Site Relaunch: Accommodation Te Puna

About two years ago I designed and built a nice looking web site for a local motel and holiday park, Accommodation Te Puna. It was Pauline’s (owner) first foray into the internet and the site served her well over that time. But times change and with some more exposure to the internet, Pauline wanted to start putting a bit more time into her website and use it to generate more leads.

Pauline contacted me a couple of weeks ago to make some changes. She’d just been talking to a chap all about search engine optimisation and marketing as well as social media and networks and she wanted to make some changes to her website so she could be a bit more proactive in these areas.

Her original website was a traditional static website. It wasn’t built on a CMS so it meant that in order for her to make some updates she would have to use a product like Adobe Contribute or learn how to code HTML. I don’t have a problem with Contribute and have recommended where it suits but I felt that she would gain greater benefit from using a dedicated CMS platform like wordpress coupled with a custom skinned version of the brilliant Thesis theme to aid with SEO. The learning curve is considerably smaller too.

What are the advantages of developing her website in WordPress?

Redeveloping her website with WordPress essentially allows Pauline to become active in areas that appeal to her and her business by posting small articles.

Tauranga is a bustling place with events happening all year round and Pauline can now become more active in the promotion of some of these events through her site and other social networks with the spin off of being able to offer a wide range of accommodation to participants. As well as events, there are a myriad of local attractions and things to do that she can help people find out about.

Maybe more importantly, by posting articles and participating in social networks, Pauline can introduce herself and build up her ‘Personal Brand‘. Potential customers can get an idea of who she is and can put a face to the business owner. People like to deal with other people so presenting as person, rather than just a business, makes good sense.

What does it cost to build a website like this?

Pauline runs a small business and, thanks to the recession, the budget was very tight on this job. This meant that I was reusing a lot of elements from her original website (photos, background etc) and that helped keep development and design costs down. Using the Thesis framework saved some time also and, critically, would give Pauline easier control over some of the SEO components. In terms of actual dollars, this site was created for less than $1500 NZD.

How do you know if a website is working?

Simple. You measure it. Pauline’s accommodationtepuna.co.nz website uses google analytics to measure visitor details. She gets a weekly report which shows her visitor numbers, what they are looking at, where they come from and much much more.

She can test different page titles, page content, descriptions and post etc by simply measuring the response over time and comparing with previous date ranges. By doing this she finds out what works and what doesn’t. Simple.

Does your website work?

If your website isn’t generating the response that you would like then please contact me. I’m more than happy offer a free hour long consultation to get the ideas flowing.