HQN Ltd

Multi-site Website Management System

The Housing Quality Network is a not-for-profit initiative set up in 1997 to assist member organisations (local authorities and housing associations) to improve their performance and meet the challenges of Best Value. HQNS runs a variety of benchmarking services, specialist networks covering Rent Income Collection, Housing Strategy Services and Private Sector Housing as well as a range of very popular inspection support services and bespoke consultancy and in-house training.

HQN decided to update its site to better communicate its brand and support its member organisations. With the revamp, HQN realised it had the opportunity to turn its Website into a powerful tool for improving document management via a fast searchable online library, generate leads for its national training workshops, provide a conduit for members to help each other, and offer an online booking service for seminars, conferences and specialist networks.

HQN turned to Save9 Limited, a leader in website design and WMS deployments (Website Management Systems) to make this a reality. Seeing an opportunity to evolve the HQN services, the company identified Save9's core strength as being its ability to help clients rapidly implement their precise requirements and leverage the power of online media.

The goals for the project were to:

• Differentiate HQN as a high quality initiative that simplifies access to disparate information resources
• Increase capability of the website to generate leads for national seminars, workshops and conferences
• Provide an easy to navigate site with multiple opportunities for users to contact HQN and fellow members
• Create a consistent brand representing the core values of HQN
• Implement an easy-to-learn and use web-based content management system
• Attain top search engine positions on specific search terms
• Provide a sophisticated mailing list management tool to update members on relevant topics
• Provide a multi-website management tool to share relevant information across specialist network sites

The team worked closely with Save9 to produce an online strategy that incorporated a compelling website design with functional information portal services. The result is a website that leverages an impressive client list, a vast collection of files and web-links and a steady stream of interesting news and information to create an online marketing advantage for HQN.

HQN required a content management system that enabled authorised personnel to instantly make changes to the website in a way that would not harm the visual integrity. Search engine marketing concerns were also addressed throughout the software design and development process to ensure the website remained search engine friendly. A customised Website Management System ensued. Custom-built features include a search engine optimised technical architecture that features user-managed text navigation links, search engine friendly URL's and user-managed meta and title tags for web pages. Funnelweb, a robust website tracking system, enables the HQN marketing team to graphically analyse all web-traffic, to monitor their ROI with search advertising campaigns and to report on search engine positioning. Search engine fine-tuning can now be performed in-house using the valuable statistics supplied by Funnelweb reports.