U:L Website RFP

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Scope of Work - Overview ​

This section addresses how we will deliver the platform capabilities described in Section 7 of the RFP.

The new platform unlocks capabilities that the current CMS cannot support: structured content relationships, marketplace functionality, membership, and the data foundations for personalisation. These aren't incremental improvements — they enable Urban List's shift from publisher to platform.

We have a working Craft CMS installation ready to demonstrate. It includes migrated Urban List content, the proposed data model, and functional search. This validates our approach and provides a practical starting point for the build.

Editorial & Content Framework ​

The editorial framework is built around a structured article model combined with reusable content blocks. Rather than relying on rigid templates, articles share a common structural model that allows editors to assemble rich layouts using predefined blocks while maintaining consistency across the site.

Editorial formats such as news, features, evergreen content and guides are implemented as content styles within a shared article model rather than separate templates. This approach allows the editorial team to work within a consistent system while still producing a wide range of article formats.

Article authoring ​

Articles are authored using a structured block-based editor. This provides flexibility while ensuring content remains compatible with the structured data model used across the platform.

Editors will have access to different content styles, including:

Standard articles

The default editorial format combining rich text with media and embedded content blocks. This format combined with rich content blocks enables listable and shoppable formats with affiliate integrations.

Art-directed articles

A more flexible layout mode that enables additional visual control such as page header variations, container sections, grid layouts, stacked columns and carousel components. These layouts still operate within the design system to ensure brand consistency and efficient production. These are ideal for mini-sites and partner advertorial articles where there is more flexibility with commercial ad placements and design.

Ceros-style articles

Interactive or highly customised editorial experiences. The art-directed article framework is designed to provide Ceros-equivalent capability within the CMS, enabling rich visual storytelling without external tools.

Meeting this requirement fully will depend on requirements definition during discovery. Newism recommends building advanced layout blocks that follow brand design system guidelines, ensuring visually rich experiences remain maintainable and consistent with the broader platform. This approach balances editorial flexibility with long-term sustainability.

Commercial and partner content ​

Commercial campaigns and partner relationships are managed through structured campaign entries within the CMS. Editorial content can be associated with these campaigns, allowing advertising categories and campaign data to flow automatically into Google Ad Manager placements and the analytics data layer used by Google Tag Manager.

This approach enables sponsored editorial, commercial placements and campaign reporting to be managed through the same structured system used for content.

Campaign pages and mini-sites ​

Campaign content such as branded editorial experiences or seasonal promotions can be implemented as rich article-style landing pages with custom URLs. These pages use the same block-based editorial system while allowing additional design flexibility where required.

This approach replaces external tools such as Ceros with CMS-managed campaign experiences that remain fully integrated with the site's content model and analytics.

Jobs and vacancy listings ​

The RFP configuration section briefly references a Jobs directory. While not a primary focus of the platform, Craft CMS fully supports this type of user-submitted listing directory.

The platform can accept externally submitted job listings through frontend forms, with moderation workflows routing submissions through editorial review before publication. Listings can include structured fields for role details, location, application links and expiry dates.

Newism has implemented similar functionality for Hunter, New England and Central Coast PHN (thephn.com.au), where external users submit job vacancies and property listings for review and publication. This demonstrates Craft CMS's flexibility to support additional directory types beyond the core venue and event listings.

Urban List previously partnered with Freelance Gems for job listings (October 2022, Jira: ULMS-1146). Newism implemented the integration, pulling content from the Freelance Gems API into Urban List templates. A first-party solution within Craft CMS would provide greater control over the listing experience and data model.

Component-based page builder with reusable modules ​

Editorial layouts are assembled from a library of reusable blocks that allow editors to mix content types while keeping the underlying structure consistent.

Current block categories include:

Text and media

  • Rich text content
  • Images
  • Image galleries
  • YouTube video embeds
  • Spotify playlists
  • Podcast players
  • Other media embeds

Special editorial blocks

  • Listicle entries
  • Memorable moment callouts
  • Insiders subscription prompts
  • Urban List recommends prompts
  • Forms
  • Shoppable product embeds

Related content blocks

  • Business listings
  • Articles
  • Events
  • Competitions
  • Generic related entries

Layout blocks

  • Container components supporting backgrounds, columns, grid stacks and structured layouts

Monetisation blocks

  • Dedicated ad placeholders for advertising placements within editorial layouts

Legacy embeds

  • Existing integrations such as Typeform widgets where required during transition

Because these blocks reference structured entities within the CMS, related content such as venues, events or products is embedded dynamically rather than duplicated within articles.

