Executive summary
The website was getting people there. The problem was what happened after they arrived.
BEI helps financial advisors, CPAs, attorneys, and consultants deliver Exit Planning to business owners. Before the redesign, the site had grown around the company's history and offerings. That made sense internally, but it made the experience harder for a first-time visitor to understand.
There were several connected pieces of the business (education, certification, membership, software, events, and resources), but the site often presented them as separate things. Visitors had to connect those dots themselves. So we treated this as more than a visual redesign. The first job was to figure out how the pieces should fit together. Then we designed the interface around that structure and rebuilt the site using the existing WordPress, Elementor, and HubSpot setup.
The result was a clearer path through the site, two guided user journeys, a reusable design and component system, and a foundation BEI can continue building on without redesigning every new page from scratch.
The project in numbers
6
weeks. Discovery through launch, against a fixed year-end deadline.
251
advisors surveyed to understand the audience and shape the routing experience.
2
guided paths. The homepage now helps visitors choose a more relevant starting point.
14
core pages rebuilt around shared templates across desktop and mobile.
0
broken integrations. HubSpot, analytics, and existing SEO workflows carried through the launch.
Part one · Strategy
The pressure: a lot to explain, and no clear way in.
Chapters 1 to 5. The problem, the research, the site structure, the homepage routing, and the content map. Most of the redesign was decided here, before anything was drawn.
Chapter 01 · Strategy
The problem
BEI had plenty of information. Visitors didn't have a clear way to understand it.
The existing website wasn't failing because it lacked content. It was difficult because the content didn't always arrive in the order a new visitor needed it.
BEI's internal structure made sense to people who already knew the business. A new advisor didn't necessarily know the difference between the programs, memberships, certifications, and tools, or which one they should look at first. That created a simple question for the redesign:
How do we help someone understand BEI before asking them to choose something?
That question became the thread connecting the research, information architecture, homepage, design system, development, and SEO work.
What we had to work within
- TimelineLaunch before December 20. Six weeks, start to finish.
- PlatformWordPress stays. Moving would have cost more than it returned.
- ContinuityHubSpot, analytics, and SEO tools could not break.
- SearchRecent ranking gains had to be protected, not reset.
From the working files · our audit of the old site, side by side with competitor sites
Architect's note
The brief was to redesign a website. The real job was to make a complicated business easier to understand.
Chapter 02 · Strategy
Discovery and research
Before designing anything, we needed to understand who the site was actually talking to.
Discovery was used to turn a broad redesign brief into specific decisions. A U.S. survey of 251 advisors who serve business-owner clients (±6% margin of error at 95% confidence) helped identify three useful audience groups and, more importantly, showed what each group needed from the website.
Doers
62%
extremely or very familiar with BEI
Already offering Exit Planning. 57% look online for tools. Mostly mid-career, at mid-size firms. They want depth: advanced training, stronger credentials, and software that saves time. Their biggest barrier is cost (46%).
Talkers
11%
familiar with BEI
Considering Exit Planning but not fully committed. 68% rely on referrals. They care about credibility, but fewer than 25% see strong value yet. Most are held back by training gaps (68%) and not knowing where to start.
Non-adopters
0%
familiar with BEI
74% come through referrals. Low awareness and low confidence. They need the basics and a simple first tool before any training. This is a small group, so the numbers show a direction, not a verdict.
The important takeaway wasn't simply that there were three audiences. It was that the homepage couldn't assume every visitor had the same level of knowledge. Instead of making everyone dig through the same site, we needed to help people figure out where they belonged.
Where BEI stood next to competitors
EPI is known for the credential, XPX for the network, and Capitaliz for valuation software. BEI was respected for credibility and structure, but it was hard to tell apart. Awareness was close across all four, and BEI had the most positive sentiment.
The opening: be the one place that combines credibility with simplicity. The website had to make that obvious.
| Brand | Familiar | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| BEI | 79% | 54% positive, 2% negative |
| EPI | 78% | The credential |
| XPX | 76% | The network |
| Capitaliz | 70% | Valuation software |
From the working files · Consumer research, September 2025
Three groups of advisors, three different starting points.
