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From an ageing website to a modern civic platform
How SynthX rebuilt the Blackheath City Improvement District website into a modern, structured, search-ready platform that puts security, cleansing and membership one tap away.
Drag to reveal the transformation
Same organisation, same content, a completely different platform. Pull the handle across to compare the legacy site with the rebuild.
BEFORE
AFTER
The previous site
The rebuildDrag the handle, or use the arrow keys. Left is the old site, right is the rebuild.
The previous site no longer reflected the organisation behind it.
A City Improvement District lives on trust and responsiveness. Built in an earlier era, the legacy site had aged past what the organisation needed: harder to navigate, and harder to act on. Here is what our audit of the live site surfaced.
An ageing first impression
The design and footer dated back well over a decade, so the site read as older than the work the CID does today.
A homepage without clear priority
Current notices and older archive posts shared one long feed, which made it hard to see what mattered right now.
Dense navigation
A large nested menu and heavy sidebar made key actions harder to find than they needed to be.
Key actions were hard to find
Reporting a fault and joining, the things members need most, were not front and centre.
Limited search visibility
Without structured data and modern metadata, the site was harder to surface in search.
Built for desktop
The layout reflected desktop-era habits in a market that now browses mostly on mobile.
What changed, dimension by dimension
How we rebuilt it
Audited the live site in full. We mapped every page, menu item and action to understand what was there and what people were actually trying to do.
Rebuilt the information architecture around intent. The structure now follows what visitors come to do, not how the old site happened to grow.
Designed a modern, responsive interface. A clean civic identity, a search-led hero and clear service cards that read as current and trustworthy on any screen.
Applied our AEO build standard. Schema markup, metadata, internal linking and answer-shaped content on every page, so the site is discoverable and citable, not just present.
Surfaced the actions that matter. Report Issue and Membership moved from buried menu items to front-and-centre calls to action.
Built it to be measured. With tracking in place, improvement becomes something we can prove, not assume.
What the new site now does for members
Every element earns its place. These are the features we designed in to turn an ageing site into a tool people can actually use.
Search-led hero
A prominent find-what-you-need search puts documents, notices and forms one query away, right at the top of the page.
One-tap Report Issue
The single most important member action now sits in the header on every page, not buried three menus deep.
Clear service breakdown
Security, cleaning, urban management and marketing are set out as scannable cards, so visitors grasp the CID’s role in seconds.
Structured resource hub
AGM packs, annual reports, PAIA and procurement documents are categorised and counted, not scattered through old posts.
Curated, dated news
Current notices are labelled and prioritised, so a 2026 safety alert never competes with a 2016 archive post.
Mobile and search ready
A responsive build with schema and clean metadata, so the site performs on a phone and shows up in search.
Your site could be doing the same heavy lifting.
If your website has aged past what your business needs, that is a lead-generation problem, not just a design one. Let us show you where yours stands.
