SANRAL

Corporate website redesign for South Africa’s national roads agency — delivering a 127% increase in organic traffic and a 52.5% reduction in bounce rate.

Project Snapshot

Client	South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL)
Industry	Government · Roads
Geography	South Africa
Engagement	Website Design and Development · UX · SEO
Duration	Project-based
Year	2020
Partner	Delivered in collaboration with Nerdware (Pty) Ltd

The challenge

A site that was failing its users.

SANRAL’s existing corporate website was underperforming across every measurable dimension. The site had not kept pace with how South Africans were accessing the web, and the impact was visible in the data.

Website was not mobile-friendly despite mobile accounting for 69% of all device traffic in 2019
Navigation was unusable on smaller screens, causing visitors to abandon the site immediately
Bounce rate averaged 86.7%, indicating visitors were leaving almost immediately after arrival
Organic search traffic was low, limiting discoverability for road users, contractors, and job seekers
High-traffic sections including tenders, press releases, and publications were difficult to navigate

The insight

The data told us everything

Before designing a single screen, we went into the analytics. What we found shaped every decision that followed.

69%

Mobile device traffic in 2019

28%

Desktop device traffic

Tenders — busiest section

86.7%

Average bounce rate

The data told a clear story: SANRAL's most important users were coming from mobile, and the most critical content they needed was in the tenders and publications sections. The redesign had to be mobile-first, and the navigation architecture had to make those sections immediately accessible.

The solution

Built for the people who needed it most.

We designed and developed a new corporate website with precision and consumer consideration at the centre of every decision. The approach was structured across five key areas.

01 Page Speed and Performance

The landing page was designed to be lean and fast. Images and digital components were optimised throughout to ensure acceptable load times on mobile connections, which remained the dominant device type.

02 Design and Visual Identity

A clean layout drew attention to key features while maintaining clear hierarchy. The SANRAL corporate identity was respected throughout. A clear hero banner replaced flat imagery to enable proper mobile resizing without image compression issues.

03 Section Redesigns

The Careers Portal was rebuilt for immediate search and application. Publications received updated reader technology with online viewing and download per device type. A grid-format Gallery with category filter tabs gave visitors refined image browsing without page reloads.

04 Navigation Architecture

A tiered, intent-driven navigation system replaced the flat mega-menu. Tiers expand on hover, each scrollable independently. The mobile menu slides through tiers with breadcrumbs indicating position. Quick links, search, and customer support were consolidated in the header to keep mobile views uncluttered.

05 Social Sharing

Modern, easy-to-understand social sharing was incorporated across all content pages, enabling users to share to multiple platforms without disrupting their browsing flow.

The results

Numbers that speak for themselves.

+127%

Organic traffic growth

345,803 users to 786,452 users

52.5%

Decrease in bounce rate

From 86.7% down to 34.2%

+32%

Mobile device users

Month on month growth

+1:36

Average session duration

Per user increase

+40%

Tender downloads

The most critical section for contractors and procurement teams

Services delivered

Website Redesign UX Research Information Architecture Mobile-First Design Website Development Navigation System Design Performance Optimisation SEO Content Architecture SaaS Advisory Chatbot implementation Analytics Review

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