Nuts &
Bolts
Project Scope
- Discovery, assessment and planning
- Audience research & site strategy
- Content strategy, design, & buildout
- Large-scale site migration
- Salesforce and Slate page styling
- Filterable program finder
- Enrollment strategy
- Analytics & data reporting
CMS
WordPress
Site Size
Approx. 5,000 indexed pages
What do you do when you have big ideas, but a small team?
You find the right partner who knows how to amplify your many strengths.
La Salle is a historic East Coast Catholic university with deep European roots and excellence in academics and athletics. They had great content to offer prospective students online, but over the last 19 years, their web presence had reached 5,000+ pages. This tangle of websites was dispersed over 120 different WordPress sites and 30 different design themes, with duplicate and outdated content. Students couldn’t find important information and the site lacked clear enrollment funnel CTAs.
They needed one unified site that made navigation easier, highlighted their programs and expressed their refreshed brand identity. They also needed a solution that empowered La Salle’s small team to tell their story consistently and meet the needs of internal stakeholders.
After a thorough discovery phase and UX research, NewCity helped La Salle transition from a dispersed multisite web presence to one WordPress theme, with one cohesive design system with consistent web templates and one CMS administration area. They also revised the global navigation and information architecture and developed a fresh new content strategy with updated copy and content across high value areas of the site, like academics and degree program pages.
The result is one unified web experience that welcomes prospective students, optimizes for the student journey and supports enrollment priorities.
The new component system and content plan also equipped La Salle’s team to build pages, write content, publish and manage upkeep with new ease. Post-launch, they were even able to publish a new major on the site within a couple days of board approval- an impossible task before the redesign.
La Salle has experienced a busy few years, with a strong focus on organizational growth. Our web redesign collaboration coincided with an institutional rebrand and their “Be Known For More” media campaign which launched online and out of home in 2023. As a result of these combined efforts, we’re proud to share that La Salle celebrated a 23% increase in enrollment in September 2024, adding 600 new students YoY. We’re sure their success will only continue.
Practical, Usable, Fast: the Program Finder
The program finder was a key usability requirement for La Salle. UX Research revealed that students were struggling to locate their desired programs. NewCity recommended a practical, functional tool, and set the search to filter by program type, area of interest and format. This solution met the needs of prospective students and La Salle’s internal team.
