For anyone who wants to keep up with Flemish SMEs, Made in is the place to be. It publishes daily regional business news from seven Flemish provinces, keeping entrepreneurs informed about what matters most. To make their sharp journalism more widely available while keeping it personal, we built a scalable multi-regional WordPress platform that respects local identity and delivers a unified, personalised experience for readers and journalists alike.
Multi-regional content architecture preserving local identity
Personalised reading experience with progressive profiling
80,000+ articles migrated with SEO-safe redirects
Selligent integration for automated newsletters
User-friendly WordPress backend for journalists
The challenge
How do you consolidate seven regional news databases into one platform without losing what makes each region unique?
The solution
A single scalable WordPress platform with personalised content, regional filtering and smart integrations that puts readers in control of their news experience.
Made in x iO: building Flanders' leading regional business news platform
Made in is the go-to source for Flemish SME news, publishing daily business stories from seven regions: Antwerp, Kempen, Limburg, Mechelen, East Flanders, West Flanders and Flemish Brabant. For entrepreneurs who want to stay informed about their region, Made in is the place to be.
We partnered with Made in to transform their digital presence from scattered regional sites into a unified platform built for growth. This collaboration brought together content strategy, information architecture and WordPress development in a solution that scales with their ambitions.
Everything on one platform
To meet Made in's needs, we set a clear goal: a platform with overarching content where users can set their own preferences. This way, we aimed to make the new WordPress website both clear and personal, positioning Made in as the reference point for regional news about Flemish SMEs.
For the journalists behind Made in, we prioritised ease of use and worked with specific tools to support their new business models. They now operate under a single user account and steadily collect consumer data. With this information, we enable them to serve users personalised content and relevant on-site advertising.
Multi-regional information architecture
During the conceptual development, we kept several key principles in mind: move away from separate websites, position Made in as the reference point for regional business news, and foster connection between readers and content.
On the new website, users don't have to limit themselves to a single region. They choose their own region and get a personalised reading experience as a result. This allows Made in to bundle all news articles on one scalable multi-regional WordPress platform, while respecting each region's character.
Overarching content with a global guide
To bring all that content together, we created a guide at "global" level that unlocks everything: news articles, company pages, people and municipalities.
With this guide, visitors can open an organisation's company page, get an overview of all published news articles, and follow different companies to stay up to date with the latest news about their favourite SMEs.
The new site structure encourages visitors to read on: from an article, they can easily navigate to a sector, company, person or municipality mentioned in the piece. Or they click through to recommended articles with related content. Finally, we added a global search option to make the entire archive instantly accessible.
Progressive profiling: data, audience insight and tailored news
To make the reading experience as personal as possible, users can indicate their interests by following topics, regions or companies. These preferences are saved in their "My Made in" profile.
By investing in data collection and progressive profiling, Made in continuously learns what readers care about, enabling ever more relevant content suggestions.
Easy reading, easy working
The result is a successful WordPress website: one platform where all regional news articles are bundled, yet every reader still gets their own local overview.
Journalists benefit from the switch to WordPress too. The system is user-friendly, has a pleasant design, and makes it simple to add extra metadata and categories.
On top of that, we worked with Selligent to send automated newsletters with content pulled directly from the website. Ads & Data integration ensures relevant on-site advertising.
Ready for growth
Finally, we kept Made in's growth in mind. When migrating all news articles, we set up correct redirects from the old URLs (including domain names) to the new unified URL structure. This brings all legacy content under one domain and supports the growth of organic traffic.
The numbers
1
Website consolidating seven regional databases
1+
Newsletter subscribers
1+
Articles migrated with SEO-safe redirects
1
Average unique visitors per month
1
Monthly pageviews
Seven regions, one scalable foundation
The new platform does more than consolidate: it positions Made in as the go-to source for Flemish SME news. Readers get a personalised, region-aware experience that adapts to their interests. Journalists benefit from a streamlined workflow and a single user-friendly backend. And with all content now under one domain with correct redirects in place, organic traffic has room to grow.
Made in now has the digital infrastructure to match its ambitions: a scalable multi-regional WordPress platform that connects entrepreneurs across Flanders while preserving the local flavour that makes regional news valuable.