Built-in SEO fields and schema support ​

Craft CMS supports SEO metadata management through first-party custom fields, enhanced by plugins. For this project, SEO metadata will be managed through SEOmatic, a comprehensive SEO plugin used by organisations including Moz and Craft CMS itself.

This provides:

  • page-level meta titles and descriptions
  • Open Graph and Twitter Card tags
  • automated structured data (Article, Event, LocalBusiness, Product schemas)
  • XML sitemap generation
  • canonical URL management

SEOmatic supports both global defaults and per-entry overrides, giving editors control over SEO while maintaining consistency across the platform.

Further information

Versioning, approvals, scheduling, preview environments ​

Editorial workflow is managed through Craft CMS's draft and revision system. Content can be authored as drafts, reviewed by designated editorial groups and scheduled for publication.

Craft CMS includes live preview, allowing editors to see changes in real-time alongside the content editing screen. Preview can be toggled between desktop, tablet and mobile views. Preview URLs can also be shared with third parties such as commercial partners using time-limited tokens, enabling external review without requiring CMS access.

The CMS also supports integration with external editorial workflows such as Notion, allowing selected content to be synchronised or staged through existing planning tools where appropriate. For more complex approval workflows, Craft CMS supports multi-stage review and approval processes through the Workflow plugin.

Further information

Multi-market publishing ​

Urban List operates across more than twenty markets. Each piece of content can therefore be associated with a canonical location and an optional set of additional locations where the content should appear.

The canonical location is used for SEO and primary indexing, while the additional locations allow editorial content to surface in multiple city feeds where relevant.

Translation ​

Craft CMS natively supports multilingual publishing, including site-level language variants and per-entry translations. The platform is fully capable of supporting multiple languages when required.

Automatic translation (via AI or translation service integrations) is technically feasible but represents a significant operational undertaking. Managing translated content at scale introduces workflow complexity around editorial review, synchronisation between language versions, and ongoing maintenance.

For the initial phase of the rebuild, we recommend focusing on strengthening the editorial and discovery experience. The platform will support international characters and localisation requirements for markets such as New Zealand. Full multilingual publishing and automated translation can be introduced in a future phase once core platform capabilities are established.

Structured Content & Taxonomy ​

The platform is built around a structured content model where core entities are connected through relationships rather than duplicated within individual pages. This approach allows editorial content, listings, events and commercial content to be reused across the platform while maintaining consistency and data integrity.

Core entities ​

The platform is structured around a small number of primary content entities:

  • Articles
  • Business directory listings
  • Events
  • Competitions
  • Locations

These entities each have their own URL and landing pages and form the primary surfaces through which users discover content.

In addition to these core entities, the CMS also supports standard site pages such as About, Staff and Terms, along with internal entities used for monetisation and reporting such as campaigns and partner relationships.

Locations (Markets) ​

Locations are implemented as a first-class entity within the platform. Each location has its own landing page which aggregates relevant content including articles, listings, events and competitions.

Locations are also assigned to content entries to support filtering, aggregation and personalisation. This allows Urban List to operate a multi-market platform where content can appear across multiple cities while maintaining a canonical location for SEO.

Editorial classification ​

Editorial classification uses a layered taxonomy model. Articles and editorial content are grouped into top-level categories such as:

  • Things To Do
  • Food & Drink
  • Travel

These categories provide high-level editorial organisation and navigation.

Directory listings and other content types use additional custom taxonomies to support filtering and search. The specific taxonomy structure, including category hierarchies, tags and attributes, will be defined during discovery based on Urban List's content model and filtering requirements.

Relationship mapping across all listing types ​

The core strength of the platform’s content model is its relationship system. Entries can reference other entities directly, allowing content to connect naturally across the platform.

