Multisite Environment for Schouten Zekerheid
Our solution for Schouten Zekerheid enables the easy maintenance of 180+ websites and the quick creation of new websites, each with its own distinct look and feel, all within a single environment.
Schouten Zekerheid has been active as an insurance broker for businesses, institutions, industry and professional organizations since 1953. Schouten has extensive experience and knowledge in the field of insurable risks and expertise in insurable employment conditions.
To be able to offer all these different insurances and labels to various target groups, Schouten Zekerheid has more than 180 websites under its management. Each of these sites has its own design in terms of colors, logos, and shapes. One of the problems Schouten Zekerheid faced was the difficulty of duplicating a website and then modifying it. This is problematic when you have 180 different websites that need to have a similar structure and content. In the past, Schouten Zekerheid had to start building a website from scratch for each new insurance product. This resulted in a lot of unnecessary work. Of course, this could be more efficient. We have been able to help Schouten Zekerheid with this!
Methodology
As usual, we started this project with a concept sprint. During this process, we do not immediately determine a solution direction, but we work from the challenge towards a working prototype and design using design thinking. An important premise here was convenience. With as few adjustments as possible, sufficient uniqueness had to be given to each website. It was also a wish from Schouten Zekerheid to be able to set the corporate identity of the label/target group per website using colors. In the case of Schouten Zekerheid, the idea arose to develop a template in which all options regarding styling, colors, logos, and shapes are easy to set. By smartly setting up a multisite environment, it would become possible to manage content centrally.
"For us, the problem was that we have a lot of different websites, and maintaining them was becoming increasingly difficult. We were looking for a solution where we could easily manage certain content (such as FAQs and forms) centrally. This way, we can provide all websites with the right information, but we only need to make changes once when modifications are needed." Alex Janssen, Specialist in Marketing & Communication at Schouten Zekerheid
To achieve this, we researched during the concept phase which parameters would need to be adjustable to give each website its own character. Ultimately, we chose to make the colors, logos, fonts, and shapes customizable.
Eventually, using these adjustment possibilities, we developed several variations of websites. We then tested these websites. If a template worked well, we then looked at a number of variations in headers. The central question was which styling would best suit the target group, the products, and the purpose of the website. In addition, the styling must ensure that the websites exude calmness, the information is easy to find, and that the websites continue to appear transparent. Even when adjusting all styling parameters. To give even more uniqueness to the websites, each web page can be built with content blocks. This makes it possible to vary even more if necessary.
Multisite Environment
To properly support the management of all websites, we developed a multisite environment in Umbraco CMS. As a result, there is one back office for all (now 180+!) websites. In addition, the websites needed to be available in both Dutch and English. Moreover, Schouten Zekerheid wanted the ability to allow visitors to choose insurers' values and collective numbers per website. Oh, and Schouten Zekerheid is developing different tools to help visitors choose the right insurance. They asked if we could also integrate these. Absolutely!
In order to maintain an overview with so many websites in a multisite environment, we worked with folders in this environment. This gives Schouten Zekerheid the flexibility to adjust the layout of the Umbraco environment themselves. In this case, they chose to distinguish based on the industry, with the websites arranged in alphabetical order.
To lay the foundation for the multisite environment, we first realized one website. This essentially serves as a blueprint. We then developed templates for the different industry and target group websites. These templates serve as the basis for each new website and can be adjusted according to content, taste, or corporate identity. The advantage of this is that the different sites remain a uniform whole in this way. The goal was to create a user-friendly Umbraco environment with lots of reusable content, tools, and scripts.
" With the multisite solution, we have much more room to look at improvements on the different sites in the area of online marketing, instead of just being busy adjusting the same content on all the different sites." Alex Janssen, Specialist in Marketing & Communication at Schouten Zekerheid
Premiere and challenge
Now, we have developed a multisite environment quite a few times before. So, we're not easily intimidated by a management environment for a stack of websites. However, even for us, it was a first to realize more than 180 websites in a single environment. Our developers found it very exciting to be able to work on such a large project. At the same time, the realization of so many websites at once was quite a challenge. To tackle this challenge, we worked in sprints where about 30-40 websites were built at a time. During this, all SSL certificates were also imported and transferred.
The end result
Ultimately, we have ensured that Schouten Zekerheid now has a clear environment where all websites can be found and easily managed. And instead of 180 different websites, they now have a uniform whole, where each website still has its own unique face. Additionally, it's very convenient to be able to work from a template. A major advantage of the multisite environment, for example, is that Schouten Zekerheid can quickly switch with a new insurance product and set up a new website in no time.
"So, it has yielded us a lot of extra time savings." Alex Janssen, Specialist in Marketing & Communication at Schouten Zekerheid
