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A Website Overhaul for Higher Ed Headaches 

Gordon College's legacy site sprawled across more than 4,000 URLs and hundreds of unique templates, resulting in a maze of flat links, mismatched layouts, and scattered content. As a nationally ranked Christian liberal arts college with a reputation for rigorous academics, they needed an updated website that could serve prospective and current students, family, faculty, and alumni alike. 

In advance of the next enrollment cycle, the Gordon College marketing team tagged Mostly Serious to partner with them to radically rethink and retool the college’s online presence. 

See Gordon College's full website here.

Our Role

  • Web Design + Development
  • Craft CMS Websites
  • Content Marketing
Tablet displaying the Gordon College website homepage with a scenic campus photo and blue interface.
Two desktop web page mockups showing Gordon College academic content with text, photos, and wave-pattern background. The images are a before-and after comparison.

The Challenge: Rethinking Gordon.edu

Higher education websites, by nature, require a high volume of diverse content. And their website, while suitable for its time, was no longer able to keep pace with their current publishing needs. After years of additions, updates, and rapid growth, the website’s content and design had drifted off center. Prospective students bounced between disjointed program pages, calls-to-action were three clicks away from course details, and internal editors wrestled with one-off page configurations that were difficult to maintain.

Through in-depth content and design audits, we set out to simplify every layer

👉 without eliminating key content!

Through our in-depth content and design audits

We working closely with Gordon staff to identify areas for improvement: 

  • Disorganized content and site structure hindered discoverability, confusing visitors and making it difficult for search engines to understand the site hierarchy
  • Inconsistent page layouts and visual design patterns led to a cluttered experience that undermined brand cohesion
  • Fragmented content modules created editing inefficiencies and a disjointed narrative flow across departments
  • Lack of intuitive UI cues and navigation systems left users uncertain about where they were on the site or how to find key information
  • A limited and outdated backend made it difficult for Gordon staff to manage updates or build new content without developer support

Combined, these issues impacted usability, brand perception, and SEO performance.

Gordon College site on a computer screen with cleaner layout and enhanced navigation.
Mobile view of the Gordon College website showing an improved, streamlined interface.
Laptop screen showing Gordon College website menu with dark blue background, yellow buttons, and navigation options.

Strategic Foundations

Content Audit → Smarter Structure

  • Shifted from a flat to a hierarchical URL structure to reflect true content relationships and support intuitive navigation.
  • Identified and consolidated lower-value or redundant pages to reduce clutter and focus user attention.
  • Standardized content modules across departments to streamline updates, reduce the risk of inconsistencies, and provide a more unified site experience.

Design Audit → Intuitive Interface

  • Established design consistency across pages by using shared layout grids and reusable UI components.
  • Created visual cues like breadcrumbs and active-state navigation highlights to help users stay oriented.
  • Simplified the main navigation structure, improved mobile usability, and clarified how deep content is accessed and surfaced.

Front‑end development:

  • Responsive, performance-tuned site scales beautifully from wide 4K monitors to mobile phones
  • Subtle motion and animation on scroll to give the UI a professional polish
  • Contextual breadcrumbs and navigation to distinguish between general College and individual School content
  • A dynamic, easy-to-browse course catalog that displays real-time data from Modern Campus

Back‑end development:

  • Tiered, permission-based publishing and approval workflow for editors and admins
  • Easy modular page builder
  • Integration with lead gen systems, including Salesforce
  • Single Sign-on with Microsoft Entra
  • Fast, automated migration of ~1,200 blog posts from WordPress to Craft entries
Desktop web page mockup of Gordon College academics section with student photos.

Behind the Build: How We Overhauled Web Content

Development & Quality Assurance

To implement these changes, we developed a fully custom website using Craft CMS, selected for its scalability, editor-friendly experience, and robust plugin ecosystem. We collaborated with Gordon for QA, gathered feedback, and executed a structured round of final revisions before coordinating a smooth public launch.

Content Migration & Support

We provided strategic and tactical support for migrating content from the previous Gordon.edu site, including:

  • Collaboration to identify priority pages and assign responsibilities for migration and assigning redirects
  • Hands-on content population using newly built templates
  • A full automated migration of The Bell, Gordon’s institutional blog, from WordPress to Craft CMS, ensuring continuity of stories and improved backend access

CMS Training & Documentation

We provided training to ensure Gordon’s internal teams could manage and grow the new site independently:

  • Live CMS training session led by our developers featuring walkthroughs of real-world content creation and editing scenarios to build hands-on confidence
  • A comprehensive CMS guide, available within the admin dashboard, covering everything from module usage to workflow tips

Technical & Integration Solutions

We ensured seamless integration of key tools, ensuring consistent styling and reliable data flows across:

  • Craft CMS, content management with Live Preview, and granular permissions for 30 departmental editors
  • Microsoft Entra ID SSO allows staff to securely sign in with their existing campus credentials
  • Embedded Slate + Salesforce forms
  • Modern Campus Acalog API pipes real‑time course data into program pages

Each integration was customized to maintain design cohesion and content integrity.

Two smartphone mockups displaying Gordon College mobile website.

The Result? Institutional Impact that Passes the Test

With the launch of its new website, Gordon College now has a flexible digital platform that reflects its brand, supports its audience, and empowers its internal teams. As the institution continues to grow, the site is built to scale—with room to expand, update, and adapt as user needs and technology evolve.

A Future-Proof, Accessible Website

  • Fully responsive, tested in the latest browsers across Mac and Windows devices
  • Aligned with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility benchmarks, including semantic HTML and keyboard navigation
  • Developed on Craft CMS, giving Gordon a secure, scalable platform for future growth
  • Optimized for SEO with metadata controls, vanity URLS, and streamlined site architecture

Stronger UX, Stronger Storytelling

  • A simplified content structure and consistent page layouts guide users to key content quickly
  • Prospective students can now explore programs, admissions, and campus life without barriers
  • Internal teams can manage content more confidently, without developer bottlenecks
  • The overall digital experience now matches the caliber of Gordon’s academic and campus offerings

Higher‑ed sites are notorious for uncontrolled sprawl. Our website overhaul gave Gordon College a digital campus that its team can maintain with ease. This approach offers a clear roadmap for institutions managing complex legacy content and aging systems.

Long-Term Savings and Platform Consolidation

As part of our ongoing website support and improvement services, we added a custom Landing Pages section to the CMS’s entry types for Gordon’s marketing team. 

This enabled them to build unlimited landing pages for their email marketing and ad destinations while leveraging the same user accounts and permissions. And it amounted to substantial cost savings as they were able to cancel the subscription to their previous Landing Page Builder app.

Behind the Scenes

Project Team

  • Mike Moreau
  • Dan Spencer
  • Chelsea Begley
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