ShipNetwork - Full Service Website Creation
BLURRD Studio
Summary
So to give you a little more context, Rakuten Super Logistics became ShipNetwork in August, 2022. Which creates a domino effect of things to do when a company name not only changes, but is also no longer apart of that company ecosystem & culture anymore.
This company change prompted the marketing department a rebrand, new logo, and website redesign - the whole shabang. Who would be in charge of bringing all this to life? You guessed it, BLURRD.
The timeline for all of this was just under 2 months. The reason being is because we couldn't do business anymore as Rakuten Super Logistics, so the sooner we had a new logo, rebrand, and a redesign - the sooner the sales team can get more leads. So there was a priority to get things up and going ASAP.
If you wanna read more about the specific details of this transition, check out the article PR newsire wrote HERE.
Table of Contents
Getting Started
First thing the team and I had to accomplish was coming up with a brand identity. This created a foundation that we can refer back to as we created the logo and website redesign. After meetings, brainstorming sessions, and discussions with our executives we were able to finalize a completed branding package. This package gave me the colors, font, and the branding guidelines to follow for designing the website.
Website Design
Because of the time frame, my approach on this design mock up needed to be a one of those 1 and done type of designs. Im not saying I designed the website with just 1 attempt, I just approached it like it was game 7 of the finals. The sooner I can get confirmation that these mock ups are good to go by our executives, the more time I have to build. This was my mindset. So I created 3 completely different styles of mock ups to help determine what the executives do and don't like. Helping me save a lot of time figuring out a creative direction that still corresponded with our new branding. Now, I didn't want to just create any typical design for the website thats just filled with a bunch of trendy dribbble layouts and random shapes. Being the thought leaders in our industry we have the advantage over our competitors since they (VERY OBVIOUSLY)look to us for ideas and changes to add to their website. So the bar needed to be set high. The three focuses for this design were the following:
Conversion Focused
Creative & professional feel
Creating new trends in the 3pl logistics industry
Webflow Development
Previously, Rakuten Super Logistics' website was in webflow. I had the pleasure of assisting with creating that website(Read more about it here on webflow's site). So it was a no brainer to build ShipNetwork's website in webflow. Here's every bit of technology and tools we use for this project:
Hubspot
Finsweet Attributes
Google Tag Manager
Lol, yeah pretty big tech stack there. Building this website in webflow was something I genuinely enjoyed. Bringing to life designs I created in Figma. Using Finsweet Attributes really saved me a ton of time when it came to creating CMS filtering and sorting. It's super lightweight and the documentation is A1. This is coming from someone who paid for Jetboost. Google tag manager is a no brainer. The less scripts in your global <head> tag, the better.
CMS Migration
During the migration of over 500 blog posts from Rakutensl.com to Shipnetwork.com, Webflow’s CMS export feature proved to be invaluable. By allowing the export of blog data in an Excel format, I was able to upload the entire batch of content in one go, significantly speeding up the process—making it nearly 10 times faster than a manual migration.
In addition to the blog content, several other sections such as Services, Locations, Resources, Success Stories, and Leadership pages also required migration. Each of these elements was exported from Rakutensl.com and efficiently integrated into Shipnetwork.com, ensuring a smooth and comprehensive transition of all critical content.
Thanks to these streamlined tools and processes, the migration was completed efficiently, saving considerable time and effort.
Whole Domain Redirect
You would think that's it... right??
Well... check it out. Even after I finished building the site in Webflow this project wasn't done yet. I had to redirect the whole rakutensl.com to shipnetwork.com. That way any traffic that clicks or comes across the rakutensl.com site will be redirected to shipnetwork.com. Typically I would handle any 301 redirects inside Wefblow. But this time required an absolute URL redirect... not a page redirect. So in order to redirect this whole domain I went ahead and added it to the domain list. *pictured below* This simply redirected the whole domain to our new domain shipnetwork.com.
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Posted Sep 16, 2024
Rakuten Super Logistics became ShipNetwork in August 2022, prompting BLURRD to lead a rebrand, logo creation, and website redesign within a 2-month deadline.