The research directly influenced the homepage routing experience. Rather than making visitors browse BEI's full offering immediately, the site asks a simple question and uses the answer to guide them toward a more relevant path.
Chapter 03 · Strategy
Information architecture
The old structure made visitors learn BEI's organization. The new structure helps them learn BEI's value.
The existing navigation reflected how the organization was structured internally. That works when you already understand the business. It is less helpful when you're seeing it for the first time.
We reorganized the experience around the questions visitors are likely to have:
- What is BEI?
- What problem does it solve?
- How does the process work?
- Which solution is relevant to me?
- What do I get from it?
- Where can I learn more?
- What should I do next?
How the site is organized now
Every section links to the others, and every path ends at a clear next step.
This also changed how the homepage was treated. It wasn't designed to hold every piece of information. Its job became orientation: explain enough to establish context, then guide people toward the right next step.
A simple rule shaped the content
If someone doesn't need this information yet, don't make them process it yet.
That led to a layered structure where visitors get the big picture first and more detail as they become more interested. It also gave the site room to grow without adding another layer of confusing navigation every time BEI launched something new.
From the working files · The routing idea as it was first presented to BEI
The goal wasn't to hide the rest of the site. It was to give people a useful starting point.
Not a catalog to get dropped into. One question, asked right after the headline, that points each visitor toward the most relevant part of BEI's offering.
Chapter 04 · Strategy
The homepage routing experience
The hardest UX problem was also the most important one: where should someone go first?
The homepage needed to serve people at different stages of understanding. I explored several approaches before settling on a guided routing experience.
| Approach | What it solved | Why it wasn't enough |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional navigation | Familiar and predictable. | Still assumed visitors understood BEI's organization. |
| Product selection | Put offerings directly in front of people. | Required visitors to already know what they needed. |
| Audience selection | Personalized the experience. | Added a decision before the visitor understood the value. |
| Guided routing (chosen) | Introduced context before asking for a choice. | Created the clearest path through the complexity. |
One question, two paths.
Right after the headline, the homepage asks: "Let's find the right Exit Planning solution for you." Two dropdowns and one button. The answer sends the visitor to the part of the site that fits them, and anyone who isn't ready to choose can browse the programs instead.
Whichever path someone takes, booking a demo with a specialist is always one click away.
In production · Homepage sections
Each section has one job.
In production · the homepage, section by section
The homepage became an orientation tool.
Each major section has a specific job:
- Hero. Establish what BEI does and who it helps.
- Routing. Help visitors choose a relevant path.
- BEI Journey. Explain how the pieces fit together.
- Membership benefits. Show outcomes before asking visitors to evaluate products.
- Services. Let visitors explore the connected offerings.
- Trust. Reinforce credibility once the visitor has context.
- Resources and FAQ. Answer common questions and create additional paths into the site.
- Primary conversion. Make the next step obvious once the visitor understands the value.
From the working files · Content map
Every page planned section by section before design.
Every block had to answer a question, pull from a known content source, and have a clear reason for being on the page.
Chapter 05 · Strategy
Content mapping
The interface got easier once the content had a job.
Before designing each page, we mapped the content section by section. That exercise exposed places where the old experience was asking one section to do too many things.
It also made the design process faster because the hierarchy was being solved before visual polish entered the picture.
The goal wasn't to make every section impressive. It was to make every section useful.
Part two · Design
The shaping: the system first, then the pages.
Chapters 6 and 7. The design system and the prototypes. The visual rules were set before any page was designed, and the homepage was tested before it was built.
Chapter 06 · Design
Design system
We built the visual system before building the pages.
Instead of designing a homepage and figuring out consistency later, we established the core visual rules first. That gave the rest of the site a shared language and made new pages much easier to build.
What the system covers
- Type. A set scale from display headings down to captions, so importance is obvious at a glance.
- Color. Named by job (primary, surface, accent), not by hue, so a brand update doesn't mean rewriting the system.
- Spacing. One scale: 4 · 8 · 12 · 16 · 24 · 32 · 48 · 64 · 96 · 128.
