Localiiz

Localiiz had built a strong and established reader base, however the website and branding were not a true representation of what Localiiz meant to their new readers today. A facelift for the brand was needed to modernize the Localiiz masthead and reinforce their position as a leader in Hong Kong lifestyle.

Behind the scenes significant technical planning was required in order to:

(i) replatform the site and over 3,000 articles and

(ii) build a scalable platform that would serve Localiiz and their readers for years to come.

The platform was built using Craft CMS as the foundation for the editors to publish articles moving forward. Craft CMS was configured to handle multiple editors and administrators using a complex permission management structure that matched Localiiz’s editorial publishing process.

As the main revenue driver for Localiiz, advertising placements in the form of banner ads, sponsored content pieces and videos were required. Butter integrated these within the design, to provide high levels of user engagement and interest. Ad management was also added to the CMS backend, allowing Localiiz adops teams to quickly publish, change and report on advertiser performance.

Given the large library of content (3,000+ articles), the sites performance is critical. You can easily lose readership with slow load times and poor user experience. Butter mapped out and implemented a sophisticated and complex hosting infrastructure that allows for high concurrent use of admins within the CMS and spikes in traffic that can be expected with viral content.

Localiiz needed a CMS that was easy and efficient to use, but provided unlimited amounts of flexibility when it came to creating and publishing content - Localiiz needed to create fresh content in order to differentiate the platform from its competitors.

Butter worked with Localiiz to build flexibility within the CMS through multiple modules and blocks which would be utilised for various types of content pieces. Each module and block could be customised via the CMS in order to match the overall page design.

Advertiser sponsorship was a design and development challenge that Butter tackled head on. Localiiz required the flexibility to allow for advertisers to sponsor and brand specific sections (i.e. travel). Butter built this flexibility in both design and the backend in the CMS which could allow for advertisers to manage their own presence with the sponsored section.

The re-platforming was a great success. Localiiz editors' time required to publish a content piece has been significantly reduced due to the set up and performance of Craft CMS. Allowing them to produce more content, gain more eyeballs and as a result more revenue from advertisers!