A branding evolution and strategic website rebuild for a senior non-fiction editorial consultant
Client: Hazel Bird, The Better Edit (formerly Wordstitch Editorial)
Services: Website redesign and build, a full new visual identity, extra branded assets (social media templates, brand icons, document templates)
Team: Beth (strategy and technical), Tara (graphic design), Hannah (copywriting), Lydia (design and build), John (technical/DNS)
From Wordstitch Editorial to The Better Edit
Hazel Bird is one of the UK's most experienced non-fiction editorial consultants. Over nearly two decades, she has edited and managed hundreds of publications - from multi-author books spanning hundreds of thousands of words to complex reports for NGOs, charities, and major publishers.
Hazel's business had two distinct audiences: editorial clients (publishers, NGOs, businesses and authors seeking her non-fiction editing services) and other editors (who read her newsletter, and purchase her courses and tools to develop their own practices).
By the time she came to Pie Heart Studio, Hazel had been trading as Wordstitch Editorial for 15 years. The name had served her well, but it had also become a source of confusion - frequently misspelled, and increasingly at odds with the direction her business was taking. She had been building the "Edit Better" brand organically through her newsletter and wanted to consolidate everything under a single, cleaner identity.
Her website, meanwhile, had been through four iterations and was beginning to show the strain. Each new service or product she had launched had been bolted on rather than built in, and the site had become, in her own words, a bit of a Frankenstein. She knew it was holding her back, but she had struggled to articulate exactly how, or what to do about it.
"I had put many hours into three (four?) iterations of my website over 15 years and it was becoming a time sink. Even in today's era of block builders, I felt the quality of what I was getting out wasn't matching the effort I was putting in."
— Hazel Bird, The Better Edit
The challenge
A business that had outgrown its brand and its website
The challenges Hazel brought to the project were significant:
- The business name and domain were changing. A domain migration is one of the highest-risk operations in a website project, with real consequences for years of accumulated SEO authority if handled carelessly.
- Two very different audiences - editorial clients and other editors - needed to coexist on a single site without either feeling like an afterthought.
- The navigation structure was confusing, with service information buried under vague labels like "Working with me" and an overloaded dropdown menu that made it difficult to find anything quickly.
- Nearly 100 blog posts needed migrating cleanly to the new site without losing formatting, structure, or SEO metadata.
- The existing branding felt outdated and was no longer representative of the calibre of Hazel's work, but she wanted continuity, not a complete break from her past identity.
Our approach
Strategy first, then everything else
Projects of this size succeed or fail based on how well the groundwork is laid before a single page is designed or a single line of copy is written. Our starting point was a detailed strategy session with Hazel, during which we worked through her two audiences, their different entry points and motivations, the page structure and URL hierarchy, keyword research, and the overall goals of the new site.
What emerged was a clear organising principle: the site needed to lead with Hazel's editorial services (the primary revenue generator) while giving the editor-facing side room to grow, with a navigation structure that made the distinction legible at a glance.
We also established a solid SEO foundation - researching how each audience actually searches, structuring the site architecture accordingly, and making sure Hazel's considerable body of existing blog content was working as hard as possible alongside the newly optimised key pages.
From there, the project moved through three coordinated workstreams: visual identity, website copywriting, and the rebuild of the website itself.
The rebrand
Continuity and a fresh start, at the same time
One of the most important constraints Hazel brought to the project was that she didn't want to feel like she was starting from scratch. Fifteen years of work and reputation sat behind the Wordstitch name. The rebrand needed to mark a clear evolution, not an erasure.
Tara (Pie Heart Studio's graphic designer) developed a completely new visual identity, taking direction from Hazel on what she wanted to carry forward - including her affection for a bird motif, which had featured in her original branding - and building a fresh, confident visual language around it, including a new colour palette and typography pairings.
The old Wordstitch logo featured an ornate script wordmark on a purple background. The new identity kept the purple (it was already closely associated with Hazel in her professional community) and retained the bird, which reappears as a mascot sub-mark.
But the aesthetic was brought into the present: cleaner, more professional, and better suited to the kind of senior, strategic positioning Hazel was aiming for.