For example:

  • Articles can reference businesses, events, competitions and products.
  • Businesses can reference events associated with a venue.
  • Events can reference locations and associated venues.
  • Competitions can reference partners and campaigns.

Because these relationships are stored within the CMS, the same entity can appear consistently across articles, directories, search results and discovery experiences.

Embedded directory content ​

Directory listings and other entities can be embedded directly within editorial content through relationship blocks.

Editors can select a specific business, event or other entity and the CMS will render the corresponding listing card automatically. In some cases, blocks may also support dynamic relationships based on categories or tags to surface relevant listings automatically.

Content reuse (Snippets) ​

The platform is designed to maximise content reuse.

All major content types are defined as independent entities so they can be referenced across multiple contexts including editorial pages, directories, search results and curated guides.

In addition to entity relationships, the CMS supports reusable content snippets. Snippets are structured entries composed of content blocks that can be embedded within other pages. This allows commonly used content modules, calls-to-action or editorial components to be reused across multiple pages while remaining centrally managed.

Directories & Marketplace ​

Directories and listings are implemented as structured content entities within the CMS. This allows businesses, events and products to appear consistently across directories, search results and editorial content while maintaining a single source of truth for each entity.

Business listings ​

Business listings are implemented as a single structured entry type representing the core directory model.

Craft CMS supports conditional fields, which allows the listing custom fields to adapt based on the business type. For example:

  • an eatery listing may expose cuisine, menu and booking link fields
  • a hotel listing may expose star rating, room types and booking integration fields
  • an Airbnb-style accommodation listing may expose property type, amenities and external booking links
  • other business types can introduce additional attributes as required

This unified approach means Hotels, Airbnbs and other accommodation types referenced in the RFP are handled within the same business listing model, with conditional fields exposing relevant attributes based on the listing category.

Listing submission and claims ​

Businesses can submit new listings or request ownership of existing listings through frontend forms.

Submission workflows route new listings through a review process before publication. This may include integration with workflow tools such as Notion for editorial review and content enrichment before a listing goes live.

Once a listing is claimed or verified, business owners can access limited self-service editing through a frontend dashboard.

The platform supports tiered listing visibility:

  • base listings (editor-curated or submitted)
  • claimed listings with verified ownership
  • premium listings with enhanced visibility and placement

Commercial relationships and visibility upgrades can be managed through Urban List's existing operational systems or integrated with CRM platforms where required.

Event listings ​

Events are implemented as a separate structured entry type that can be associated with businesses and locations.

Event entries contain essential information such as date, location and event description, while ticketing and booking functionality links to third-party platforms such as Eventbrite or partner websites.

Events automatically expire after their end date, ensuring directories remain current without manual intervention. Expired events can be archived for historical reference or removed based on editorial policy.

Events can be embedded within editorial articles and discovery experiences, ensuring that event content remains connected to editorial storytelling and venue listings.

Product listings ​

Products are implemented as individual structured entries that can be embedded within editorial content such as curated shopping guides and listicles.

These entries support affiliate links and shoppable embeds within articles. While the primary use case is editorial product features, the structured model also enables the future creation of dedicated product directories if Urban List chooses to expand in that direction.

Map-driven experiences ​

The platform also supports map-based discovery experiences. Listings can be surfaced on interactive maps, enabling users to explore venues and events geographically.

Maps can appear within dedicated discovery views or embedded within editorial pages, allowing content such as restaurant guides or neighbourhood features to include location-aware browsing experiences.

Faceted search and filtering ​

Search and filtering across listings, events and editorial content is powered by Meilisearch, a dedicated search engine integrated with the CMS.

This enables:

  • fast full-text search across multiple content types
  • faceted filtering by category, location and other attributes
  • geo-aware search and location-based discovery
  • promotion of sponsored or featured listings within results

Search can operate across articles, business listings, events, products and locations, allowing users to discover content through multiple entry points.

Search demonstration

Newism has prepared a working demonstration of the proposed search architecture, showcasing faceted filtering, geo-aware discovery and cross-content search across listings and editorial content.

This demonstration reflects the search architecture proposed for the Urban List platform and can be reviewed alongside this proposal.

Further information

The platform supports the promotion of listings within search results and discovery experiences.

