Web Design
Case Study
Southbound Sportfishing
New website leads to double the organic traffic in just one year for Key West company
Southbound Sportfishing is an experienced fishing charter in Key West. Captain Richard’s extensive knowledge of the waters (and the best places to visit) is the secret to his 5-star reputation.
Committed to providing his clients with the best experience possible on-board, Captain Richard’s website needed to be an online extension of his unrivaled dedication to customer service.
Services
Responsive Website
Online Booking Calendar
Online Chat
Blog
Instagram Feed
Google Reviews Feed
Ongoing Website Care
The Problem
A never-ending blog and an aging design
The company’s old website was created (and regularly updated) by the Captain himself. When he first approached the Chili Pepper Design team, Richard wanted a more modern website that he could continue to update himself.
After thoroughly auditing the old website, we found quite a few issues with it. Although Richard had done a fantastic job at creating and maintaining his own website, it had started to date and didn’t reflect his amazing service offer.
Captain Richard was doing a great job updating his site regularly, but his blog had hundreds of posts on it – all on a single HTML page.
The layout wasn’t user friendly and judging from the Google Analytics stats, he was losing a lot of business.
Southbound Sportfishing deserved better.
We developed a comprehensive digital strategy to fix the problems, giving him a site that would truly show what a great charter he offers and get more customers booking in.
The Solution
HTML to WordPress website migration and a fresh new look
To attract a new audience, we needed to get his website updated and optimized for search engines – so we completely streamlined the site’s design.
We rebuilt the site so it was user-friendly – moving all that great content into the stylish new design.
As for that really long page of blog posts, we broke out each entry into its own blog post in WordPress (with the original date and time on it for SEO juice). We then categorized them into key topics, so the blog would be easy to browse for interested visitors.
Now the website is brought up to modern browsing standards, it’s fully responsive and displays perfectly on desktop, tablet, or phone.
To convince people to book a charter on the website, we embedded that 5-star Google review feed. This shows proof that the Southbound is a trusted Key West charter and the best choice to go with.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so we embedded the company’s Instagram feed. It not only keeps the website continually updated with new photos, but you can also see the amazing catches the Captain’s charters get every day.
The new site has a whole menu of improvements, including:
- A modern, professional website design
- User-friendly navigation
- Lead capture form
- Testimonials and reviews
- On-page SEO for page titles and descriptions
- A detailed sitemap
- SSL Certificate (https://)
- A new blog
…and the Captain continues to update his blog and on-page SEO himself after our in-depth training.
Top Features
Responsive Design
We took his original HTML website and moved it into WordPress. Since most of his traffic is from mobile it was important to have it optimized for mobile phones.
Blog
Capt. Richard blogs about his charters and other events almost daily, so we optimized his blog for imagery, content, categories, and on-page SEO.
Online Booking Calendar
We incorporated an online booking calendar into the website to help get more bookings, without the need to be on the phone all the time.
Online Chat
Because most of the site visitors are on their phone while on vacation, the chat feature gets a lot of use. After only 6 months, it was averaging 50 chats per month.
On-Page SEO
To fully utilize the benefits of blogging with WordPress, we provided keyword research in the redesign in order to optimize the top landing pages.
The Results
The site’s ranking on Google has improved dramatically.
Traffic from the search engines has doubled.
1 out of every 4 bookings are booked online.
The site is a lot more user friendly.
Captain Richard has a website to be proud of, that showcases his charter as the best in the area – and is easy to keep updated.
Let’s Start Something new
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