As well as developing bespoke brand icons for use across the website and in branded graphics going forward, Tara also designed social media and document templates for Hazel.
"Tara was great at listening to what I wanted and adapting as we went along. She also did a brilliant job of keeping elements of my previous branding so there would be continuity, but giving me a whole new identity at the same time."
— Hazel Bird, The Better Edit
The new website
A site that finally reflects the work
The new website is built around a clear information architecture that was absent from the old site. The navigation now separates editorial services from editor-facing resources at the top level, so each visitor type can immediately see what's there for them.
Individual service pages each have their own dedicated space, structured around how Hazel's different audiences search and make decisions. The homepage leads with editorial clients in mind, while a dedicated "Support for Editors" section introduces the newsletter, tools, and training courses to the parallel audience.
Hannah (Pie Heart Studio's website copywriter) worked closely with Hazel to write all the key pages from scratch. Rather than defaulting to generic service descriptions, Hannah interviewed Hazel in depth to capture the nuance of what she does and translated that into copy that speaks clearly to clients without alienating the editor audience who also read the site.
"Hannah asked perceptive questions and found great ways of expressing what I can offer my clients — but without being salesy, which was important to me."
— Hazel Bird, The Better Edit
Lydia (Pie Heart Studio's web designer), created beautiful designs for the new website's main pages, using the new website copy and the new visual identity.
The build also involved migrating nearly 100 blog posts cleanly to the new domain, restructuring each for proper heading hierarchy and making sure Hazel's existing content would continue to perform well in search. Hazel was given clear documentation and a video walkthroughs so she could manage and add to the blog independently going forward.
Launch and results
A managed launch, a predicted dip, and a steady recovery
The site launched in late November 2025. Within weeks, the new domain was ranking on the first page of Google for its primary editorial services keyphrase - a strong result for a brand new domain with no existing authority.
"I've had a good number of inquiries for my editorial services this month - higher than January last year and higher than my average per month last year. Even if they're not coming via Google directly, I'm sure the rebrand and the new website is helping."
— Hazel Bird, February 2026
One outcome worth addressing directly is the traffic chart. Domain migrations (even carefully handled ones) almost always cause a temporary dip in organic traffic, as Google re-indexes the new domain and processes redirects. We were transparent with Hazel about this before the project began, and planned for it accordingly.
The dip visible in late December and January is a normal part of any domain migration. What the chart also shows is the recovery already underway by February 2026, just six weeks after launch. Because the migration was handled carefully - with full redirects from every old URL to its new equivalent, a clean URL hierarchy, and properly structured on-page SEO - that recovery is on track to reach pre-migration levels and surpass them within a few months.
Results at a glance:
- Ranking on page one for the primary editorial services keyphrase within weeks of launch on a brand new domain
- Higher-than-average enquiry volume in January 2026, the first full month after launch
- Nearly 100 blog posts migrated cleanly
- Full domain migration executed with zero downtime
- Traffic recovery already underway by February 2026, six weeks post-launch
- Hazel is fully trained and able to manage blog content independently
In Hazel's own words
"Beth is a true strategist. She follows up on EVERYTHING; she encourages every decision to be made with an eye to the bigger picture and potential future developments; she knows when to listen and when to challenge; she sends regular updates; and she seamlessly coordinates the branding, design and copy. She expertly balances rigour with grace, and I couldn't be happier with the service she and her team have provided."
— Hazel Bird, The Better Edit
Could this be you?
Who this kind of project is for
This project is a good example of the kind of work we do best: an established, founder-led business with a complicated website history, multiple audiences to balance, and a real need for strategic thinking rather than just a visual refresh.
If any of the following sounds familiar, we should probably talk:
- Your website has been through multiple DIY iterations and has become hard to maintain or explain
- You're serving multiple types of client from one website and struggling to serve them all well
- You know your current brand no longer reflects the quality or positioning of your work
- You want a team that will handle everything - strategy, design, copy, build and launch - without you having to project-manage multiple freelancers yourself
- You're considering a domain or business name change and want it handled properly
Take a look at our brand and website design options to get started.