Situation: A Poorly Performing Website Resulting in Lost Opportunities

The old Progressive Systems website struggled to showcase and distinguish the two major parts of the business—machines and fabrication—in a cohesive way, and it did not reflect the company’s size, scope, or capabilities. Anecdotally, they knew of at least one major prospect that had tried and failed to reach them through their old website. It was also failing as a recruitment tool.

While Progressive Systems receives many referrals via word of mouth and has few competitors in the large-format category, they recognized that a poorly designed, difficult-to-navigate website can make even a large, highly capable business seem unprofessional. Looking for a partner with “depth of experience in all the areas required to make a site which would be a great marketing tool,” the company chose Windmill Strategy to move ahead with a website redesign that would increase qualified leads, attract talent and job applications, and show the scope and sophistication of Progressive Systems’ capabilities, including their large facilities. They also specifically wanted copywriting support, realizing that they had needed it but not received it during their previous website redesign process.

Solution: Leading with UX Strategy to Create Clarity and Precision Around the Breadth of Capabilities

Windmill created a UX strategy in alignment with the growth goals for the two main business areas, including robust mega menu design, content strategy/mapping, and cross linking to bring the two together visually while clearly telling the story of each individually.

To show the scope of what Progressive Systems can do, Windmill developed an “ecommerce-like” view of the products that allows for sophisticated filtering by certain taxonomies. This allows the user to see the huge breadth of machines that Progressive Systems can provide even as they filter and narrow down the array to their specific area of interest, such as doors, flooring, or insulation. This setup also allows related machines to be highlighted on each individual product page, so that the user can browse through the portfolio of products in a commonly recognized, user-friendly, ecommerce-like manner.

To upload all the information about the machines, Windmill created a one-time project import that programmatically imported the data for approximately 150 machines, including images and copy. To ensure that the bulk product upload would go smoothly, all of the product data needed to be formatted into a unified sheet that would work with WP All Import. We evolved several versions of the import spreadsheet to best serve the needs of the client during their content aggregation process.

The sheer number of machines is one way that the new website conveys the size of the Progressive Systems facility and operations. Other elements that communicate this include an aerial view of the company’s 143,000 sq. ft. facility, a timeline explaining the company’s growth, and a video with extensive footage of the facility interior and exterior, including land available for expansion.

In addition to the machine data, all existing posts on the old website were bulk migrated to the new website. We created custom post types for machines, blog articles, and careers. A job application form is integrated into the job postings. The WordPress content management system with its native core block editor serves as the primary tool for page and content creation, and Windmill established base patterns for easy, replicable use across the website, facilitating the overall ease of use of the CMS, which was lacking in the old site.

To streamline contact routing and ensure that leads are captured, Windmill created one contact form that has specific tagging throughout the site. If a user is routed to the form from any of the three subfooter CTA’s—See Our Machines In Person, Talk To A Machine Specialist, or Talk To A Fabrication Specialist—that origin is denoted in the form submission to allow the Progressive Systems team to seamlessly route that lead to the appropriate internal resource.