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Background:
This website design and search engine optimisation case study provides information on the background to and implementation of a new website on behalf of Perryscope by The DG Group. Perryscope provides mast photography services, which is ideal for events, photography of landmarks, buildings and many other commercial needs. Mast Photography is also an excellent alternative to costly aerial photography and provides a more pleasing and natural image for most needs. The owners of Perryscope had had a number of websites made in the few years they had been operating and none met their requirements fully. Their online visibility was also zero and consequently they had never had an enquiry through their website.
The Requirement:
The DG Group was approached by Perryscope to design a new website. The main reason for this was to improve their online visibility in search results, as their current website could not be found for anything other than a direct search for their business name. The reason for their poor visibility in searches was purely due to poor website implementation and absolutely no optimisations applied whatsoever.
They also wanted to be able to more easily update the content of their site including a very important element, the image galleries, which are essentially their portfolio. However, they wanted an attractive and engaging image gallery too and so we needed to embed a Flash based gallery. Finally, the overall design of the website was not engaging and did not showcase their business adequately, so they wanted a brand new design which would deliver a "wow" factor.
The Solution:
From a design perspective we wanted to create something that used their work essentially as the design. Also, due to the fact that their work involved their camera being high-up in the air, we wanted to give the site a very light and bright feel to it. We therefore used images (related to the theme of the content on each page) as the background for each page and using latest CSS coding techniques the image fills the screen, whether the resolution is 1024 or 1600 pixels in width.
Having created the design and received sign-off on that element, we then attached the design to our in-house built content management system, which provides better support for website optimisation as well as being more secure than the open-source CMS systems available today.
With the new website structure ready and waiting for content we set about implementing complete content optimisation. This started with in-depth keyword research, which identified the most popular and relevant keywords for us to optimise the website for. From this list we did the following:
- Domain Name
We found various keywords such as "Mast Photography" and "Elevated Photography" had a high volume of searches, however the domain names for those terms were already registered. We therefore settled for a slightly less searched option of "aerial mast photography", which included the words "aerial" and "mast" and would therefore help with optimising for those terms. www.aerialmastphotography.ie was therefore registered and implemented as the primary domain for the site with www.perryscope.ie implemented as an alias domain with a permanent redirect to the primary domain. In this way their primary domain contained a searched phrase plus 3 high-volume individual keywords.
- Metadata
The client wanted a base level of SEO implemented and as such we used the phrases and keywords we had found to have high search volumes within the metadata of the site.
- Page Naming
The keyword/phrase list was again used to identify phrases and words that could be used for the page names. In this way, rather than naming the pages generically, we gave them meaningful names such as "what-is-elevated-photography.asp". This is also a factor in having internal site pages ranked.
- Home Page Content Optimisation
Finally we used the keyword list in the homepage metadata to create keyword-rich text on the homepage. This involved building the keywords into the most important elements of the homepage, such as the main title of the page, creating a number of subtitles and also throughout the body text.
The final element was the galleries. Our goal was to create something which was both interesting yet could be updated easily without our involvement. This is not normally possible when delivering Flash-based functionality and certainly not for a reasonable cost. We therefore made use of modern Social Media capabilities by using Picasa galleries with a feed back onto the website (much like YouTube videos are fed onto websites). However, it is a little more complicated as we had to bring the image data into the Flash code itself. So using a combination of Flash, Actionscript and XML, we were able to get the job done. Now the owners can simply log on to Picasa and update a gallery and the images appear instantly on the website.
As an extra and fun twist, we decided to provide a flash animation of their logo, which has the camera on the mast extending upwards when a page loads. This is not only fun, but also practically shows how elevated photography works.
The Results:
Design wise, the new site is simply stunning and really showcases their services and professionalism. The images below show the old design vs. the new design and we are sure you will agree that the new design is far more attractive and compelling for visitors.
Old Design New Design
However, the biggest change is in the site's online search visibility. For example, the main keywords we were targeting were "Aerial Mast Photography", "Mast Photography" and "Elevated Photography" and where previously the website was nowhere to be found for any of these searches, the new website can be found in the following positions (as of 05th December 2010).
- Aerial Mast Photography - (#1, Page 1)
- Mast Photography - (#4 & #5, Page 1)
- Elevated Photography - (#9, Page 1)
As well as the above they are also ranking for the following terms:
- Golf Course Photographer - (#10, Page 1)
- What Is Elevated Photography - (#6, Page 1)
- Elevated Mast Photography - (#1, #2 & #3, Page 1
This is an excellent result for the basic level of optimisation implemented on this site and the effects in terms of enquiries is already being felt by the client. Due to the nature of Optimisation and the length of time it takes for Google to fully index and rank the site, we anticipate that we will see this site's rankings and overall visibility to rise further in the coming months.
Summary:
We are delighted with the results in terms of design, implementation and ranking achieved in this project and we wish Perryscope every success in the future.
Find out more about their range of Mast Photography services, with a visit to www.perryscope.ie and please feel free to contact us if you have any questions on the content of this page.
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