A new brand and new leaders. A website to match.
A New Zealand business growth organisation whose website no longer fit who it had become. Now its own team runs the new one.
- Industry
- Business growth and development
- Platform
- HubSpot CMS and Content Hub
- Location
- New Zealand
- Project lead
Natalia Ziarkowska- Built
- Templates, SEO, payment links
01 The briefRebuild the website around the new brand, make it easier to use and better at bringing in leads, make it simple for the team to manage, and bring its functionality up to date.
A website built for a different Icehouse.
The Icehouse is a New Zealand organisation that helps businesses grow and develop. It had a fresh rebrand and a new leadership team, and its website needed to catch up.
The old site had been built on another CMS and later moved to HubSpot. It did not match the new brand or the new leadership's plans, it was hard to manage, and it was not set up to support growth.
So it was missing chances to bring in leads and build awareness of the brand.
It stayed that way because the site had been moved, not rebuilt. Carried over from another CMS, it kept a look that no longer matched the brand, and changes leaned on developers or outside agencies.
What The Icehouse needed
- Room to grow. A website that supports the business as it grows and changes.
- Editing without developers. A CMS the staff can manage and write in themselves.
- Clear and minimal. A simple design that makes the site easy to use.
Designed for the brand, built for the team.
Five phases, from the look of the site to support after launch. The aim throughout was a site the team could change without a developer.
Design and branding
An image-led design in the new brand, with one set of colours, fonts and type across every page.
User experience
Simpler navigation, a sub-navigation that stays on screen as you scroll, and clear calls to action, so a visitor can always see where to go next.
Content management and SEO
The site built on HubSpot CMS with flexible page templates the team edits itself, and title tags and meta descriptions written for search.
Training
Training sessions, recorded videos and documentation to refer back to, plus reporting tools and training in reading them.
Support after launch
Testing and bug fixes, the mobile layout checked, performance and visitor behaviour monitored, and support after launch.
Training was part of the build. The goal was a team that manages and improves the site on its own.
Under the new design
Payment links
Configured with HubSpot's commerce tools.
Redirects
Old page addresses redirected to the new ones when the site moved.
The coaching module
An existing tool adjusted to fit the new theme.
The design reused what already worked. We worked The Icehouse's existing modules into the new design, including the coaching module, adjusted to fit the new theme, so the look stays consistent from one page to the next.
The content was written for search and for the reader. Pages carry title tags and meta descriptions, and the copy was shaped for the people The Icehouse is trying to reach. The team was trained in the same method, with documentation to go back to.
From 2 form submissions to 37.
A website that no longer fits your brand?
Three goals. Here is what came of them.
What The Icehouse asked for before the build started, and where it stood once it was live.
Goal 01
A website that reflects the new brand
We built an image-led design, with global styling for colours, fonts and type, and reworked the existing modules to the new theme.
1 theme
for every page, in the updated brand, on HubSpot CMS. The coaching module was adjusted to fit it, so the look stays the same from one page to the next.
Goal 02
A website that brings in leads
We simplified the navigation and added a sticky sub-navigation, clear calls to action and easy-to-use modules.
37
form submissions, up from 2 earlier in the year. Submissions through the get-in-touch form on the contact page rose 5.26% after launch, and visitors look at 8.85% more pages each session.
Goal 03
A website that supports their growth
We built flexible page templates, ran training sessions, recorded videos, wrote documentation and set up reporting tools the team was trained to use.
In-house
staff manage the content themselves, with less reliance on developers. The reporting tools give the team the numbers to decide what to change next.
Put together, The Icehouse has a website that matches its new brand and works as a tool for bringing in leads. It went from 2 form submissions earlier in the year to 37.
Because the team manages the content itself, the site can change as the business does, without waiting on developers or outside agencies.
“Really happy with our website build led and delivered by Neighbourhood. We found them to be really flexible to our difficult timelines and often unclear direction - they kept us focussed and on-task, meaning they could deliver an awesome website on-time and well-suited to our current and future requirements.”
Joe Roberts
The Icehouse
Who ran it
Natalia ZiarkowskaAI & Digital Strategist
Led the new design, the HubSpot CMS build, SEO, payment links and redirects, and the team training.
HubSpot Impact Award winner, Neighbourhood since 2023
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