Forest Of Dean Stone Firms

Forest of Dean Stone Firm’s heritage is firmly embedded in Gloucestershire’s history and has been since the turn of the 20th Century. As a major supplier of Pennant Sandstone to the building and construction industry, they also have a commercial brand, Forest Pennant, that focuses on paving, cladding, flooring and more.

The fact that both companies needed a website made sense, but it was creating confusion for trade customers and end consumers alike. So the decision was made to bring the two sites together with a high level of SEO for both sectors, to form a single site, satisfying both trade and public at the same time.

To overcome the issues of having two sites, Priority Pixels were asked to create a single website covering both brands. Special consideration was given to these key areas:

• Website design  – To create one, responsive site that covered both brands with easy navigation, yet had a definite distinction, between the two
• Website development  – To create a new website structure that worked for both brands, so neither was overpowering the other, with full SSL data security built in

The new website has been designed with WordPress to showcase the range of stone products available from both Forest of Dean and Forest Pennant. It provides technical specifications and stone details for the industry, as well as a section for the commercial Forest Pennant products. Plus, the site is responsive to serve the 40% of their site visitors using tablets and mobiles.

One of the more complex elements of the project was the website structure. As the new site is a mix of two websites, fodstone.co.uk and forestpennant.com, we had to create a new site structure that worked for both. With ease of navigation being a key requirement, we developed a menu that goes three levels deep, but remains easy to use.