Clements and Church: a high-end website for a high-end client

Well, we knew we could help Clements and Church due to our familiarity with their client-base. Because their clients are your clients – affluent and high-net-worth people who value great service and advice.

We worked with C+C in the same way we’d work with a financial client, or much the way you’d work with your clients. So it began with a chemistry meeting – are we the right fit for each other. The outcome of such meetings is never obvious, but it’s an important step. Once sure we’re right for each other we moved on to a discovery workshop. We met near their Birmingham HQ, in the fantastic Grand Hotel.

The struggle is real, or “why you shouldn’t use off-the-shelf page builders”

C+C had a web-builder that they were struggling with. They found it hard to update, slow to respond, and enjoyed too little support. This had led to a cluttered front-end which lacked professional polish. Essentially they had a horrific user experience and poor results. C+C were well aware of the failings of their website.

Their current website was too chaotic and scruffy to properly reflect the high-end nature of their service. They had wonderful photography – with a new shoot every season – but nowhere to showcase it online. The site needed replacing, that much was clear. But the replacement site had to be much more polished, much more aspirational.

PLOTT has their work cut out

The site opens with a video of the tailors and team at work. Seeing the real people doing the real work has the impact we knew they deserved.

Clements and Church had been through a branding process, but the new brand needed to be rolled out. Essentially it needed to be interpreted by PLOTT and included in the website design. This roll-out included new copywriting for the website, including the brand story. We simplified their tone-of-voice, emphasising confidence and expertise.

Wix vs WordPress

They were considering using Wix – but we felt they needed a team that could – and would – fix all their issues. Wix may have its place, but it wouldn’t address all their issues.

So it came down to WordPress vs Wix. From our point-of-view the result was never in doubt – there’s a reason we use WordPress. Actually, there are a ton of reasons. Wix can work well for start-ups – in part because of its low (ish) entry fees. WordPress takes considerably more skill and knowledge to do well. We have that, of course, in spades. No worries there.

But is WordPress high-end enough for a high-end business like Clements and Church, or like yours? It’s a reasonable question. Our answer to the question is to consider some other brands that use WordPress:

• Dolce & Gabbana
• Versace
• Chloé
• Vogue
• Mercedes-Benz

Truth be told it’s easy to find brilliant brands that use WordPress because over 40% of websites are WordPress. That’s an astonishing number. Yes, success isn’t the same thing as good. But when it comes to technology what you really want is something tried and tested. WordPress is as tested as it comes.

A PLOTT website

We absolutely knew that C+C would love their PLOTT website once they got their hands on it. They would struggle with an obtuse interface no more. Easy-to-use is our watchword. If something’s not simple, it’s probably wrong. So we keep things slick and simple.

All PLOTT websites come complete with our very own flexible-layout creator tool that’s unique for each client. We don’t use off the shelf page-builders and we don’t recommend them (i.e. Elementor, Divi, WP Bakery). Yes, it’s good that they do 1000+ things, but also – they do 1000+ things. You don’t need 1000+ things – all that does is slow down your website. There’s also a steep learning curve and frankly, we don’t like the end results.

We’re designers at heart, so while excellent programming is super important to us, the needs of the brand and design come first. We’ll make the programming work to fit the design, not the other way round – the wrong way round.

Search engine results pages (SERPs)

Clements and Church also wanted to build their contacts and reach more people through search engines. All PLOTT websites are ‘SEO ready’, we’ve done a lot of work on our in-house WordPress software. For C+C their SEO was a priority.

So it was vital that their new website was built to be much more SEO friendly. There are lots of things that need to be done when programming a website for SEO. Some are small, some are not so small; but many must be built into the very fabric of the site. They cannot easily be added if they’re missed as they form the structure of the site itself.

The SERPs (search engine results pages) positions for Clements and Church are excellent for a new website. Launching a new site will have an effect on your SERPs, but whether for good or ill relies on many factors.

SEO-friendly URLs, proper use of header tags, semantic HTML, XML sitemap, internal linking, SSL, core web vitals … I could go on, but I sense I’m losing you here. All this arcane stuff is important though, your SEO heavily relies on the skills of your web devs. It’s the result of all this work that determines your results. Here are some SERPS from the first page of Google for various relevant searches.

The end result

So now C+C can update their website at will. They can build on their journal with all the flexibility they need, without the steep page-builder learning curve. The website is performing well in Google’s search engine results. All’s well, that ends well.

With the full professional polish of a site designed and built by PLOTT, and our first-class service and support – and all the issues are resolved

Ready for some branding with balls?

2025 might sound like a Sci Fi movie set in the distant future, but whether it’s a dystopia or not is up to us. It’s time for some bold branding. So let’s talk about branding with balls, and what works for your brand.

So if you’re ready, drop us a line – or if you prefer a chat, use our online booking tool – and we’ll get the ball rolling.