Rebuilt with WordPress for continuous progress.
CGLCC
Empowering Canada’s 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs.
CGLCC – Canada’s 2SLGBTQI+ Chamber of Commerce, is a national member-based organization dedicated to creating a thriving and inclusive Canadian economy. Through their programs, advocacy initiatives and education, they enable the 2SLGBTQI+ business community to connect and grow.
We redeveloped CGLCC’s website, leveraging WordPress’ Gutenberg block builder. Together with ongoing optimization, accessibility and SEO improvements, the new site allows CGLCC to make regular updates to their programs and resources with ease.
Reach
- 100,000 2SLGBTQI+ owned and operated businesses in Canada
Services
- WordPress Development
- UX Consulting
- Search Optimization
- Web Hosting
- WebOps, Maintenance & Support
Year
- 2023-Present
Technology
- WordPress
- Full Site Editing
- Advanced Custom Fields
- Google Maps
- WPForms
- Jetpack
- Fastly
- Hubspot Integration
- Pantheon
Digital Strategy
Ready for a modern redevelopment.
CGLCC had recently undergone a major scale-up and required iterative updates to create a more user-friendly, accessible and member-centric experience. They needed a solution to simplify their content management and integrate various marketing tools.
The previous CGLCC website was built with WordPress, however it used the classic editor which made it very difficult for their team to make routine updates. We recommended continuing to use WordPress as the foundation for the new website, implementing Gutenberg, and tailoring a custom hybrid theme to meet CGLCC’s specific requirements. The new Full Site Editing theme preserves the existing website design while enhancing its functionality and flexibility. Preconfigured styles and templates ensure that all new content published on the website adheres to CGLCC’s visual identity.
To guide users through their broad range of content, we implemented custom post types and taxonomies where appropriate. We also looked to optimize the site architecture and enable powerful search and filtering tools with the goal of better organizing CGLCC’s content, allowing related topics from different post types to be linked together.
Switching to the Gutenberg editor provides CGLCC with the ability to publish on-brand content with ease.
UX/UI Design
Creating an inclusive online space.
With diversity being a pillar of the organization, CGLCC wanted to ensure the website was inclusive and accessible for as many visitors as possible. This meant auditing the website to ensure it follows best practices that meet modern accessibility standards.
Went through the entire website with accessibility in mind, recommending and adding important accessibility features. This included tab targeting and keyboard navigation on the header, auto-focusing search boxes when opened, adding screen reader labels throughout the entire website, ensuring proper color contrast, and improving speed. We also actioned a variety of strategic UX updates and dramatically improved the mobile experience, providing an optimized experience across all devices.
Member Management
Membership features at the forefront.
With the modern approach to WordPress, we greatly reduced the complexity of the platform, simplifying administrative workflow and most importantly, improving the member experience. This involved re-developing the member areas of the website and resource sections to be more user-friendly, filterable, and more easily updated via the website’s backend.
We also enhanced the membership system, while incorporating and adapting the organization’s existing processes, directories, and application functionalities to the new platform. This included revamping the approach to multistep applications and ensuring the new system provides a streamlined application workflow. We transferred all existing member data to the new platform, maintaining the integrity and continuity of CGLCC’s digital presence.
Redesigned member content provides a clear overview of the different membership types.
Development
Optimization for members across the nation.
Improving the site’s performance was a major priority in development. We fixed a variety of technical issues to improve performance and create better workflows for admin and content. We incorporated several features from Jetpack, leading to a variety of improvements to SEO, website speed and script loading times. By implementing Fastly’s image CDN, we greatly reduce image loading times, serving properly sized images throughout the experience.
From an admin perspective, we greatly simplified the backend, reducing barriers for CGLCC’s team to freely edit pages and posts. We also reworked their proprietary form systems into WordPress-friendly WPForms, allowing CGLCC to more easily update forms. We also built a new customizable map block. This block has a number of configuration settings and nested advanced custom fields allowing CGLCC to confidently create member groups and update individual pins.
Beyond optimization, CGLCC required a seamless tracking and reporting solution to measure success. We incorporated Google Site Kit to build a comprehensive, unified dashboard. This solution brings together data from Search Console, Tag Manager, and Analytics, presenting it in an easily digestible format right within their WordPress dashboard. CGLCC now has access to real-time data on their traffic, SEO and marketing efforts.
The CGLCC platform has experienced significant performance improvements to core web vitals as direct result of the rebuild.
What’s Next
Ongoing advancements to strengthen connections.
Our work with CGLCC shows that there’s an alternative to building a new website from scratch. In this case, we leveraged foundational elements from the existing site, redeveloping and optimizing the most critical touchpoints for CGLCC and their members. As we continue our partnership, we are taking ongoing actions to optimize the platform’s user experience, SEO, accessibility, and overall performance. What’s more, the new tracking and reporting solution provides the vital data needed to guide future decisions.
