Product Design - UX Design - UI Design - Information Architecture - User Journeys - NoCode/Wix - SEO - GA4/CRO Analytics - Multilingual - Growth Driven Design - Responsive Design - Mobile first - Figma - Branding - Affinity Photo - Affinity Designer - Social Media Marketing
| Industry | Sports Entertainment |
|---|---|
| Skills | Product Design, UX Design, UI Design, NoCode, SEO, GA4/CRO Analytics, Multilingual, Mobile first, Branding |
| Tools | Wix, Sketching, GA4, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex Webmaster Tools, Figma, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer |
| Example | Phuket Shooters |
An investor in New Zealand had a new venture after he and his friend had spotted a market gap for a shooting range in Phuket. The difference was that this was to be a thoroughly professional affair with qualified ex-military 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.
Having just opened, the face-to-face business operations were being smoothed out but there was no digital presence and they wanted one.
Enter me.
The initial negotiations with the investors were about ways of working, budget, deadlines and requirements. I was able to reassure them that the first phase of work (getting a basic site up and running within a few days) would be completed and that further work would continue along with identifying areas of growth and continuous improvement.
First was understanding the business (market, operations, likely growth opportunities and barriers) and then create a digital experience that complemented the bricks and mortar business. It would be transferred to their control at the right point in the future.
From desk research (tourist data and competitors), we estimated that users would likely be tourists, probably already in Thailand, but we also wanted to appeal globally for when people planned their holidays. Our strategy was to get the site running in a few days and employ analytics to guide further growth. Competitor analysis with the investors was done to identify desired and useful features and functionality.
The key business goals were awareness among customers and "pull factors" to challenge competition. This meant high search ranking, accessibility and wide appeal to tourists. One investor had an appetite to having online bookings and payments but this was not feasible in the short term because it required the business to radically change and was scheduled to be a future change.
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 to finalise initial ideas. I began searching for a technical solution. This had to get a web presence up fast and could be handled by non-technical staff: I wasn't going to be around forever so this was important.
We decided upon Wix as reasonably priced and with a low barrier to entry as well as being amenable to operation by staff on the range. There was debate about online bookings but doing so meant the entire business had to go digital, including front-office. The company was not ready yet so booking requests were a compromise.
Outcomes: We had a platform and a basic design ready to dive into.
With the basic structure, I began planning content for each page with an eye for search engine optimisation. 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.
Content included page titles, meta information, alt-text, headings, text, images and videos and was initially created in English. I also researched for SEO-positive keywords and ensured they were present. Once written, content was automatically translated into the other four languages for speed. Proper translations would follow later.
Language selection which had to be quick and mobile-friendly and be 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 that mobile phones would be the most common channel and began a mobile-first design. This isn't easy in Wix - it aims for desktop first then adjust for mobile, but the design itself was made with mobile in mind. This was to be an important decision when we first got analytics.
A carousel of images was planned for the front page (circulated regularly for SEO purposes) along with introductory text. The images would show either groups of happy people with targets or people being coached to communicate positivity and fun but also seriousness and safety in the right context. We also showed pictures of a female instructor (rare) with a female customer (common), something that gave the business a competitive edge with some market segments. The text was refined so that the investors were satisfied.
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.
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 (vastly Thailand).
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.
On Yandex for a national-level search, we are number one for some Russian language province-level searches. Curiously, the Thai and Arabic versions don't rank at all there which is probably an oddity of Yandex itself.
The Bing strategy is working well with top 5 rankings for English province-level searches but a reduced ranking for national-level searches and no ranking for non-English results. I'm trying to puzzle that one out but it's not an indexing issue.
Google is still hit-or-miss but that's probably down to backlink strategy which I need to work harder on. My suggestions are to get social media running well, encourage customers to write reviews and get the site featured in local tourist sites. All search engines report no backlinks which is again odd because they exist and two listed on Google.
Outcomes: From not existing, the website ranked highly for common queries and was often already ahead of local competitors. It even, in some circumstances, beat national competition.
Work remained, however, to improve ranking on Google. The newness of the site compared to competitors was a factor we could not control other than releaseing the site as soon as possible (which we did with just this in mind). We could, however, improve our backlinking and formally tying up with high-quality social media channels to increase site authority. A number of content changes (particularly meta information and alt-text) were adjusted to improve accessibility and, by consequence, search authority.
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.