Restyling a Cooperative's Corporate Website Under a Public Digitalisation Grant, Without Losing SEO or Compliance
Executive summary
A cooperative that operates several consumer product brands needed to restyle its corporate website under a public digitalisation grant tied to the EU's rural development funding framework (Reg. (EU) 2021/2115). A grant-funded project carries its own clock: the rebuild had to be designed, built, reviewed and signed off inside a defined funding year, on the cooperative's main corporate site, while its other brand sites kept running undisturbed.
Babini Mazzari already knew the cooperative's wider web presence. It rebuilt the corporate site on a new design system, migrated content and configuration across eleven distinct page types, and used the restyle as the occasion to run a full GDPR review rather than leaving it for later — removing five legacy third-party integrations before the new site went live.
Midway through the engagement, an approaching EU deadline on environmental claims in marketing added unplanned compliance work: marketing copy destined for translation needed correcting first. The Italian site shipped on schedule and was fully verified before a second-language release followed as a controlled, separate step.
- Client
- an Italian agricultural cooperative that operates several consumer product brands
- Industry
- Retail & Consumer Products
- Platform and technologies
- WordPress, Kadence, custom post types, Iubenda, GA4/GTM, SMTP configuration, spam-protected contact forms
At a glance
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| An existing corporate site with a page structure that no longer matched the cooperative's content and navigation needs | A restyled site rebuilt across eleven distinct page types, approved against mockups before build |
| Legacy and unused third-party integrations active on the site | Five legacy third-party integrations decommissioned as part of a GDPR review run during the restyle |
| No mapped plan for the many URLs that would disappear in the new structure | Redirects mapped for retired pages, plus a temporary, access-restricted clone of the previous site kept available during the transition |
| A single-language corporate site | A bilingual-ready architecture, with the second language released as a separate, controlled step after the Italian site was verified |
Business context
The project sat on a public digitalisation grant with its own funding year, which meant the corporate site restyle had to move through design, build, content migration and sign-off on a schedule the cooperative could not renegotiate. The site in question is the cooperative's main corporate presence, distinct from the consumer-facing brand sites it also operates, so the rebuild had to stand on its own rather than reuse decisions made elsewhere in the portfolio.
Whoever owned the grant inside the cooperative carried two risks at once: missing the funding year's delivery window, and shipping a corporate site whose privacy configuration had not kept pace with its previous one. Doing nothing was not an option on either front — the grant had a clock, and an ageing configuration of tracking and marketing integrations was still active on the site the grant was meant to modernise.
Challenges
- Delivering inside a funding year, not an open-ended timeline. A grant-funded project has a defined window for design, build, content migration and sign-off, which left no room for an open-ended discovery phase.
- Migrating a large page structure without losing existing search visibility. The new site's structure did not map one-to-one onto the old one, so a majority of legacy URLs had no direct equivalent and needed a deliberate redirect strategy rather than an ad hoc one.
- Treating privacy as part of the rebuild, not an afterthought. Running a GDPR review and deciding what to keep or remove from the integration stack had to happen before launch, not after, without breaking the forms, analytics and email delivery the site depended on.
- Absorbing a late, unplanned compliance deadline without disrupting an already-verified release. An approaching EU deadline on environmental claims in marketing meant some marketing copy needed correcting before it could be translated, after the Italian site had already shipped.
Key decisions and trade-offs
Ship the Italian site first, verify it, then release the second language separately. Multilingual architecture was built into the restyle from the start, but the English content was treated as its own release rather than a blocking requirement for launch. The trade-off was a temporary gap in language parity, in exchange for a smaller, lower-risk go-live inside the funding window.
Keep a controlled clone of the previous site available during the transition, instead of retiring it outright at cutover. The old site stayed reachable through an access-restricted, non-indexed copy for a limited period, giving the cooperative and Babini Mazzari a reference point for content and redirects. The trade-off was maintaining a second, temporary piece of infrastructure during the handover window.
Use the restyle as the trigger for a full GDPR review, not a separate project. Rather than migrating the existing integration stack as-is and reviewing it later, the team audited it during the rebuild and removed what was no longer justified. The trade-off was an added verification gate before go-live, in exchange for a cleaner privacy posture on day one.
Approach
Design system and environment
A Kadence-based design system and demo were built and approved with the cooperative before any page templates were developed, setting the visual and structural baseline for the rest of the project.
Template build and content migration
Eleven distinct page types were developed against approved mockups, including the homepage, editorial content, the cooperative's model and sustainability pages, a brand showcase, a membership page, a supply-chain map and dedicated sections for open calls and opportunities. Configuration migration ran in parallel: SEO metadata, Iubenda consent settings, footer content, SMTP delivery and tracking configuration were reviewed and carried across rather than copied blindly.
GDPR review and integration clean-up
A GDPR review was run specifically for the restyle, resulting in the removal of five legacy third-party services that were no longer justified, ahead of production release.
Production release and continuity
The new site went live with redirects mapped for retired pages and a temporary, access-restricted clone of the previous site kept available for reference during the transition, aiming for a near-zero-downtime cutover.
Training and phased multilingual rollout
The cooperative's team was trained on the new site, and a second-language release followed as a separate step once the Italian site was fully verified — including a compliance-driven content correction made necessary by that EU deadline on environmental claims before translation began.
Outcomes
A grant-funded rebuild delivered inside its funding year
The corporate site was redesigned, migrated and signed off within the public digitalisation grant's defined timeline, with GDPR verified as part of the rebuild and five legacy third-party integrations decommissioned before go-live.
Search visibility protected through migration
Eleven page types were rebuilt with a mapped redirect strategy for retired URLs, rather than leaving legacy links to fail after cutover.
A controlled path to a second language
The bilingual-ready architecture let the cooperative add a second language as its own verified release, without reopening or destabilising the already-live Italian site.
Who this is relevant for
This approach suits organisations restyling a corporate or institutional website under a grant or similarly fixed delivery deadline, especially where the site also needs a privacy review and a multilingual rollout handled without putting an already-live release at risk.
FAQ
Can a website restyling project be funded through an EU digitalisation grant?
Yes, when the project is scoped and delivered against the grant's defined funding year. That means design, build, content migration and sign-off need a schedule the client cannot easily renegotiate, which should shape the project plan from day one.
How do you migrate a corporate website without losing existing search rankings?
Map redirects for every retired URL before cutover, rather than after problems appear, and keep a reference copy of the previous site available during the transition so nothing gets missed.
Should a GDPR review happen during a website restyle or after launch?
During, where possible. Reviewing the integration stack as part of the rebuild makes it possible to remove what is no longer justified before the new site goes live, rather than carrying legacy exposure into the new design.
Why release a new corporate website in one language before adding others?
Shipping and fully verifying one language first reduces the risk at launch. A second language can then be released as its own controlled step, which also makes room for unplanned compliance work, such as a late regulatory deadline affecting marketing copy, without reopening the live site.
Related services
- Web Development: rebuilt the corporate site's templates and content structure and managed the migration and redirect strategy.
- GDPR & Data Protection: ran the GDPR review that led to decommissioning legacy third-party integrations before launch.
- Design Studio: delivered the design system and page mockups approved by the client before build.
Next steps
If your organisation needs a website restyle delivered against a fixed funding or compliance deadline, talk to Babini Mazzari about a scoped plan that protects your search visibility, your privacy posture and your live site throughout the transition.
