Everything you want to know about your city including, food & drinks, outings, living and shopping can be found on this platform. In addition, Indebuurt also contains a business guide with a great overview of all facilities and service providers in the area. Think hairdressers, bookstores and nice restaurants. Content automatically flows to other regional websites within ‘De Persgroep’ (Press Association) and in turn ends up on national news sites. Making local news spread further! 

Hyperlocal

A few years ago, The Persgroep established the website, Indebuurt. They opted for WordPress, as it’s easily accessible and well equipped for editors. Here at Van Ons we took a good hard look at what was required for further development. Ultimately, the new functionality needed a shorter lead time. De Persgroep also made a decision to focus on “hyperlocal”, news that was local to you. Straight from your street for example!

Three city sites for Delft, Utrecht and Dordrecht already existed. At the end of 2016 a plan was made to expand the concept across dozens of cities!

Rolling this out was complicated, lengthy and costly and required a re-think.

A long reach platform – both scalable and flexible

By the end of 2016, we were appointed to manage the platform. This required completely rebuilding the back and front-end of the site, to create a scalable platform. After much discussion regarding the functionalities that must be incorporated, we formulated a plan whereby existing elements could be reused and others redeveloped. Ultimately saving time and cost.

Going live, further rollout and development

The completely renovated Indebuurt was ready in just a few weeks and active by early March 2017. We began with Zwolle, then Apeldoorn, followed by Eindhoven. Meanwhile, 21 cities have been rolled out using the new infrastructure, with many more in the pipeline. Smart choices in the hosting and technology field, mean new cities can be rolled out in a reasonably short time and the editors can post content without delay. The platform itself is also constantly evolving. We collaborate on a weekly basis with De Persgroep team, ensuring technique and design develop, expand and improve. 

By working on the platform every week, DPG Media ensures itself of continuous innovation, upgrading and extension of the indebuurt platform.

We’ve made it easy for the editors by developing a standard WordPress structure, which is completely suitable for all editors across different cities. Together with Aagje, (De Persgroep’s “smart database”, which unites all kinds of user data, allowing easy analysis), we’ve created incredible integrations. Job vacancies posted on the site can easily be linked to the relevant company, allowing further details to be posted.  

Google Tag Manager – Measuring made easy

We’ve also used Google Tag Manager in the Indebuurt platform. Apart from the “simple” tracking of CTAs, out and inbound clicks, plus clicks on social media,  we can also measure the more difficult things to quantify.

For example, whether a block with company information has been shown in a sponsored article or if more messages have been uploaded onto the homepage. By keeping a close eye on this information, the website can be further optimized to create a good user experience.