Promoted listings can appear higher within search pagination or be surfaced in curated placements across the platform. Sponsored listings can also be associated with editorial content or campaign placements.

This approach allows Urban List to introduce commercial visibility upgrades while maintaining a strong editorial experience.

Bite Club is Urban List's premium tier for venue partners. Bite Club members can enhance their business profile, list events, and access promotional placements that increase visibility across the platform.

User reviews and ratings ​

Craft CMS supports user-generated content including reviews and ratings on listings. This allows members to leave feedback on venues and experiences they have visited.

The specific review implementation, including moderation workflows and display rules, will be defined during discovery based on Urban List's editorial and commercial requirements.

Membership ​

Membership enables Urban List to build stronger direct relationships with its audience while supporting new commercial opportunities.

The platform supports both free and paid membership tiers, allowing Urban List to operate a freemium model such as Insiders and Insiders+. Membership can provide access to exclusive content, perks and personalised discovery experiences while enabling the collection of valuable first-party audience data.

Member accounts and profiles ​

Users can create accounts within the platform and manage their profile through a member dashboard.

Typical member features include:

  • profile and account management
  • saved favourites
  • membership tier and subscription status
  • personalised recommendations
  • access to member-only perks and offers

Member engagement features such as following other users, upvoting content or reacting to articles can also be introduced over time to encourage community participation and increase user engagement.

Saved content, favourites and reactions ​

Members can save and organise content across the platform. This may include:

  • articles
  • business listings
  • events
  • competitions
  • products (if a product directory is introduced)

Saved content can power personalised feeds, recommendations and reminder notifications.

Members can also react to content through likes, upvotes or other engagement signals. These signals can help surface popular content, personalise discovery experiences and provide feedback to the editorial team.

Membership perks ​

Membership perks are managed through the CMS and can include:

  • exclusive competitions
  • early access to events or venue openings
  • product launches and promotions
  • discount codes and partner offers

Because these perks are managed as structured content within the CMS, they can be surfaced across editorial content, newsletters and member dashboards.

Subscription management ​

Paid membership subscriptions can be implemented with a simple custom plugin and Stripe integration. For more advanced subscription management, Craft Commerce provides a built-in subscription system that supports multiple membership tiers, recurring billing and integration with external CRM and analytics platforms.

This enables:

  • recurring subscription billing
  • renewal and expiry handling
  • payment status management
  • integration with existing customer systems and analytics platforms

Further information

Integration-ready for CDP/CEP orchestration ​

Membership also supports Urban List’s broader data strategy by capturing structured user information and behavioural signals.

Member data such as location, interests, saved content and engagement activity can be integrated with Urban List’s marketing and data infrastructure, including CDP and CRM platforms.

Newism has extensive experience integrating CMS platforms with systems such as Salesforce and other customer data platforms, ensuring membership data can flow seamlessly into Urban List’s broader data ecosystem.

Future expansion ​

The membership architecture supports future enhancements such as loyalty programs, venue discounts, personalised discovery and digital wallet integration. Because membership is built directly into the CMS, Urban List retains full control of its audience relationships while maintaining flexibility to evolve the program over time.

Commerce Capability ​

The platform supports commerce capabilities through Craft Commerce, an official product developed by the same team as Craft CMS. Because both products are developed together, the commerce layer integrates seamlessly with the CMS.

Craft Commerce provides:

  • product management with unlimited products and variants
  • custom checkout flows
  • payment gateway integration (Stripe, PayPal, Mollie)
  • subscription billing for memberships
  • coupon and promotional code management
  • order history and customer dashboards
  • multi-currency support

For Urban List, the most immediate commerce use cases include membership subscriptions and affiliate product linking within editorial content. Products can be implemented as structured entries that support affiliate links and shoppable embeds within articles.

For events and ticketing, we recommend integrating with external ticketing platforms such as Eventbrite or venue-operated systems for booking, capacity management and payments. However, the Craft CMS ecosystem also supports event ticketing through plugins such as Events by Verbb if required.

Order data and conversion events flow into the analytics data layer, supporting reporting through Urban List's existing analytics infrastructure.

