👁️ Project Summary
To enhance user engagement, brand identity, content discoverability and drive CRO through a strategic redesign of the Novatr blog platform.
🏮 Highlights
Project Timelines: March’24 - April‘24 (4 weeks)
Project Category: Product led growth
Stakeholders: Product Manger, Product Designers, HubSpot Developers, Brand & Marketing
🥷🏻 What did I do?
Research, Competitive analysis, Stakeholder Alignment, Identifying key metrics, UI / UX, High fidelity prototyping, Developer Hand-off, Design- Ops
Team & relevant stakeholders
2 PMs, 2 PDs, 2 engineers + more
Product Designers
Advitiya Sodha
Ved Pathak
Product Manager
Nikhil Priyatham
Tech Support
Kavita Bisht
Jatin Sharma
Product Analyst
Pankaj Sharma
SEO Expert
Tanmay Gadade
About the company
Novatr is to architects and engineers what launchpads are to rockets. As India's leading AEC-focused ed-tech platform providing online training, it helps fast-tracking careers with industry-certified courses and collaborative learning, propelling professionals towards success in the ever-evolving AEC industry with tech-first and future-proof skills.
Blogs at Novatr
Blogs are one of the biggest contributors to organic traffic at Novatr. About 22% of our revenue comes through organic channels. Blogs alone contribute to 10% of that organic revenue.
Moving forward, the organisation is committed to strategically bridging the gap between paid and organic marketing channels and blogs can play a significant role in this initiative.
📈 Conversion% through blogs | Duration (Jan-Feb-Mar 2024)
Page Name
Traffic to lead %
Archi Course Page
20%
Archi Landing Page
8.39%
CD Course Page
28.57%
CD Landing Page
16.46%
Civil Course Page
28.57%
Civil Landing Page
12.64%
Business context
The business aims to generate more leads by enhancing market penetration to boost brand visibility and increase user retention on blogs (lead generation then becomes a by-product of these efforts).
Developing a blogging strategy and aesthetics tailored for global consumption that appeal to international audiences.
User Segmentation
Curious beginners (ToFu)
This audience is likely unfamiliar with your core offerings and may have stumbled upon your blog while seeking general information. They require basic knowledge and awareness building.
Aspiring enthusiasts (MoFu)
Individuals in this group have a general interest in the topics related to your courses but aren’t deeply versed in the specifics. They are potential students who might be considering various learning paths.
Enthusiasts (BoFu)
This group is knowledgeable about the specific niche or features covered in your core courses. They are likely to be industry professionals or enthusiasts who have a good understanding of the subject matter.
Visitor Segments & Content Needs
User Type
Intent
TOFU ~ Individual seeking information about the AEC industry
Gather information about the AEC industry or learn about career paths in AEC.
MOFU ~ AEC professional
Gain insights into specific AEC topics or stay up-to-date on industry trends.
BOFU ~ Individual interested in enrolling in a course
Learn more about a specific course offering and determine if it's right for them.
Understanding the conversion funnel
⭐️ To summarise, Top of the funnel will generate more traffic and Bottom of the funnel will generate more conversions.
It also gives an insight into knowing what each audience segment wants and shaping your content around that is a much more effective approach.
Current IA of blog web on Novatr.
Novatr Blogs V1, old designs.
📌 To note :
Overall, we focused more on content and value-delivery to build a trustworthy relationship with our users.
From design perspective, our primary aim was to make discovery and navigation of blogs as intuitive and seamless as possible. Visually, we wanted to keep the design simple yet not run-of-the-mill. As our design language had evolved over time, the core foundation and UI components were updated to be visually striking yet minimalist in aesthetic.
Industry best practices & Competitive Analysis Takeaways :
High quality images
Making index sticky
Making actions cards sticky
Actively promoting social sharing
Providing links to related articles within the content
Actively promoting social sharing
Progress indicator
Touchpoint for the user to access product offerings
Supporting content with infographics
Competitive benchmarking
Data dashboard requirements:
Tracking the right metrics is crucial for understanding the performance of blogs, gauging user engagement, and identifying areas for improvement.
