Case Study: Blue Nose

From legacy to headless with Sanity, Next.js, and Netlify

Summary

Client: Blue Nose

Visit their site

Turku-based Blue Nose is a cruise company that takes passengers all around the Turku archipelago and the surrounding islands.

  • Scope and challenges

    • Migrate Blue Nose's legacy site to a modern tech stack (Sanity, Next.js, and Netlify)
    • Improve content management and site performance.
    • Build a friendly, converting landing page

  • Solutions and results

    • Implemented a modernized, multi-user headless content management with Sanity CMS
    • Built a next-gen frontend using Next.js
    • 20% increased conversion rates
    • Got 3x faster page load times compared to the previous website

A marketing website for a cruise line

Together with Blue Nose, we built an optimized Next.js website with carefully crafted user journeys from page landing to cruise reservation. Simple but effective.

Migration to headless architecture with Sanity, Next.js, and Netlify

We built a new marketing website to optimize reserving cruises and increase brand awareness. The site is built with Next.js and hosted on Netlify. Before moving to Jamstack, Blue Nose's site was hosted on a legacy CMS that was being deprecated and didn't even support mobile browsers! After migrating to Next.js Blue Nose's site is optimized and ready to sail to the next-gen waters.

We created a next-gen
for a Finnish pleasure cruise line

  • Modern

    technology stack

    Blue Nose went from a legacy technology stack with a CMS that didn't support mobile devices to a modern stack using headless technology, cutting-edge frontend frameworks and a CDN and deployment platform that serves blazing-fast content. 

  • Optimized

    for Google Page Experience and Core Web Vitals

    The site has been optimized for Google Core Web Vitals (LCP, DIF, CLS) when not loading third party scripts

  • Reliable

    Content operations

    Before migrating to Jamstack, Blue Nose's site was running on a poorly configured legacy CMS. Each time content was updated, there was a risk something would break. With Sanity CMS the site is more reliable than before and content managers can update the site without the fear of breaking it.

  • Converting

    landing pages

    Thanks to Sanity CMS and Next.js, blazing-fast speeds and ease of use, Blue Nose's landing pages convert better, which results in more people visiting the website and booking cruise trips.

Next-generation tech stack
for a marketing website

Orchestrating a migration project from a legacy CMS to a headless tech stack requires careful planning and execution. Here's how we did it: 

  • 1. Model content in Sanity

    The first step in the migration process was to model content in Sanity based on the previous site structure. We did this by going through all the pages and recreating them as modular content models in Sanity.

  • 2. Content migration

    After modeling the content on Sanity CMS, the second step was to export all data such as pages, images, and other assets from their legacy platform and import them to Sanity. Thanks to Sanity's flexibility, it was easy to get the old content, transform it to match the new content models, and import it into the new headless CMS.

  • 3. Frontend development

    Now that all data was modeled and migrated to Sanity, it was convenient to start working on the frontend software code with Next.js. The cool thing about the Next.js + Sanity combination is that it provides an excellent architecture for creating modular, highly customizable, efficient page layouts.

  • 4. QA and publication

    The final step involved extensive quality assurance, ensuring all pages contained correct data from SEO tags to H tag ordering. After extensive QA, the site was published on Netlify.

What our clients say

Ben Arent

Director of DevRel

The Ikius team quickly became an extension of the Teleport Team, and completed two key site launches in record time. They continue to build systems and tools that scale and are force multiplies for our marketing efforts.

Anttoni Aniebonam

Co-Founder, CEO - Veri

We worked with Ikius' development team for our Next.js website development. We had previously worked with freelancers for web development, but chose to work with an agency such as Ikius to ensure code quality matches our expectations. Ikius did not disappoint and we can only recommed Ikius as tech partner for Next.js development.

Shubham Khenat

Partnerships

“We are excited to partner with Ikius, increasing our presence in the Nordics and bringing more implementation power to that part of the world. We will tackle new projects together that look for innovative solutions that hinge on flexible, composable architectures.”

Brad Bates

Varcroft & Bianco

Ikius has helped tremendously with the development of the Drawer Insert Designer. Max and Aatu have great knowledge regarding what technology to use and how to implement it. They worked seamlessly with other members of the team and everything was completed in a timely professional manner. We have already started working with them on our next project.

Antti Valtola

Blue Nose cruises

My company’s website was in need of renewal in late 2020. I received offers from multiple companies but in the end I ended up making an agreement with Ikius.

Olga Voigt

Agility CMS | Marketing

Ikius team is professional, knowledgeable, and extremely helpful. They are on top of web development trends, they understand the demands of modern digital solutions and deliver. It is always a pleasure to work with Ikius, and I can not recommend them enough to all seeking for modern digital implementation

Aaron Hazan

Director at Hotel Radio Ltd.

The team at Ikius have not only proved an invaluable resource for both guiding us through the process of the build for our site and advising on best practice for user experience, but have seen to it that every aspect of our commerce website is honed to perfection and able to execute on any deliverable required, no matter the complexity.

Ilkka Lehto

CEO at Brightway Careers

I'm very happy how our new company site turned out. The site's performance is absolutely impressive, thank you team Ikius 👍

Alex Stoykov

CEO at Olifant Digital

Working with Ikius for our Jamstack website was a flawless experience. The development team is super fast and reliable. The speed of our new website is unbeliavable. I highly recommend Ikius as a serious development partner for web development projects involving Jamstack.

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