Further information

Commercial & Advertising Integration ​

Commercial delivery is an important part of the Urban List platform and is closely integrated with editorial content and discovery experiences.

The CMS plays a key role in supporting this by managing the structured data used for advertising, sponsorship and campaign reporting. Content entries can be tagged for advertising categories and targeting signals, enabling Google Ad Manager and other ad platforms to deliver relevant placements.

Advertising placements ​

Advertising placements are primarily defined at the template level, ensuring consistent ad slot governance across the platform. This allows Urban List to maintain standard placements such as in-article ads, display units and video placements.

In addition, editors can control monetisation directly within the CMS through:

  • ad placement blocks that allow specific positions within editorial content
  • overrides to disable monetisation on specific articles or campaigns
  • dynamic placement rules that automatically insert advertising at predefined intervals

This combination ensures commercial placements remain flexible without disrupting the editorial experience.

Campaign and partner management ​

Commercial campaigns are managed through a structured Partner → Campaign model within the CMS.

Campaigns act as the central reference point for commercial activity and can be associated with:

  • articles
  • business listings
  • events
  • competitions

Because campaigns are structured entities, they can drive advertising targeting, analytics tagging, sponsorship attribution and reporting. This ensures commercial relationships are managed consistently across the platform while giving editors the flexibility to embed sponsored content within editorial workflows.

Campaign data can also be synchronised with external tools such as Notion where required to support internal campaign planning and coordination.

Affiliate and sponsored content ​

The platform supports affiliate partnerships and sponsored listings. Affiliate links can be embedded directly within editorial content or associated with product entries and curated shopping guides. Integration with affiliate platforms such as Linkby can be maintained through the existing implementation or updated as required.

Sponsored listings and promoted placements can be controlled through campaign relationships, providing a single source of truth for commercial visibility upgrades across directories and search results.

Video monetisation ​

Video content and pre-roll advertising can continue to operate through template-level placements and the existing video infrastructure, including Dailymotion integration.

Analytics and reporting ​

Commercial performance reporting will continue to operate primarily through Urban List’s existing analytics ecosystem, including Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager and custom Looker dashboards.

The CMS supports this through structured tagging, data-layer integration and exportable data that can feed downstream reporting and analytics systems.

Newism has extensive experience working with Urban List’s existing advertising and analytics infrastructure, ensuring that commercial integrations continue to operate smoothly as the platform evolves.

Integration Readiness ​

Urban List’s future platform must operate as part of a broader digital ecosystem, integrating with marketing, analytics, CRM and data platforms.

Newism specialises in building platforms that integrate seamlessly with external systems. Our approach goes beyond simple configuration — we design and implement robust integrations that connect the CMS with the tools Urban List relies on for operations, marketing, analytics and commercial delivery.

Craft CMS provides a strong foundation for this through its API-first architecture, supporting GraphQL APIs, custom endpoints, webhooks and event-driven integrations. Craft’s built-in GraphQL API also allows third-party systems to query structured content directly, enabling integrations with mobile applications, syndication platforms, data pipelines and other external services where required.

Existing integration experience ​

Newism has extensive experience building integrations between CMS platforms and external services, including:

  • Salesforce CRM
  • Notion content workflows
  • Stripe payments and subscriptions
  • Twilio messaging and SMS notifications
  • GA4 and Google Tag Manager integration
  • marketing automation and lead capture systems

We have already developed working demonstrations of several integration workflows, including synchronising content and editorial processes with Notion.

Form and data integrations ​

For form-based workflows, we typically use Formie, a powerful Craft CMS plugin that supports more than 45 direct integrations with third-party platforms including CRM systems, marketing automation tools and payment providers.

This allows Urban List to capture and route data from submissions, lead forms, competition entries and campaign interactions directly into the systems used by the business.

Further information

Flexible integration architecture ​

Because integrations are built on open APIs and structured data, the platform can connect with a wide range of systems including:

  • CDP and CEP platforms
  • Snowflake and data warehouse pipelines
  • marketing and email platforms
  • CRM systems
  • analytics and reporting tools
  • internal workflow tools such as Notion and Slack

This ensures the CMS can evolve alongside Urban List’s broader data and marketing infrastructure without introducing integration limitations.