North Star Metric
For this project, the consensus was that our North Star Metric should be engagement rather than conversion at this point. Reasons:
If people find enough value in the content, conversion then becomes a by-product of customer engagement.
Engagement is a more direct metric to track for a content strategy like ours (Content Led) v/s Conversion, where you adapt various marketing strategies to sell a product (Content Oriented).
Diving into high-fidelity designs
Through a collaborative effort of brainstorming and iteration, we transitioned to designing high-fidelity screens for our blog platform.
Our initial designs encompassed the homepage, category pages, and templatising our three distinct blog categories i.e. ToFu, MoFu and BoFu.
Given the shortcomings of our legacy system, we meticulously charted a path for a smooth transition of our vast 400+ blog archive.
Home Page Iterations
To enhance the visual and international appeal of our blog platform, we conducted extensive homepage iterations. By exploring various color combinations and layouts, we sought to create a visually engaging and inclusive experience that captivated our readers worldwide.
Probable solutions & their impact:
Design led:
Templates & Navigation: Standardising blog design with 2-4 tested templates for a cohesive look and easy navigation. This might help us improve usability and reduce bounce rates.
Search & Progress Bar: Making search prominent for users to find specific content and add a progress bar to show completion rate, keeping users engaged with longer posts.
Interaction & CTAs: Fostering community with an interactive comment section and leveraging sticky CTAs to increase conversions by keeping calls to action visible as users scroll.
Custom Thumbnails (optional): Enhancing visual appeal with custom thumbnails that represent blog content and strengthening brand identity.
Beyond design:
Promoting blogs through our own social media channels like Instagram, LinkedIn.
Touchpoint for our other growth initiatives within blog space (i.e. career navigator etc.) to target ToFu & MoFu audience through product-led interventions.
Leverage email marketing to distribute latest posts to subscribers. Considering a regular newsletter that highlights top content, insights, and community highlights.
Social Media Engagement by using snippets, quotes, or questions to spark interest and discussion. Engage with followers by responding to comments and participating in relevant conversations.
Relooking at the “Learning Hub” space to include other organic traffic channels i.e. YouTube Videos, Media Room, E-Books etc. apart from blogs to establish trust and credibility for the brand.
📌 To note :
As with any 0 to 1 startup, experiments & campaigns run all the time so the design needed to be exhaustive and template based to ship in the lowest TAT and design involvement.
Hence the design was made with scalability in mind. The elements are designed in a way that can be reordered/modified from backend which reduces design dependency while still ensuring top of the line design quality and also have a quick learning curve for any person wanting to upload a blog through Hubspot.
Type, space & content guidelines
To ensure a cohesive and seamless user experience across all platforms, we worked to developed a comprehensive set of guidelines that govern typography, spacing, and content presentation on both our web and mobile interfaces.
These guidelines will serve as a foundation for maintaining consistency as our platform scales and evolves, ensuring a unified brand identity and a cohesive user experience.
📌 To note :
To revitalize our blog's visual identity, we embarked on a comprehensive redesign. Central to this transformation was the introduction of the elegant "Source Serif Pro" font, complementing our existing "Figtree" typeface. By carefully crafting new text styles, we aimed to create a more dynamic and visually appealing reading experience.
By establishing strict guidelines from day one, we gained speed and stability as we scaled the product, maintaining consistency and excellence at all times.
These guidelines being in place from day 1, helped us monumentally as it helped in maintaining consistency and reducing any communication gaps between design, tech and CRM team without loosing our core vision.
Conversion Rate Optimization | Exploration and Experimentation
While our blogs serve as a cornerstone of organic revenue generation, we strategically implemented various conversion rate optimization (CRO) tactics to maximize their impact. By carefully crafting compelling calls to action, optimizing individual blog pages, and leveraging personalized content, we successfully transformed casual readers into engaged leads.
How did we measure the success of this feature?
Closing thought
The redesign of the Novatr blog web serves as a successful cross-functional collaboration between design, marketing, and CRM. By prioritising a consistent brand identity, flexible content management, and user-centric design, we’ve positioned our blogs to continue to educate and inspire learners, propelling us ahead of the curve.
