Seventy pages to seventeen, and a menu that argues problems before answers

The old MODAL site ran to roughly 70 pages of long-form content, several clicks deep. Ed Benier's brief at the first strategy session on 3 November 2025 was blunt about it: simplify the structure, cut the content into bite-sized pieces, hold every page within three clicks, refresh the look and feel.

Underneath that sat a positioning problem. MODAL diagnoses culture and organisational effectiveness, then runs 12 month to multi-year strategy execution engagements with CEOs and exec teams. Their work sits with ASX-listed resources, utilities, health and local government clients, at organisations of 200 to 2,000 staff. About 70 to 80% of revenue comes from existing customers and roughly four new leads arrive a month, so the site has one real job: hold up in front of a boardroom buyer. It was reading as a training provider instead, which is a label the owners reject outright.

There was no SEO problem to solve here and we said so at the start. Ahrefs had MODAL ranking for about 11 to 12 keywords in total in June 2026. No Search Console property was connected, no GA4, no keyword targets, and no retainer follows this build. The scoreboard on this account is design quality and client satisfaction, which is why there is not a single traffic number on this page.

The other thing worth putting on the record: we lost this pitch. In mid-2024 MODAL chose a different web agency. We kept the relationship warm for about twelve months, and in October 2025 the incumbent build still had not progressed, so Tommy went back. The decisive factor logged against the win is not a feature and not a price. It is one line from the client side, recorded in our own notes without the speaker separated: “You've listened really well.” Price drew no flinch and they decided before Christmas.

Nine months of design, copy and build, run as screen-share reviews because that suits how these two owners decide. The interesting decisions are all architecture and language, not pixels.

Delivered: a full design and copy programme from a 70-page site to a signed 17-page sitemap with a three-click depth rule, all core design and architecture decisions locked inside about six weeks of the first design review, a staging build shareable from 4 May 2026, every Challenges and Solutions template finalised on 16 June, a pre-launch technical audit of our own build on 6 July, and formal approval of the look, feel and navigation from both owners on 22 July 2026.

Not delivered: the launch. The site is not live. Website training runs on 14 August 2026 with go-live set to coincide, and roughly 26 review comments, some inactive buttons, the Our Approach copy and a fresh testimonial set all sit ahead of it. Content is not finished either, and several pieces of it depend on the client rather than us.

There are no performance results, and there will not be a chart on this page when there are. No Search Console property, no analytics, no keyword targets, no retainer. This was bought as a brand build and it is being judged as one.