The Ask
This non-profit cancer research organization was unique in the fact that they are the owners of their research and run several ground-breaking programs, but a lack of internal governance meant their website’s digital assets had been poorly maintained. As the organization had grown in size, new content had been added haphazardly with not overarching content strategy to direct them. The result was a website with many disparate pages, repeated and vague content, broken links, and 6 levels of navigation in an unwieldy menu. This organization had a lot of wonderful things to share, but their audiences couldn’t find it.
The other challenge was that this one website was serving three very separate audiences: the Patients they were providing help and support for, the Investors giving money to the organization, and the Researchers that were looking to become involved with the organizations work.
They also had a strong SEO profile that they were hesitant to change for fear of losing their organic ranking. One website had to meet the needs of three very different audiences with different search behaviors and end goals.
The Approach
As the assigned Content Strategist on the Project, I was in charge of doing a full analysis on the site and report back on the findings as well as develop a solution to move forward that would solve the user problems but also put the client at ease in regards to their organic ranking and SEO. After a full run through of the website and a report were developed, I set about to develop a strategy for each of the three audiences that would fulfill their story goals, while also considering where these paths might intersect (for example, a user who starts as a patient but then moves into being an investor.) There was also a proposed IA included in the full report
The Result
Unfortunately, our agency ended up parting ways with the client part way through the project as a result of a dispute with the client’s new VP, so the project did not move past this initial phase.
