Industry: Travel, Tourism and Leisure
Please note that this site is not the epitome of design. It is, however, in accordance with the business's real-life requirements and is a good example of how a small business can be helped to grow with a digital presence.
Two New Zealand investors spotted a market gap for a shooting range in Phuket. This was to be a thoroughly professional affair with qualified ex-military or police instructors, close links with professional associations and formal training courses: Training and experiences that were fun and effective but also safe and of high quality.
Face-to-face business operations had just begun but the investors needed a digital presence for generating local and international leads.
Enter me.
Please note that search engine rankings and company revenue increases are illustrated and discussed below.
First steps were to understand what they and the business owner wanted to achieve in terms of business success. There was a definite potential for growth but much more work was needed.
I created a digital strategy that encompassed several strands: Identifying the market, understanding how the business actually operated, creating a digital presence (a main website plus supporting social media, search engine optimisation), and understanding what would increase growth. Key business challenges like commissions paid to travel agents and local transport operators were identified along with how these might be turned into opportunities.
I identified that the key market was tourists already in Thailand, particularly Phuket and how the business could be supported by enrolling local partner support with a commission-based model that required engineering to be substantially fair. I also learned that the business could not rely on English but had to be multi-lingual. Current social media channels were identified along with any controllers and a brief competitor analysis was done and merged with business requirements to define the project's direction and scope.
After setting up the basics (investigating and securing a URL), next was to identify content that helped search engines understand what the business was doing followed by accessible wireframe designs to help stakeholders and the business owner to understand the direction. I also investigated and discussed technical solutions along with the business needs including having the ability for non-coders to edit the entire site and we decided upon Wix as an initial platform choice due to its wide set of integrations.
Outcomes: A baptism of fire with an immediate deep dive into how real-world Thai business works. Aspects like commission-based recommendations were a surprise but also added colour to understanding what an online showcase could bring.
Wireframes and user journeys (initially hand-drawn but soon after in Figma) were shared with the investors and business owner to communicate initial ideas.
The company was not ready for online bookings yet so booking requests were a compromise that worked into commission-based partnerships.
Outcomes: We had a direction for design and content with stakeholder buy-in.
Main content would be in English, Thai, Arabic, Chinese and Russian. Using tourist data and similar businesses as estimators, we predicted that many customers would be speaking these languages and meeting them halfway could give the business an edge over competitors which operated in English only.
Content included page titles, meta information, alt-text, headings, text, images and videos and was initially created in English for which I organised translations. I also researched for SEO-positive keywords and ensured they were present.
Language selection had to be quick and mobile-friendly and was incorporated into navigation.
Outcomes: With all this work in place, I could begin designing pages to accommodate all the content - this was the fun part!
I anticipated from market research that mobile phones would be the most common channel and began a mobile-first design. The design itself was made for mobile and adjusted for tablet and desktop. This was to be an important decision when we first got analytics.
A carousel of images was planned for the front page (changed regularly for SEO purposes) along with introductory text, heavy with key phrases for SEO. Images would show either groups of happy people enjoying the range or people being coached. This communicated positivity and fun but also seriousness and safety in the right context.
One key business opportunity was a female instructor (they are rare) which appealed to a range of market segments (particularly Muslim women). This was highlighted in the content and images.
The staff page was crucial to show the experience and qualifications of instructors as was the list of range rules. A basic booking request facility was implemented with an associated email address and tested with sensible and anomalous data for failure until it worked. The courses page was based on a graphic tarpaulin but improved with information laid out in HTML.
One critical page was instructions on how to get there. The maps that came with Wix had very poor contrast and were not suitable for people with visual accessibility needs. I found an alternative by embedding Google Maps directly which was much more satisfactory.
Outcomes: Phuket Shooters had designs for pages in five languages
The website's aim was to attract customers via digital channels on a global basis beginning with provincial-level awareness. Google's Search Console and GA4 analytics were used along with the Bing and Yandex Webmaster Tools. Bing feeds into many other search engines like DuckDuckGo and Yahoo! and Yandex was aimed at appealing to Russian customers. Baidu required Chinese nationality which we did not have and we are still considering Naver for Korean customers. Google covers just about everything else.
I made recommendations to increase backlinks from reputable social media channels. A Facebook page had been running but wasn't linked and new social media channels were made to increase visibility. Two are actively populated and I've recommended their content is mirrored on other channels.
Accessibility was bolstered by adding meta tags across the entire site, a big task, and a basic level of testing done. Proper in-person testing was not possible due to resource constraints.
Outcomes: The site was ready for release. We did this as soon as possible so that it could be indexed and be included in customers' search results.
After a week or so, GA4 outputs showed that indeed, the vast majority of visitors browsed on mobile. Languages were more diverse than locations (location was mostly Thailand, languages were majoratively English but also Russian and Chinese).
Customers came mostly directly but this has morphed over time and organic searches are now more common. Examination of common search terms showed that the site has risen from nowhere to appearing highly in Bing and Yandex for province-level searches.
SEO work has been successful with top-five rankings (often mixed with generic sites like TripAdvisor and trip.com) for many common search phrases. This is tracked regularly to identify improvements in content.
Outcomes:
Revenue for the business has increased massively with a significant amount attributed by the business
to this online channel. Research indicates both customers and partners use it regularly.
From nothing, the website now ranks highly for common queries and was often already ahead of long-established local competitors. It even, in some circumstances, outranked competitors for national-level searches.
Work still remains in finessing the content and site to maintain and even improve rankings and continue to increase company revenue.
The biggest business challenge has been understanding how bricks-and-mortar businesses actually work in Thailand. This required me to shift perspectives multiple times but, perhaps because I arrived with fresh eyes, I identified new opportunities. I have also had to re-adjust my expectations of what can realistically be done by the business itself which is a challenge I continue to work on.
Visitors had a diverse range of languages with Thai being a small minority; but they were also located in Thailand. This indicated that most were tourists searching for a shooting range rather than searching at home before they arrive. This may be just how things are but it might also be our relative lack of visibility around the world. One initiative would be to increase global visibility and test if audiences contact the business when nearby or not.
We've also expanded the content to update it more frequently and will be testing social media feeds soon. This should provide users with affirmation that the business is active and thriving as well as improving search engine ranking.
A recent bout of improvements to meta data should be improving search rankings and accessibility along with clarifying content to users and making some pages easier to scan by search engines.
If you'd like to discuss working with me, contact me on jsmithtid@outlook.com.
LinkedIn: James Smith.