The Challenge
A long time client of our decided it was time for a few updates on their website. While their wares date back decades, they knew that their competition in the classic car sector were keeping their online presence up to speed. The aim of this project was to update the look of the website, better display their archive of content and streamline navigation.
Offering a world class selection of classic, and lovingly restored Land Rovers, the centre in Huddersfield take understandable pride in their work. Each project is painstakingly complete to incredibly high standards and then documented on the site in both a regularly updated blog and catalogue of current car listings. For many of their customers, the intricacies, details and nuances between different models of Land Rover from every era make all the difference. The Land Rover Centre team were looking to update the look of the website to better display the extensive range of images that are taken in order to do these fine vehicles justice. At the same time, the plan was to update the menu, footer and navigation system in order to drive people towards relevant information more quickly.
The Solution
In order to improve the look and feel of the front end of the website, we had to play around with things under the hood. In some cases, we are able to have a drastic impact on the look of a site just by making a few tweaks. In this case, we decided that for long lasting results, we needed to roll up our sleeves and dive into the engine of the website.
The most obvious change is the shift to a more modern, flat material design. The homepage is now focussed around 6 simple icons in the companies classic British racing green colour scheme. This was possible in our advanced framework which also improved mobile responsiveness. Not only did we enhance the prominence of images in the layout, using full width images to show off the selection of vehicles available, we also made major changes to the header menus and footer. As parts of the website that feature on every page, these often overlooked features of a website can have a big impact on the user experience and conversion rate. With so much great quality content, covering many aspects of their enthusiasm for the quintessential off-roader, a little rearrangement took place.
By implementing a new car listings module, we were able to display the information of each listing more clearly and in a more navigable structure. Even more importantly, the changes to how image galleries are displayed mean they have a much bigger impact in every listing. We find that each type of product is best promoted in a different fashion. In some cases such as this, having big, bold visuals has to be combined with in depth technical specifications which can easily become overwhelming to visitors to the site. By keeping a clean, minimal layout and structure, we were able to make sure that all the details are there and easy to find, without causing instant information overload.
The Details
- Reworking of the website into a flat, material design
- Updated the websites look while staying true to the company’s image and branding
- Improved mobile responsiveness from an advanced framework
- Setup of a custom taxonomy to better display testimonials
- New car listing module implemented to better display unique, historic vehicles