Based in the beautiful Warwickshire town of Stratford upon Avon, which is, of course, most famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare, it was almost inevitable that Styles Creative would produce a website to promote the very best the town has to offer.
With a number of existing websites focusing on Stratford, our objective was to produce an in-house site which was a clear cut above those with outdated information and poor imagery. www.shakespeares-stratford.com is a concise guide to the town, with up-to-date information on visitor attractions, accommodation, eating-out guides, and the latest on Stratford shopping and things to do.
Project
Styles Creative had a clear vision about how this site should look and perform. We wanted a straightforward and easy to use website which would grow with the addition of future content, allowing us to market the website over the coming years.
Using in-house photography throughout the website, we would be able to give viewers an up-close and personal look of the real Stratford, not just the standard tourist shots.
Developing our own corporate identity, we would produce a series of promotional leaflets and flyers for distribution across the town to bring traffic to the website.
The addition of a blog with the latest news and events in the Stratford area would attract return visitors to the website.
Strong search engine listings would be achieved using optimised copy.
Using our local knowledge we would build a large directory of relevant information on the town for the benefit of visitors and local people.
Services Conducted
Website Features
All the features included on this website have come together to provide a reliable up-to-date resource on Stratford upon Avon and its surrounding area. These features include:
A weather widget showing the latest weather in Stratford upon Avon.
A content managed blog updated weekly to focus on all aspects of life and leisure in Stratford upon Avon.
Several sections of the website are dedicated to local attractions and give full details of what can be expected at each of them. Links are provided to the attraction’s own website for the benefit of users.
A user-friendly interactive map. This customised Google map shows visitors the top attractions in the town.
Many people visit Stratford for the unusual and charming shops that can be found alongside the general high street shops you would expect. Here we detail the best of Stratford’s shopping.
With a wonderful selection of accommodation on offer in the town, we provide an information resource to help visitors select the best places to stay to suit all tastes and budgets.
A customised contact form allowing potential advertisers to effectively market their local business online.
An album of wonderful, crisp images of the highlight’s of Stratford taken by our very own professional photographer.
The Outcome
Shakespeare’s Stratford enjoys hundreds of unique daily visitors. Since the site’s launch, the search term ‘Stratford upon Avon’ has taken the website from page twelve on Google.co.uk to the top of page two! Our aim is to make this website the most comprehensive Stratford upon Avon tourism website with a top Google ranking for our targeted keywords.
Traffic to the site has continued to increase, thanks to a competitive position in search engines listings. A steady ranking on the first page or two has resulted in increased visitors to the website by 60% in the first year alone.
The website is now in it’s second year online and is enjoying a constantly high search engine ranking, overcoming the competitive difficulties of Search Engine Optimisation.
Local businesses who advertise on the website have stated that it is a positive and valuable resource for both Stratford upon Avon commerce and tourists. One such example is Stratford upon Avon bed and breakfast provider ‘Craig Cleeve House’, who enjoy an enhanced ‘Gold’ listing on the website. This promotes their business above other bed and breakfast accommodation and they have benefitted from many extra bookings from their listing (http://www.shakespeares-stratford.com/bed-and-breakfast/craig-cleeve-house.html)
The website is enjoying many returning visitors, thanks to gorgeous images contained on the site and also the detailed information which is regularly updated and checked.
Marketing and Ongoing Support
Styles Creative enjoys managing Shakespeare’s Stratford and continually works to improve its performance for users and clients.
Our mission is to keep things fresh and interesting with updated designs for new flyers and posters, and maintaining and updating the information available. We will continue to actively promote this website both offline and online. We hope that our ongoing efforts will demonstrate to all visitors that Stratford upon Avon is a beautiful town that is well worth a visit.
