Chatham House
Vastly improved content management, user engagement, and SEO for a globally recognised policy institute.
Chatham House is a globally recognised and independent policy institute renowned for creating a trusted environment for problem-solving through open dialogue, analysis, and solution-based thinking. Known for the prestigious ‘Chatham House Rule’ that promotes trusted dialogue by withholding the identities of participants, the institute plays a pivotal role in shaping global policy debates and fostering international cooperation.
Challenge
Chatham House embarked on a mission to transform their digital presence in preparation for their centenary. A new website was needed that prioritised accessibility and could manage the large volume of content they produce annually. They sought a more organised, user-friendly, and optimised web presence to improve content discoverability and user engagement. The structure of the existing website was leading to difficulties in content management, user engagement, and search engine optimisation.
Approach
Our approach was to reorganise the structure of their web-based content, presenting it in a much more ‘findable’ manner. The organisation of the website is now significantly improved, resulting in a much more positive user experience, and greatly enhanced search engine optimisation.
We implemented deep integration between the Drupal CMS and a new CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, that streamlined the management of members. Over 10,000 publication pages were migrated into new templates and components, giving more control to content creators while preserving legacy content. The new design incorporated a centralised content index and sophisticated taxonomies providing a quick and powerful route directly into the content.
During the development phase, we conducted extensive testing and validation processes to ensure the new strategies and designs were effective. These tests ensured that all elements, including the new CRM integration, the content index, and the taxonomies, were working seamlessly.
Collaboration with Chatham House was integral to the success of this project. The respect and trust established between Numiko and Chatham House facilitated effective communication and smooth execution of the project.
Results
The new Chatham House website has now been live for two years and it has generated some excellent results within that time period.
- Total sessions have increased by well over a third demonstrating that the website is attracting a lot of new users.
- Organic search sessions have doubled demonstrating vastly improved search engine optimisation.
- Sessions on mobile devices have almost doubled and the average mobile page load time has been cut in half demonstrating much greater device compatibility.
- Active reads on articles have more than doubled demonstrating the efficacy of the new web-based content.
- Newsletter subscriptions are over six times larger demonstrating a massive increase in user engagement.
Visit Chatham House's website
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“I’m not sure I’ve worked with an agency as calm and pragmatic in its approach as Numiko. Their focus is on delivering quality and they did so consistently throughout the project. There was a level of respect and trust between the two parties that facilitated the delivery of what was a huge transformational project for Chatham House, so I cannot stress enough how much of a difference this made to the process.”