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WordPress site restructure and support for a top 100 UK Law Firm.

Michelmores is a top 100 UK law firm for the ambitious and the distinctive, helping clients navigate change in all its forms.

It markets to a genuinely wide set of customer segments, from private clients and family businesses, to corporates and developers. Each one needs a different story, told well.

Challenge.

The site had been built on rigid templates. On day one that looks like consistency. A year in, it looks like handcuffs.

  1. Every change needed a developer. Whether it was tweaking an existing layout or a new page entirely: none of it could be done in house. Work that should have taken an afternoon sat in a queue waiting on developer time.
  2. The website dictated content. The team found themselves adjusting their content to fit what the templates would allow, rather than building what the audience needed. That is the point at which a website stops being an asset and quietly becomes a constraint on execution.
  3. Protect search visibility. Michelmores' site is large, with thousands of URLs and a deep library of insights built up over years. Any restructure had to protect search visibility, rankings and continuity for internal teams. There was no appetite for a restructure that traded flexibility for lost ground in search.

On top of that, the insights area, the firm's main content engine, was dated, awkward to navigate and underperforming for the people it was meant to serve.

CLIENT FEEDBACK

Stuart Turnball

Digital Strategy Lead, Michelmores

"Appeal have been instrumental in advancing our website and positioning us for future growth online, we very much value the solutions to development briefs we give them. Their straightforward approach and consistency make them a partner we can trust.”

Solution.

The fix was not a redesign. It was taking the template structure out and putting control back where it belonged.

Components, not templates. We stripped out the rigid structure and rebuilt the site's layouts and UI features as components inside WordPress's block editor. Same design language, same brand, but now assembled by the marketing team rather than requested from a developer. Pages that used to be a two week ticket became an afternoon's work.

Pages built around audiences, not around the CMS. With the components in place, the team could build persona focused pages for each of the firm's markets, and keep iterating on them as positioning evolved.

A rebuilt insights experience. The insights area was restructured and modernised with a new UI, better search and filtering, and accessibility best practice applied throughout. Easier to use for readers, easier to maintain for the firm.

Migration handled with care. The restructure was carried out to preserve rankings, URLs and internal continuity, with no visibility lost on the way through.

Result.

Michelmores' marketing team now runs its own website. New pages, new sections, new campaigns, created in house, in days rather than months, without a developer in the loop.

The bigger shift is strategic. The team no longer designs its ideas around what the platform permits. Since launch, search visibility and impressions have continued to grow in line with the firm's ambitions, and the site has gone back to doing what it is supposed to do: support the growth strategy instead of slowing it down.

We continue to support Michelmores on development and digital strategy. One team, one point of contact, no surprises.

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