Rebranding an association has a significant impact on every corner of its internal and external optics. One of the most essential considerations is the impact of the new brand on your association’s website. The power of a well-developed website not only engages members, but also immediately conveys key value propositions and exudes the personality of your brand.

The Society of Surgical Oncology introduced a new brand identity in 2019, and a key component of the successful rebrand was the overhaul of the SSO website—www.surgonc.org. It had been several years since the site underwent significant design or content revisions, leading to cumbersome navigation, a lack of SEO, and an overall decline in usage.

The development plan spanned approximately five months. Responsibilities and key milestones were clearly defined. Regular communications helped keep members engaged in the process, which made our requests to them to review the site’s design and navigation effective. Running on a parallel track, staff, with input from various SSO committees, provided direction on content that would be transferred from the old site, rewritten to be web-friendly, or created from scratch. Finally, several technology platforms were evaluated on factors like ease of use, maintenance requirements, unique features, plug-ins, and cost.

In addition, several critical documents were developed that paved the way for a smooth workflow that kept the strategic vision top of mind. These included a strategic brand planning document, a content audit and strategic SEO planning document, and a project planning document.

With more than 3,200 members, SSO’s new website needed to reflect not only the new branding but also the value of membership. Cancer surgeons from around the world join the SSO community to advance their knowledge and remain on the leading edge of research and science. To accomplish this, SSO launched a new online community portal to connect members for networking and information exchange.

A clear path to membership was also created by articulating the benefits and different membership categories. As a result, we’ve seen an 83 percent increase in engagement on the membership section of the new website.

Developing a new website that was clean, intuitive, and more reflective of our members and SSO’s strategic vision was critical to the overall success of our organization’s rebrand.

In addition, we made sure the site better showcased SSO’s learning management system, ExpertEd@SSO. The redesign included pages for featured educational programs, which yielded a 1,050 percent increase in pageviews over the previous year.

During the redesign and development process, website content was strategically audited, and SEO optimized into a cohesive “click and go” user experience that reduced scrolling and cut the number of clicks in half.

Essentially, creating a website where “less is more” was important. The number of web pages shrunk from 670 to 140. Zeroing in on the most meaningful content simplified the website navigation and reduced the number of clicks to create a 50 percent increase in page visibility, while also increasing the average time spent per page.

Once design templates were developed, we implemented content audit recommendations and SEO planning documentation. SEO keywords with appropriate search volume were identified and staff was trained on best practices. Our agency partner, David James Group, discussed paid and sponsored advertising, cost-per-click campaigning, and their backlink analysis of our brand.

After the new website was up and running, periodic checks were conducted, and we established a six-month report card to evaluate progress against goals.  We were pleased to learn:

• Overall website traffic has increased by 28 percent year over year since the site launched.
• Membership section page views have increased by nearly 123 percent in 2020.
• Education page views increased by 30 percent.
• Fellows page views increased by 150 percent.

SSO also won a 2020 ASAE Gold Circle Award in the website category for its redesign.

“Developing a new website that was clean, intuitive, and more reflective of our members and SSO’s strategic vision was critical to the overall success of our organization’s rebrand,” said SSO CEO M. Eileen Widmer, CFRM, CAE. “And I can’t underscore enough the importance of teamwork—the SSO staff, key task force members, and our agency partner worked together seamlessly to create an engaging and productive online member experience.”