarena had an existing website, which was built in Wix. However, the business quickly outgrew it. Sarena felt that it did not have the consistency and professional design required to attract the type of accountancy firms that are her ideal clients. After refining her positioning, service portfolio and her ideal client persona, the existing website no longer reflected the direction of her business or her wealth of marketing expertise. Sarena also wanted a website that would professionally showcase her growing collection of marketing insights and case studies.

Sarena wanted a website that would:

1. Appeal to her ideal clients
2. Demonstrate her marketing expertise in the accountancy sector
3. Showcase the range of services that Marketing with Sarena provides
4. Present her case studies and insights articles professionally.

The website would consist of 12 pages initially, whilst being flexible and scalable enough to accommodate future growth.

Marketing with Sarena required a professional digital marketing partner specialising in WordPress web design services to create a fresh and modern website that would appeal to accountancy firms. Some content – including several blog posts – would require migration from the existing site to the new one. The change of platform – from Wix to WordPress – provided a great opportunity to build something from the ground up with a clear, consistent and user-friendly layout.

Our Solution

Having worked with Liam on several website and marketing projects in the past, returning to work with VIP IT was an obvious choice.

After an initial consultation to discuss her website requirements, we prepared a full quote for creating a new WordPress website inspired by elements of Sarena’s existing website but with a more consistent, modern and professional design. During the complimentary consultation, we provided advice on a suitable website structure, website hosting and overall design.

Having used WordPress in her previous in-house roles, Sarena was confident in the platform and enthusiastic about having her own WordPress website.

Advising On Website Hosting

Marketing with Sarena already had an email system and domains hosted with a well-known national provider, so we advised purchasing website hosting from that same provider as it would keep everything together.

As the website domain was connected to Wix and was hosting the existing website, we set up the WordPress website hosting with a temporary domain to allow the new site to be developed without interrupting the existing one. When the website was ready to go live, we connected the domain to the WordPress hosting for a seamless and hassle-free launch.

Excellent Communication & Regular Updates

Managing a successful website project requires excellent communication and regular updates throughout to keep the project on track. We provided a plan as to how the website would be developed, with a page list that could be used to track progress. We used a staged review process to allow feedback and approval on a page-by-page basis, rather than waiting until the end of the project. This accelerated the review process and allowed improvements made on one page to be reflected in others.

We provided excellent communication to Sarena throughout the project, mostly via email with regular progress updates.

As a fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and marketing professional, Sarena valued Liam’s expertise. He seamlessly integrated marketing principles and concepts into the website to support future growth.

Professional WordPress Setup

Effective websites require a professional setup, creating firm foundations for the rest of the website to be built on. Ensuring that WordPress is set up professionally can make the difference between a website that provides a great user experience with quick loading pages and a modern responsive design and a static, uninspiring website that is slow to load and fails to satisfy users.

As part of the professional WordPress setup, which includes configuring WordPress and selecting optimal WordPress settings, we also installed our preferred, industry-leading website platform. This platform delivers the perfect balance between functionality, usability and speed. It also includes a user-friendly drag & drop editor that can be used to quickly and easily update the website post-launch.

Bespoke, Fresh & Modern Website Design

Being a specialist outsourced marketing company, Marketing with Sarena needed a bespoke, fresh and modern website design with a flowing layout and interactive elements that bring the content to life. A standard WordPress template would have been too restrictive and unlikely to attract the professional accountancy firms that Sarena works with. We developed a number of bespoke layouts and designs especially for Marketing with Sarena, with their specific requirements in mind.

We created initial designs for the website header, footer and key website pages in accordance with Sarena’s brand guidelines, website examples and inspiration boards. Each design and layout focused on delivering an exceptional user experience with interactive elements, animations and consistent spacing and formatting throughout.

Each design was sent to Sarena for her review and approval to allow small and regular changes to be made throughout the design and development process. This close collaboration helped support fast progress and reduced the number of changes required around the time of the website launch.

Migration Of Content From Wix

As Sarena had an existing Wix website, we needed to migrate some of her content across to WordPress during the website build. We took a semi-automated approach, which involved exporting posts from Wix and importing them into WordPress.

Following the automatic import, we manually formatted each article to maintain design consistency. We also took the opportunity to resize and compress all the images from the posts to optimise page speed and deliver a fast and responsive user experience.

Bespoke Case Study, Insight Article And Archive Layouts

Maintaining a modern, professional and consistent design throughout all areas of the website was very important. Sarena wanted the website to demonstrate her expertise and build trust in the digital marketing services that she provides.

We created bespoke layouts that would be applied to each case study and insight article. These layouts utilise dynamic content elements and Advanced Custom Fields to display content entered via the WordPress dashboard in a consistent and professional way that maintains design consistency. Each layout can be easily edited and updated to serve Marketing with Sarena’s evolving business.

