Refreshing a site with real influence.
Jillian Harris publishes amazing content that’s highly sought-after by fans and followers. It ranks well in search engines, has a strong brand, and clear aesthetic. But in spite of this, the previous website was coming up short in key metrics such as bounce rate, page views and time spent on the site. We worked closely with the incredible Jillian Harris team to improve the user experience of their ultra-high-traffic website, while elevating performance and mobile-friendliness.
Say hello to Jilly.
Jillian Harris is an inspiring lifestyle influencer in the world of fashion, family, food, home decor and more. Her beloved brand provides a daily escape, builds community, and celebrates the art of creative living.
User Experience
A mega first impression.
By redeveloping the website as a custom theme on WordPress, we were able to make a number of big time improvements to the user experience. Overall, we streamlined the user’s journey by making it easier for Jilly fans to find the things they’re most interested in.
Most noticeable, is the reworked navigation featuring a well organized mega menu that allows users to quickly jump to their favourite content categories and seamlessly navigate throughout the site.
The previous site was call-to-action heavy with multiple repetitive callouts peppered throughout every page. By contrast, the new site is much more intentional with callouts, so users are directed to meaningful, relevant pages based on the path they’re currently on.
Blogging that’s even more beautiful.
When you have over 10 years of blog content to sort through, thoughtful organization is definitely a top priority. To make things more natural to navigate, we revised and narrowed down blog categories. A prominent search feature puts the main blog categories front and center, while category-specific pages like this one add visual interest and allow the user to narrow down their search more quickly.
The main blog is equipped with a classic view, as well as yearly and monthly archives. So users can see what’s fresh today, and what was fresh a decade ago.
Mobile-Friendliness
Mobile-first, last and everything in between.
The majority of the original website was designed for a desktop experience, which carried over to the mobile version. With mobile usage representing almost 85% of the site’s users, we knew it was vital to put the mobile experience first. We improved elements like the navigation, sharing links, and articles with larger text, and a more touch-friendly interface. The new site has never looked better on phones!
Website Optimization
High-volume handled with ease.
Needless to say, the Jillian site needed to be configured to handle a large volume at any given time. Redeveloping the website as a custom theme with optimized code, removing unnecessary plugins, and migrating to an advanced serverless hosting infrastructure powered by Google Cloud Platform, provided an enormous improvement on stability, scalability, and responsiveness.
Christmas Campaign
12 days of many visitors.
We created an additional custom site for the JH team to publish a giveaway for each of the 12 days of Christmas. We made sure this microsite seamlessly integrated into the main site. With amazing daily giveaways like a Hawaiian Vacation, a King-sized bed and diamond earrings, we expected a lot of traffic. But we couldn’t imagine this much!
A shout out here to Twirling Umbrellas [...] as this project would not have been possible without all their help and guidance!
Jillian Harris
A shout out here to Twirling Umbrellas [...] as this project would not have been possible without all their help and guidance!
Jillian HarrisFinal Thoughts
Natural-born collaborators.
We’re thrilled to work collaboratively with the team at Jillian Harris and to provide continued support. With a project of this size, it takes a whole team on both sides to bring it to life. We’re grateful they trusted us to take their site to the next level and create a better experience for their users. Because this is more than just a blog, it’s a lifestyle.
