Ontrack Blog – The Ontrack Marathon – aka Website Launch

Any marketing professional can relate to where I sit today, five days until the launch of a brand new, much over-due website. The thoughts that are rushing through my head range from pure excitement to complete and utter terror.

I am continually running through a checklist in my mind that sounds a little something like this:

• Have we reviewed and tested our order forms?
• Have we converted our blog content correctly?
• Did we complete all the 301 redirects?
• Do we have processes in place for new landing pages?
• Did we test the online shop?
• Were all translations reviewed by local team members and the SEO consultants?
• Did we check mobile compatibility?
• Did we review our Google Analytics accounts?
• Did we double-check legal requirements?
• Is the site easy to navigate?
• Does it look good?
  

The goal when we started this “marathon” was to create a new, engaging and relevant site that would attract new visitors (increase rankings). We want to signal to each visitor that they can trust Ontrack- the global leader in data recovery- to do everything in its power to recover, restore, and protect their data successfully.

But before we get to the good part, let’s take a step backwards and review why we embarked on such a massive project (HINT: This was not to keep us busy during the pandemic). The current website had all of the negative characteristics that led us to the much-needed overhaul. The website was globally inconsistent, site speed was slow, our ranking was declining, the brand was compromised, etc., and it was difficult for the team to update content. Oh, and did I mention, we had not migrated to a true Content Management System?

The journey began 12 months ago with the global team gathering to build the requirement document and to identify the vision of the website. After a two-day strategy session, we created an extremely long list of requirements to identify the right tool for launch.

Choosing the tool was quick as we had identified two potential vendors already, and it was clear there was a decisive winner. During the next few months, the development team worked with our vendor to set everything up and provide training and support to the team as they prepared to roll up their sleeves and dive in headfirst. As with all projects, it is hard to align people with resources against other priorities, but we were ready to go!

As Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was the Ontrack website! Over the course of the last six months, the team has been updating content, establishing a new image library, updating legal content, creating new workflows, and updating our global office locations – that’s to mention a few key areas! They were also able to survive and overcome a few hurdles along the way –change in URL structures, bug fixes, translation challenges, blog migrations, etc. You name it, over the last six months, we have overcome it; everything including the global COVID pandemic, Minnesota riots, and one beautiful, bouncing baby boy - born ten days early.

With the pending launch of the website, new and returning visitors can look forward to the following:

• Enhanced user experience
• New and relevant content
• Lightning quick speed
• New shopping experience
• Consistent global branding
• Global mobile compatibility
  

It has been an adventure, and as the Ontrack marketing leader, I have played a minimal support role that pales in comparison to what the team has accomplished. Every member of the team has shown extreme dedication and worked incredibly hard – this includes the digital marketing team, developers and designers and our SEO/PPC agency Vertical Leap.

I wanted to personally thank everyone who supported our project from the Ontrack team!

US: Craig Spooner, Lance Paulson, Shannon Berg, Ryan Frank, Joost Borggreve, John Christopher, Ian O’Neill

Germany: Kathrin Brekle

UK: Mikey Anderson, Tilly Holland

France: Matthieu Peyre

Italy: Mauro Aiello & Chiara Fumagalli

Australia: Eiji Suzuki, Pierre Pommier

Norway: Jorn Mellum & Tormod Nymoen

Poland: Marcin Dziegielewski, Lukasz Karpinski, Wojciech Pawlak

Now on to Phase two!