Haddonstone

As well as its Northamptonshire show gardens and interior showroom being open to the public, Haddonstone also sells and markets its cast stone products online. As such, its website plays an important role in brand awareness, marketing and sales.

A Desire to Improve Security

Since around the turn of the millennium, Haddonstone had used a bespoke site coded entirely from scratch by a trusted local IT company. As Marketing Coordinator at Haddonstone, Robin Teall was responsible for working with the website provider to deliver and manage the company website.

As Haddonstone’s online activity became increasingly commercially important, the business required a more flexible and adaptable website that could deliver additional functionality. Robin Teall sets out the problem: “We were stuck with a .NET apx software format and a site that was difficult to update and, in our opinion, didn’t meet the appropriate security standards. We have an obligation to our customers to use the most secure platform we can find and we believed this meant moving to a more secure platform.”

In addition, Haddonstone’s marketing team were frustrated by the difficulties involved in adding fresh blog and page content to the existing website. They relied entirely on the local IT services provider to add content for them and this was leading significant time delays.

“We wanted to add an awful lot more content to the website that he could cope with,” explains Robin.

Immediate Improvements

The initial implementation of the new Drupal site went very smoothly and delivered all the essential functionality required. The Haddonstone marketing team were finally able to freely add content as they wished.

The go-live had another important and almost immediate result, as Robin explains: “The biggest quick win was the big boost we had in SEO. Our stats went through the roof, our pages were getting indexed by Google – unlike with the old website – and we found Drupal performs very well for SEO.”

Multi-lingual Versions of the Website

Customers from around the world shop and commission work from Haddonstone, so it was important that Drupal could support multiple versions of the website in different languages and for different regions. Initially, the website was launched in the UK with versions later added for the USA, France and Germany.

“The various versions of the website could all be controlled from the one control panel, which was a major advantage for us,” says Robin.

Webcurl worked closely with Robin to add special features tailored to the different international markets Haddonstone served including, for example, state-by-state tax rate calculators and integration with international shipping services.

Great Support

Robin is able to track the different customisations and project work undertaken by Webcurl for Haddonstone using the Webcurl support portal, so he never loses track of the progress of the different customisation initiatives.

Robin says, “The portal has been great for keeping track of things, but I also know I can pick up the phone to the team at Webcurl any time. As time has gone on, they have imparted a great deal of technical knowledge. I have always found them a great team who work well together and are always approachable and happy to talk with me. I’m more than happy to recommend Webcurl – if you’re looking for someone who can create a website with complex functionality, Webcurl are a good company.”