creating a sustainable website redesign.
Interstate Waste Services is a vertically-integrated solid waste company, internally processing recyclable materials and managing nearly all waste streams for commercial, industrial, and residential customers. With already a substantial amount of customers and hoping to continue attracting new customers, IWS decided their existing website needed a makeover–that’s where we came in.
on your marks, get set, strategize!
Interstate Waste Services tasked us with creating a dynamic, flexible, engaging website that articulated its commercial and residential services in a fun yet professional manner. After looking to a few websites for information, IWS decided their website needed 4 key aspects: simple navigation, bold photography & video, balanced layouts, and an eye-catching photo treatment on their homepage. Now that they had a vision for their website, our team could work on making their dream site a reality.
We often find the ‘building a house’ analogy works well when discussing a website project. First, we needed to select the foundation, and for that, we chose WordPress. We knew that the website would be developed in phases, and we needed a scalable, flexible platform that could support ongoing content and functionality updates. With the framework established, we then moved into the design phase. We decided on a “feature wall ” for pages throughout the website with background video, animated infographics, and strategically placed photography to keep the website interesting and engaging while communicating the necessary information. We also created “smart” forms that change based on how you answer the questions and route appropriately based on your answers. This streamlined the process for customers and the internal IWS team.
reduce, reuse, redesign.
From a technical standpoint, we utilized the WordPress platform and Pantheon hosting platform, which provided us with a secure and easy to maintain/update website. Our creative team maintained the brand colors subtly throughout the website but chose to lean into the excellent photography and video IWS gathered to bring visual interest and movement to the website. We got movement through the homepage header, added animations to the sections, and included video backgrounds in some sections. We then took the key aspects they noted and began working on style guide options.
We incorporated the desired homepage photo treatment using their trucks in front of the skyline photo. Using the photography IWS provided us, we added them throughout their website. This is where we get most of the color on the site since we went with a more muted color palette and used the orange and green from their logo as accent colors. We ensured the navigation stayed sticky on every page and wasn’t hidden behind a menu icon until the user was on mobile. Then we completed wireframes and comps for a few pages and designed everything else as we built it in DIVI.
driving results.
We ended up with a new, modern-looking website that included both the IWS and Action information in one place. The launch of the website was only the beginning. IWS knows that their website needs regular care and feeding, which is why we went with a phased approach that will allow us to continue to add to and improve the experience for all visitors. When the website launched, it was an immediate visual improvement over the previous website, and IWS was able to showcase the new website at an important industry event. Since the site launched, traffic has increased 81%, total users increased 80%, new users increased 81%, bounce rate decreased 23%, average time on page increased 20%, and organic traffic increased 23%. Way to go, team!