Newcastle Cathedral is excited to announce a new website launch taking effect this month. The revamped site, which utilises the new domain name newcastlecathedral.org.uk, offers a clean, modern design with easy navigation and reflects the Cathedral’s vision, mission and heritage. The launch has been timed to coincide with the acceleration of the Cathedral’s year-long capital works programme, fundamental to the success of its ambitious and transformational National Lottery Heritage Fund project, Common Ground in Sacred Space.
The purpose behind the look and feel of the contemporary new site is to provide a more welcoming, informative and attractive public face for Newcastle Cathedral. It offers an improved experience for online visitors and functions as a focal point for information on worship, music, events, news updates and progress on the heritage project. It is also vital that the Cathedral maintains a high digital presence throughout 2020 by increasing online engagement, even if visitors are unable to physically access certain parts of the building during the capital works.
Catherine Mair, Marketing and Communications Manager at Newcastle Cathedral, said: “worship is why we exist but, as a key heritage destination in Newcastle upon Tyne and a city landmark, our appeal goes beyond faith-based boundaries and we welcome a broad range of visitors. We desperately needed a strong visual identity which reflected all these elements and better facilitated communication between the Cathedral and our online audience, particularly once our capital works got underway earlier this year.”
In July last year, Gateshead-based Digital Allies, a specialist digital marketing firm in web design and development, successfully won the contract to design and build the Cathedral’s website following a robust tender process. Key to their successful pitch was the promise to deliver a new website which not only looked good but which was also fully optimised for search engines. The result is a truly responsive design which offers an interesting, exciting and user-friendly experience.
Catherine continued: “with limited budget and a wish list of design and usability features as long as my arm, we knew we were asking an awful lot from any appointed marketing agency. Digital Allies boldly stepped forward and presented an outstanding response to our brief. They have delivered on time and on every promise they made. We are absolutely delighted with the results.”
Steven Parker, Managing Director at Digital Allies, said: “To have won this highly coveted contract was a real honour for everyone at Digital Allies. It has been an incredibly rewarding project to be a part of and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the new website. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with, and getting to know, the whole team behind Newcastle Cathedral and we look forward to forging a long-lasting ‘alliance’ with them for years to come.”
For more information, please visit www.newcastlecathedral.org.uk