- Corners and depth. One corner style and four levels of shadow.
- Components. Buttons, cards, forms, tabs, and the other reusable pieces.
The principle was simple:
Make the interface predictable enough that people can focus on the content.
Pages are assembled from the same set of parts.
Every page on the site is built from a shared set of components. Each one follows the same type, color, and spacing rules, so a new page looks like it belongs without anyone redesigning it.
Every state is covered. Each component has its default, hover, focus, active, disabled, loading, success, and error states. A new component only gets added when an existing one can't be adapted and the need keeps coming up.
From the working files · Creative brief and mood board
Real people in real working environments.
The visual direction stayed professional and grounded without becoming sterile. Photography focused on real people in real working environments: facilitators, advisors, collaboration, discussion, and progress, not generic corporate stock imagery.
- Professional
- Grounded
- Forward-looking
- Human
- Natural light
- Candid, never posed
Chapter 07 · Design
Prototyping and iteration
The homepage wasn't solved in one design pass.
The routing experience went through multiple prototypes before development. I used working prototypes in Figma Make so stakeholders could interact with the experience instead of trying to evaluate everything from static screens.
That changed the feedback we were getting. Instead of vague reactions to a layout, we could talk about where a user would go next, whether an option made sense, and whether the progression felt natural.
The process became:
- Prototype
- Review
- Observe
- Refine
Questions we could answer before writing code. Is the homepage too long? Do visitors understand the routing options? Does the path toward a demo make sense?
That made it cheap to be wrong early, which meant we could test more ideas before anything was committed to production.
Part three · Development
The shine: making the platform BEI already had work better.
Chapters 8 to 10. WordPress and Elementor, search, and the handful of decisions that shaped everything else.
Chapter 08 · Development
WordPress and development
The goal wasn't to replace the platform. It was to make the existing platform work better.
BEI was already running WordPress, Elementor, and HubSpot. Replacing the stack would have added migration risk, disrupted existing workflows, and eaten into a six-week timeline. So instead of treating WordPress as the problem, we changed how it was being used.
Elementor became a component system
Editors could assemble pages from predefined components instead of creating a new layout every time. That reduced visual drift and made the site easier to maintain.
Global styles replaced one-off styling
Typography, colors, spacing, and other visual rules were defined centrally so changes could be made consistently across the site.
Templates handled repeated content
Resource, blog, product, landing, and standard page templates reduced duplication. Related content, events, and listings could be managed dynamically instead of being rebuilt manually.
Plugins had to earn their place
Each plugin was evaluated based on whether it solved a real problem, was maintained, and fit the long-term structure of the site. The goal was fewer dependencies and less unnecessary complexity.
Speed and accessibility. Modern image formats, one shared set of styles, scripts that load only when they are needed, and simpler page structure. Proper headings and markup, keyboard navigation, visible focus, and accessible forms. HubSpot forms, lead routing, and attribution were left untouched.
Testing and launch. We checked function, visuals, technical setup, and marketing tracking on a staging site first. Redirects and analytics were confirmed before launch, with a rollback plan ready. Any shortcut taken was written down, not ignored.
In production · Templates and components
Different pages, the same parts.
Chapter 09 · Development
SEO and search
SEO wasn't bolted on after the design. The structure was built with search in mind.
Because the site had a large amount of educational content, the information architecture also needed to make sense to search engines and newer AI-driven search systems.
That meant clearer topic relationships, stronger internal linking, descriptive page structures, semantic content, and consistent terminology across education, certification, membership, events, and Insights.
- Clearer topic relationships. Education, certification, membership, events, and Insights point to each other instead of sitting alone.
- Stronger internal linking. Every page leads somewhere useful. No dead ends.
- Descriptive page structures. Headings say what a section is about, in plain words.
- Consistent terminology. The same thing is called the same name everywhere on the site.
The technical foundation. Semantic HTML (markup that says what each piece of content is), descriptive URLs, canonical tags so search engines know which version of a page is the original, XML sitemaps, Core Web Vitals work for speed, and planned structured data for key content types.
The same rule helped both humans and machines
If a section is easy to understand on its own, it's easier to organize, link, crawl, and retrieve.
