Over the past four months, my role as an Online Project Manager at Sdu has been a journey of innovation and digital transformation. Sdu’s digital landscape, comprised of various websites hosting an impressive collection of 30,000 articles on Drupal and Magento, underwent a significant overhaul. The initiative consolidated these sites into a unified WordPress environment, harmoniously blending individual identities while sharing a common technical foundation.
The primary objective of these lead generation websites is to engage visitors with accessible public content, paving the way for partner content delivery and targeted advertising. The ultimate goal is to transform these interactions into high-value leads using Sdu’s sophisticated lead generation tools.
The development of both websites was entrusted to Mixcom, a renowned online agency based in Zwolle. For this project, we opted for the acclaimed Genesis Framework, paired with a child theme from Studio Press, to elevate our web presence.
The Genesis framework
Genesis Framework stands as a cornerstone in the WordPress community, revered by developers for its versatility and reliability. Its role is pivotal – if WordPress is the engine of a vehicle, Genesis constitutes the essential components. This framework enhances WordPress sites by offering extended functionality, robust security, effortless updates, and adherence to superior SEO standards. A testament to its efficiency, Genesis powers over 300,000 websites, proving invaluable for large-scale, customizable web projects.
StudioPress Child theme’s
Our selection of a child theme from StudioPress was driven by their exceptional offering of Genesis themes, boasting advanced SEO capabilities. These include comprehensive schema control, XML sitemap, and robots.txt generation, asynchronous JavaScript loading, improved Open Graph output, and breadcrumb title control. The themes are crafted with HTML5 coding, ensuring strong security and exceptional speed.
Despite my initial skepticism towards theme-based SEO control and the lack of responsiveness in many themes, the Genesis framework and StudioPress’s child themes have fundamentally changed my perspective.
While I’m not a fan of themes controlling SEO, most of the themes are not responsive, don’t have clean code, and are not written in HTML5. But this project has opened my eyes for the Genesis and the child themes from Studiopress
What I’ve learned?
This project was not my first as an Online Project Manager, but it was a unique experience in terms of scale and teamwork. Collaborating with a diverse group of marketers, data analysts, IT architects, programmers, and publishers was incredibly enriching. The project introduced me to Jira, an agile development tool, enhancing my skills in creating user stories, managing issues, planning sprints, and coordinating with the Product Owner at Mixcom. Witnessing the team’s enthusiasm for learning WordPress and exploring the new themes was particularly rewarding.
I extend my gratitude to Mixcom for their dedication, exceptional project management skills, and their proactive approach, which significantly contributed to the project’s success. I would also like to express my appreciation to Sdu for their trust in my abilities. As we look ahead to 2020, I am excited about the prospect of leading more projects for Sdu, continuing our journey of digital excellence.