This week we finished rolling a shared navigation layer across the twelve Boston Made sites. Different themes, different hosts, different ages. Here is what changed, and what we’d recommend for any multi-site business.

1. One shell, served from one place

Each site loads a single script that renders the same network bar, footer and call-to-action from one master file. Change the file once and every site updates. If you run more than one site, stop copying footers by hand.

2. Fixed elements get a stacking rule

Our dock was invisible on one site because the theme’s main wrapper had a z-index of 9999. Decide the order once: content, then header, then docks, then notifications, then dialogs. Write the numbers down.

3. Notifications never cover navigation

Cookie prompts and popups now measure the dock and sit above it. A banner that covers your primary navigation is a banner people close without reading.

4. Mobile menus are lists, not posters

We replaced full-bleed photo tiles with compact rows: a small thumbnail, a readable label, a chevron. Photos in a menu should help you recognize a destination, not compete with its name.

5. One search for the whole network

The flagship homepage now searches stories from all twelve sites and offers direct actions. If a visitor cannot find your other brands from your main site, they do not exist to that visitor.

The test we use

Open every site on a phone, as a stranger. Can you tell they belong together in two seconds? Can you get from any one to any other in one tap? If not, you have a portfolio, not a network.

Written by Fenway Web, the agency tribe of Boston Made.