Case Study: A Cutting-Edge New Website for Sentient Digital, Inc.

Challenge

Sentient Digital, Inc. is a national technology solutions provider with offices in Louisiana, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. SDi does work for government and commercial clients with capabilities ranging from cybersecurity to systems engineering to IT modernization.

Following a company name change, an internal brand update, a reorganizing of its main capability areas, and the acquisition of RDA, Inc., SDi was in need of a new website that would incorporate the company’s recent changes and accommodate future expansions, too. Our team got to work crafting a website that represents SDi as a cutting-edge, growing company.

SDi's capabilities grid leading to a built-out capability page

Shifting Focus to New Capability Areas

A major portion of this website build was displaying SDi’s newly reorganized capability areas front and center for potential customers and partners.

We highlighted these five capability areas in the main portion of the navigation menu, centering them as the primary content on the website, and we built an engaging grid showcasing them on the site’s home page, giving users two immediate paths towards these pages. Each of the capability areas is color coded, a subtle design feature that helps users differentiate between them. Using custom templates, we built five capability pages perfectly suited to the content they needed: each page has, among other features, a testimonial from a past client and a related blog post feed, as well as customized sections that include further information on that capability area.

Migrating Previous Marketing Gains

Our Content & SEO team at Online Optimism had been running successful content marketing & SEO campaigns for SDi long before we began this website redesign, so part of our job on the Design & Development team was to make sure we maintained those gains and set up a website that could continue to make them.

We carefully migrated Sentient Digital’s dozens of blog posts and implemented URL redirects to make sure search engines would continue to recognize SDi’s existing content and that no links from the previous site would break. We also enhanced the website’s SEO foundation, following best practices with alt text, meta titles and meta descriptions, and other linking structures, so that SDi can continue to advance its SEO and content marketing efforts.

Expandable component grids on SDi's new website

Using Expandable Components

Sentient Digital, Inc., is a growing company, and they needed a site that could grow with them. We used several expandable components on SDi’s website, which their team can continue to easily add content onto without having to build out new pages or sections on the site. These include Strategic Business Products, custom technology products developed by SDi; Research & Development projects; and the list of SDi’s child companies, all of which SDi’s team is able to easily edit and add to without any complex back-end work.

Attracting Top Tier Talent

Another priority for SDi in this website build was a built-out Careers section that would help attract potential candidates to apply for open positions. We included content on SDi’s company culture, benefits, commitment to hiring veterans, and diversity & inclusion efforts—all important points to hit for potential employees.

Pages from SDi's website's Careers section on iPhones

From the Client

“We are over the moon about our new website! It has the striking aesthetics we were looking for that reflect our exciting, innovative, and sophisticated work. At the same time, it balances a wealth of new content we want to share with prospective clients, partners, and job candidates, prioritizing intuitive and easily navigable user paths for each audience. Not to mention, several years’ worth of blog content we had built on our old site was seamlessly migrated to the new one, and along with it, the valuable SEO gains we had achieved. Our team couldn’t be happier.”