Maricopa County Home Shows approached Stoke Interactive with the need for a new website. Their current site was outdated and they had received feedback that it was difficult to navigate. MCHS also had a unique request – they wanted a website that could be easily updated by their staff for each show season which is about every 3 months. We were excited to help them figure out ways to make their content easier to find for the visitors, as well as less of a process to update by their staff.
To achieve this we created a custom themed WordPress website and created a backend that makes it quite simple for their staff to upload new content and change existing content to reflect the current show through the use of forms and fields. Maricopa County Home Show hosts 5 shows each year, and each show's theme is represented by a different color. So to keep their branding consistent for each show, we created a way for them to easily change the accent color on the website to coincide with their show color. Through the backend of the website they can simply select the month or show color from a dropdown menu to instantly change the color of the website. The main colors of the website change to reflect each show: pink, blue, green, purple, red, and aqua.
Their old website had over 50 pages of very long and wordy content. The information hierarchy of it lacked organization which made it hard to find what you were looking for. So knowing this, we condensed the website into 6 main pages in the navigation; the two main target sources to the site are “attendees” and “exhibitors”, so the site is broken up by this as the two main sections. Working with MCHS, we then edited and combed through all their existing content and broke it down into sections through sub pages, yet kept things very clean and clear. Each page is connected through a “Our Next Show” banner which leads visitors to a page that contains all of the next show’s relevant information. We kept all copy to the point and simple, since people know what they are looking for when coming to the site. The beautiful photos and clean layout make it easy to find exactly what you need, while featuring additional show details the user may not have already known.
The backend is custom built for them and their content. Each page is tied together through the dashboard where necessary, since the content is robust but displayed in a very organized manner. We made it a point to keep things simple for the staff and less time consuming to allow them to focus on other areas of their job, since the updating process takes only a few hours now, compared to weeks as it did in the past.
The client is thrilled, the feedback has been wonderful and now they can spend their time focusing on their shows, rather then answering phone calls about information that can be found on the website. We had a great time working with this client and look forward to other projects like this in the future.