Chapter 10 · Development
The major decisions
A few decisions shaped almost everything that followed.
| Decision | Why |
|---|---|
| Keep WordPress | Avoided a risky migration and kept BEI's existing editorial workflows intact. |
| Keep Elementor, but change how it is used | Turned it into a controlled component system instead of a free-form page builder. |
| Build the design system before the pages | Made consistency and future expansion easier. |
| Design around the visitor | Reduced the amount of internal company knowledge visitors had to bring with them. |
| Make the homepage an orientation point | Helped visitors understand BEI before asking them to choose a product or program. |
| Use progressive disclosure | Let visitors learn before asking them to evaluate a complex offering. |
| Use reusable templates | Made future pages easier to create and maintain. |
| Keep plugins focused | Reduced unnecessary complexity and long-term maintenance. |
| Treat SEO as part of architecture | Made content relationships and internal linking part of the site structure. |
What we chose not to build
A heavily animated interface. A fully custom theme. A homepage that tries to show everything at once. Deep navigation menus. Several competing button styles.
In production · Mobile 390
Same story, different arrangement.
The order and the story stay the same. Buttons and tap targets get bigger. Layouts get simpler, but nothing is cut. The routing card becomes the first full-width block, and the services tabs turn into a row you can swipe.
Chapter 11 · Results
What shipped
Six weeks from discovery to launch.
The redesign launched in December 2025 on the platform BEI already operated. The project rebuilt the experience without breaking the marketing infrastructure underneath it.
6
weeks, discovery to launch.
2
guided funnels. A clearer starting point for different visitor needs.
14
core pages rebuilt around shared templates across desktop and mobile.
0
broken integrations. HubSpot, analytics, and existing SEO workflows carried through.
| Area | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Visitors had to understand BEI's internal organization. | The site is organized around what visitors are trying to understand and do. |
| Homepage | Tried to act as a repository for the entire business. | Acts as an orientation point and helps visitors choose a path. |
| Conversion | Calls to action existed throughout the site without a clear progression. | The path toward a demo becomes clearer as visitors gain context. |
| Visual system | Styles had accumulated over time. | Shared styles and reusable components create a more consistent system. |
| Engineering | Pages were built individually with a growing set of dependencies. | Reusable components and templates make the site easier to maintain. |
| Search | SEO could feel separate from the site's content structure. | Content hierarchy, internal linking, and technical SEO are built into the structure. |
What we're measuring next
Qualified leads and demo requests through HubSpot. Interaction with the homepage routing experience. Homepage bounce rate and session depth. Core Web Vitals and performance. Organic visibility and branded search. How often BEI content appears in AI-generated search experiences.
We publish numbers when they are real, never before. The site launched without pretending that a redesign automatically equals business growth. Until the data accumulates, this page stays focused on what actually shipped and what is being measured.
In production · exitplanning.com membership page
A foundation BEI can keep building on.
PlanIt, the planning software, presented as one connected part of the membership instead of a separate product.
Chapter 12
What we learned
The homepage was the hardest part.
Not because it was visually complicated, but because it had to satisfy competing business priorities without overwhelming a first-time visitor. The answer came through iteration, not one big breakthrough.
Architecture solved more problems than visual design.
A lot of what initially looked like a design problem was really an organization problem. Once the information architecture became clearer, many of the visual decisions became much easier.
Simplicity took more work than adding features.
It is easy to add another menu item, another CTA, another section, or another plugin. The harder job is deciding what doesn't need to be there.
AI changed the workflow, not the responsibility.
Tools like Figma Make helped shorten the cycle between an idea, a prototype, feedback, and revision. They didn't replace the strategy behind the decisions. The important part was still understanding the business, the audience, and the problem we were trying to solve.
The strongest result wasn't a new visual style. It was a clearer way for people to understand how everything fits together.
BEI now has a site that explains the bigger picture before asking visitors to choose a product, guides different audiences toward more relevant paths, and gives the internal team a reusable system for continuing to grow the site.
Business Enterprise Institute · exitplanning.com · launched December 2025
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