AgriHQ/Farmers Weekly

AgriHQ is New Zealand’s most innovative agrimedia company, delivering trusted content, market insights, and reports across a range of digital platforms.

One of their flagship brands is Farmers Weekly - the country’s most respected and widely read source of agricultural news and information. Delivered to farm gates every week, it’s the first choice for farmers seeking news, analysis, market updates, opinion, and advertising opportunities in livestock, real estate, and more.

As AgriHQ puts it:

We see AgriHQ as the home of New Zealand’s largest agricultural community. Every day, we are working to co-create the future of New Zealand agriculture with the people and businesses who drive it.

AgriHQ partnered with Sensemap, Australasia’s leading organisational linguists, and engaged Cerebrum to redevelop the Farmers Weekly website.

The existing Content Management System (CMS) was limiting their ability to grow and wasn’t meeting user needs. Engagement had declined, and the site needed a stronger foundation for both today and the future.

The project required:

• Migrating 32,000+ tagged and categorised articles
• Enabling advertising from external vendors
• Supporting existing third-party integrations
• Refreshing the site’s user experience, design, and navigation
• Establishing stable, scalable hosting (supporting 60,000–70,000 pageviews/month)
• Creating a framework for future functionality and growth
• Providing ongoing support and maintenance

With a six-week delivery window, collaboration was key. We worked closely with Sensemap and AgriHQ, aligning technical development with the strategic and user-focused research already completed.

We recommended WordPress as the new CMS - a flexible, future-proof platform that could meet immediate needs and scale over time.

Our work included:

• Redesigning the information architecture, look and feel, and user journey
• Configuring WordPress with tailored themes and plugins
• Migrating 32,000+ articles via a custom import script
• Creating and refining content for pages and posts
• Delivering enterprise-level, secure WordPress hosting
• Providing editor training for the AgriHQ team
• Conducting accessibility, SEO, and functional audits
• Managing end-to-end testing and refinement for launch
• Offering ongoing consultancy and support

• A fully redeveloped website with a robust, self-managed CMS
• Fresh design, improved navigation, and an engaging user experience
• Reliable, scalable hosting to support growing audiences
• Stronger integration of content and advertising opportunities
• Ongoing support to ensure long-term performance and adaptability