Hobbycraft.
Improving the blog user experience
Creating stronger brand activation to build long term loyalty and value-creating relationships with customers.

The brief
User experience.
Digital strategy.
Design.
WordPress development.
Well-known for having the UK’s Number One craft blog used by families and dedicated crafters alike, Hobbycraft came to Halo for a creative update to their already popular blog platform.
They wanted to achieve a stronger brand in order to build long term loyalty and lasting relationships with customers.
Their goal was simple; increase visitors, engagement and referrals from the blog to their main website, while delivering an eye-catching and easy to use experience.
Visit website

Reviewing the existing blog
We conducted a review of the existing blog, looking at the overall user experience and journey. We also conducted customer research to determine key motivations and drivers for visiting the blog. We outlined recommendations across the site to improve engagement and functionality to allow Hobbycraft to achieve their goals.
WordPress
Utilising their existing WordPress blog, we improved the categorisation, introduced an extensive mega menu and improved the search functionality. This made it easier than ever to find the inspiration the customer was looking for and shop directly from the blog.



Shop the project
We added a ‘Shop the project’ functionality, essentially a buy now button, to allow customers to quickly purchase the items mentioned in the blog. This linked directly to the main Hobbycraft e-commerce site and instantly added all the products to the basket, creating a seamless purchasing journey.
Introduced a rating system
We added a rating system on articles to allow readers to view what’s trending and popular, making the content more relevant to them. Equally, Hobbycraft can also see the most popular articles, allowing them to create more relevant content for future blogs.
Results
160% referral revenue increase
2017 v 2016
Results
287% increase in traffic
2017 v 2016
Results
4.3% increase in returning visitors
2017 v 2016
Results
11.7k up votes on posts so far
2018