The case study layout incorporates key information including project type, marketing services used and the case study title into a header section, which includes a background image with a coloured overlay. The main section of each case study includes a two-column layout with styled boxes, which include the case study summary and testimonial. Underneath the main section, the layout includes a case study grid, which displays further case studies and a clear CTA to encourage website visitors to either book a discovery call or view further case studies. These marketing elements ensure that the website is firmly focused on encouraging visitors to complete valuable actions and engage with further content.

Similarly, the insight article layout has a styled header, which displays the primary article category, article title, publish date and author. In the main section, a two-column layout is used to display the article content in one column and an author block, related insights block and categories block in the other. The author block is particularly important from an SEO and AEO perspective. It contains author information including the author’s name, author photo, author bio and contact details. This helps to build trust which search engines and answers engines, expect when deciding how visible to make content. Google in particular places great weight on E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness), which this author block delivers in an engaging and user-friendly format.

In addition to the individual layouts, the Marketing with Sarena website also includes archive layouts to maintain the design and style consistency across all areas of the website. The marketing insights archive layout helps users to filter articles by category/topic and displays the insights articles in an attractive and interactive grid layout, which also includes pagination to improve page loading speeds and user experience.

Custom Logo, Testimonial & Case Study Sliders

As with every B2B website, building trust is critical to its success. For B2B service providers, client logos, testimonials and case studies are crucial and need to be displayed professionally at key stages of the user journey.

We developed custom logo, testimonial and case study sliders that display these important trust signals in an accessible and engaging way. The logo slider includes attractive visual effects, colour overlays and website links. Meanwhile, the testimonial and case study sliders display key information in a structured and ordered way, which appeals to accountancy firms.

These custom elements are also global blocks, which means that they can be easily updated once and these changes will be reflected wherever these blocks are used throughout the website. This time-saving feature ensures that content updates are easy and hassle-free.

Engaging Animations & Effects

Many websites can appear static and dull, which is to the detriment of user engagement. Sarena was keen for the website to include a series of engaging animations and effects to help the website content standout and engage its visitors.

We added a series of different animations and effects throughout the website, ranging from simple colour overlays and transformations through to exciting visual effects and animations. Many of these effects appear after hovering over key elements, while others activate as users scroll down a page.

Dedicated FAQ Blocks With Schema Markup

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) provide a suitable format to answer key questions and demystify processes and concepts that website visitors are interested in. An effective FAQ section can help your ideal clients get answers to key questions and can even help nurture them towards getting in touch. They are also becoming increasingly important with the rise of answer engines such as Chat GPT. FAQ blocks deliver content in a format that is easily accessible to answer engines and can help your website become cited as a trusted source of answers to questions that your ideal clients are asking.

We created dedicated FAQ blocks for each of Sarena’s service pages with integrated FAQ schema markup, which can help boost visibility in both search engines and answer engines. Each question and answer is displayed in a styled block, which can be easily expanded and collapsed by the user.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Integration

Tracking user journeys and understanding the behaviour of your website visitors is more important than ever. Collecting analytics data can help inform future website improvements and assist with the evolution of your marketing strategy.

We integrated Sarena’s existing Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property into the website in a GDPR compliant way, which ensures that user consent is obtained before user data is tracked. We also dedicated time to testing the integration and ensuring that data was being collected successfully.

Minimal & Very Selective Use Of WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins are a powerful way to introduce new features to a website. However, when they are used excessively, they can cause compatibility and website performance issues. Fortunately, our chosen industry-leading website platform contains excellent functionality and features, which helps minimise the use of plugins.

The completed Marketing with Sarena website uses fewer than 8 plugins and is optimised to maintain exceptional compatibility and website performance. This helps to deliver an exceptional user experience to the accountancy firms that browse the website with fast page load speeds and excellent responsiveness. There is also ample scope for further plugins to be introduced at a later date should Sarena require functionality that the website platform cannot deliver.

On-Going Website Support & Updates

The most effective and highest-performing websites require regular maintenance and updates to maintain optimum performance. Developing a website and leaving it is just not the VIP IT way; it’s why we include three months of website support and updates (to existing website pages) with every website that we build as part of our WordPress web design services.

Sarena will benefit from our advice and support as she gets used to using her new website. Whether she has a quick question or wants to make a more complex change, VIP IT is here to help. In addition to this, all required WordPress core, theme and plugin updates will be completed behind the scenes to help maintain website performance and security.

The Results

Sarena is delighted with her new Marketing with Sarena website. Although the website has only recently been launched, she has received many positive comments from her network and the accountancy firms that her business delivers outsourced marketing services to. Sarena also appreciated Liam’s professional & organised approach and the updates that he provided throughout the website design and development process.

The new Marketing with Sarena website is fresh, modern and is already engaging Sarena’s ideal clients. It also provides the professional look and design consistency that was missing from the previous website. Crucially, it demonstrates and reflects Sarena’s wealth of marketing expertise, building trust through insight articles and case studies.