What’s In A Name?
North American naming agency Catchword needed a partner to redesign and redevelop their website. They had already expanded their offerings to include branding services, and their website needed to reflect their evolved capabilities and show off Catchword as bigger-than-boutique—rather, a larger high-end agency. On top of everything, it was vital to have a website that required little (or no) outside assistance when it came to updates. Catchword came to Solid Digital with a variety of goals in mind:
- captivate audiences with sophisticated and compelling design
- update branding on site and keep SEO going strong
- showcase their best work
Broadened Horizons
Brand naming had been Catchword’s bread and butter; but with their expansion into branding work, they needed to convey their story on their website. Thoroughly recognized on Clutch for their naming prowess (#1 for Naming Agency Worldwide for 6 years and counting) as well as #1 ranking for branding, their website wasn’t inclusive of their capabilities around full brand strategy and visual identity. Solid’s team started the approach with specific goals:
- guide users through a clear journey showing new positioning and evolved capabilities
- keep SEO intact while streamlining the site—particularly the homepage
- showcase branding/identity work in the best way possible
- identify Catchword as a larger high-end agency
- Create a path for easy site updates (without the help of a developer)
Aspiration is Inspiration
Keyword research, market research, and competitive research helped both teams understand the landscape better. A brand sprint helped identify the best way to communicate Catchword’s offerings.
They kept naming at the heart to lead the website, with a clear pathway to additional services as they grew or expanded, via new overview pages that indicated how Catchword’s branding services fit together. The previous site dropped the user in the middle of the journey at once, but a holistic understanding of all Catchword capabilities is much clearer with the new structure.
To further underscore their expansion, the new site showcases their body of work in a more intentional way; Solid Digital’s team helped create a hierarchy to the portfolio, allowing a few notable projects to stand out, with the ability to dive further into a specific service or offering and see additional examples—that were now indexed for SEO. Much of the work and resources were retagged to align with the better-defined suite of offerings to show off more than just naming.
The visual identity became a better indicator of these expanded offerings, as well. To better show the high-end, large agency, big deal that Catchword is, Solid Digital brought sleek energy through animations and video to tell more of the story through motion. The brand personality had to show how established Catchword is—giving insight through how many names have been formulated by Catchword. And the website also added in some creative touches with 10 Reasons to Choose Catchword—a movie review-style page that engages and invites users to skim through why Catchword is the right choice.
Working together was fun for both sides—Catchword’s creative team took ownership of the project, and were highly involved and invested in ensuring the site was where they wanted it to be, with Solid Digital’s lead. Problems were solved in real time and the design was updated and pushed to be the best.
"This project really drove home for me just how important a digital agency's organizational skills are—the "process"—and Solid has these skills in aces."
Much To Say
Though the process was a creative “group project” with exceptional results, there were a few difficulties. With the old website, Catchword had compiled a lot of content over the years, and that needed to be cleaned up and reorganized. Because Catchword is composed of wordsmiths and linguists, Solid Digital was able to work with them to condense the copy and create a presentation of the site that was more easily scanned. Now users can get a better sense of who they are, even if they have limited time on the site.
The old navigation had a lot of information up front, without letting the story (that Catchword wanted to tell) unfold naturally for the user journey. So, the portfolio was laid out to prioritize specific content, while making it easy to find more information on each kind of project or service.
"Their processes for designing and building websites and helping your brand grow digitally have been honed to a science. They combine the best aspects of data-driven strategy and a passion for customer service."
Happy Before and After
With better UX and pages for each of their services, visitors to the new Catchword site are guided down particular pathways and can get a birdseye view of all offerings. Each portfolio brand now has an attached case study tag that can expand for more information when users click on it.
After plenty of work, time, and effort, positive feedback keeps rolling in for the new Catchword site. Both teams were happy to complete the project and come out with a site that captures the new vision of Catchword.
