Company WordPress Multisite

The customiser view of wordpress with a theme used on a multisite install

A company had multiple branches, each with its own Joomla based website. The websites were slowly drifting apart in terms of style and codebase.

Contacts were split between different sites with no central overview.

The Objective

Create a WordPress multi-site install to manage all websites from one admin area. Simplifying site updates and forcing a consistent style across all sites.

Compliment the sites with an open-source marketing automation system to keep all client interaction in one place.

The Process

A custom theme was created according to InDesign files sent from a design company.

To allow each site to use the same theme, but also allow a certain amount of customisation such as brand colours and logos, the WordPress customization API was used to add options to the customizer which could be used on a per-site basis rather than globally affecting each website. Options were added for logos, headers, brand colours and other things that needed to be specific for each website.

The theme contains custom layouts for various different custom post types across the sites as well as custom layouts for existing plugins such as Events Manager, which was used to sell tickets for seminars.

All forms on the website (other than the event booking forms) are generated by Mautic which then pushes the user information to a CRM.

Mautic allowed us to create autoresponders, providing users with course information sent by email. Newsletter subscription campaigns with double-opt-in registration forms. Calls to action on the website such as fly-in form widgets offering a discount coupon which load on the site after a set time and hide for known users.

The Result

The install now runs 7 websites, with more to be added in the future (Which is an easy process).

Site traffic has increased after the migration from the old Joomla websites (which included full redirection of old urls). The sites have a clearer structure which naturally improved their usability.

The theme was built with SEO in mind and is designed to be fast loading. Minimal sized css and js files, lazyloading srcset images, schema markup for custom post types, social network integration and more.

Communication with existing and potential clients is easier due to the central Mautic install and collection of form data passed to a CRM.

Summary

You can view one of the sites, which includes links to the others, here.