queonext Revamps AOK-Community Portal, Preserving Local Identity
Leveraging TYPO3 to tackle a technical implementation and create a highly scalable platform fitting for the AOK-community
AOK Bundesverband GbR (AOK) insures over 27 million people and has been serving Germany for more than 140 years—establishing itself as the nation’s longest-standing long-term care insurance fund. In order to continue serving the AOK community efficiently, an overhaul and upgrade was necessary for the portal while maintaining the identity of the 11 regional AOK’s.
In the fall of 2021, queonext was tasked with the technical project implementation of the private customer portal for AOK.
At the time, the existing portal had seen growth, driven in part by overlapping requirements and content sourced from regional health insurance funds. A major pain point was the lack of usability, compounded by evolved content structures that often failed to meet users' needs. Duplicate content, numerous special cases, and edge cases further contributed to the poor performance of the overall web application.
queonext embraced the challenge of advancing the technical framework for the private customer portal. This process spanned nearly a year, including 4-5 collaborative workshops with AOK to ensure a unified approach that aligned with their vision for a comprehensive relaunch.
Setting Clear Goals to Improve Both Central and Regional User Experiences
The partnership with AOK was established alongside clear, defined goals. The primary goals included:
- Increasing search engine visibility
- Restructuring the interface to reflect a user-first approach
- Positioning AOK as a market leader
- Increasing performance significantly
- Streamlining technical infrastructure
In addition to these core goals, AOK also hoped to serve regional needs through tailored touchpoints for individual, regional health insurance funds. Achieving this goal would require enhancing the community content offerings. With the user experience top of mind, AOK wanted to optimize this through ongoing testing, improvements and implementations.
The question became: how can queonext bundle all AOK community needs into a single platform that delivers SEO reach, high performance, and while maintaining essential individuality?
What Comes Next? Custom TYPO3 Solutions
queonext chose TYPO3 as the CMS for this project due to its customizable solutions. AOK had been using TYPO3 since 2014 so these solutions would be enhancements rather than starting from scratch. With over 16 billion lifetime visits, any technical implementation would need to be fast, scalable, and reliable. In order to deliver on all the client needs, queonext sourced their custom-made TYPO3 solutions for each need to address infrastructure, address and localization.
Next level infrastructure - scalable and mega-fast!
queonext created a customized content interface to output content independently. The editorial team operates and benefits from TYPO3 standards, however, the content delivery comes from a React frontend. The process includes a pre-rendering of the content using the Static Site Generator Gatsby. In order to supply the portal with data, a microservice architecture with 12 central services is utilized which ignites the turbo function. With performance top of mind for both mobile and desktop, the grandiose platform performs seamlessly with a resistance to failures due to the content storage on static servers.
One address - a domain concept that unifies!
With the goal of maintaining a single, top-level domain, the integration of portals is made possible through a sophisticated system architecture. The systems are well protected against potential security threats because they’re only accessible via a proxy for an extra layer of protection. All connected portals benefit from the main domain’s link juice, while simultaneously benefiting the search engines. At the top, management is handled via user interface through a microservice.
Modern localization - together yet regional
Providing regional content with pre-localization provides users with clarity and SEO visibility at a regional level. The number of URLs was reduced tenfold by integrating community content with region-specific material. Finally, connecting with the AOK community online magazine drives increased traffic and enhances relevant visibility.
AOK’s Impactful and Sustainable Platform
By June 2022, the new AOK community portal was live. The refreshed community hub stands as an example for the intricacies TYPO3 is capable of handling, particularly as it relates to speed and housing multiple entities under one roof. Measurable results are the hallmark of any successful project and the AOK portal was no exception. By focusing efforts on performance,scalability and user experience, the queonext team delivered. Their work not only modernized the portal but also established a robust framework for the AOK community’s future.
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Finding the right CMS for your needs is only one part of the puzzle. Finding the right agency and team to turn your organization’s vision into reality is the key to delivering measurable impact with long-term success. queonext, both an advertising and technology company, places the customer journey at the core of their work.