County Car Website Redesign

The client

Back in early 2010, Lucidity Digital contacted County Car car rentals with a proposal for a site revamp.When we originally approached County Car with our site proposal, they agreed their current website design was both out-dated and not terribly user friendly. As a result, site traffic was experiencing poor levels of engagement and in general the brand was in need of a revamp.

As well as design and layout, we discussed the ramifications of a good and indeed, poor, SEO strategy. We advised our soon to be client, that SEO was as much a part of the problem as the visual and functional elements. No matter how good the site was, if no one could find it, it was useless, we explained.

In going forward, County Car agreed that the current climate in e-commerce and web development as a whole was becoming more and more competitive. With this in mind they saw the need for a redesign. It was felt, with the online markets evolving at such a rapid pace, that the company needed to get in the mix or run the risk of being left behind by competitors.

Wasting no time at all, the website transformation began in July 2010. I caught up with some of the design and development team here in Lucidity, who gave an insight into how this pristine website came to be.

 

Dermot:  Lead Developer

Dermot explained to me that the previous website was completely out of date in terms of web design and the platform it was built on was very inflexible. With this in mind, a brand new site was built using Ruby on Rails having got rid of the previous PHP-based site.

Dermot continued that, “the project required us to learn a lot about County Car’s business and their internal processes”. It soon became clear to the team that the system they required would be of a more complex structure. They would have to provide prices to the customers that depended on multiple factors such as time of the year, collection location and return location, collection time and return time and the type of car.

 

Alan:  Lead Designer

Alan concurred on what Dermot had said in that County Cars current web design was of a slightly old fashioned web user experience. “It had worked well for them up till now, but simply needed to be updated to be brought in line with what users expect from a site today”.

After a period of brainstorming, Lucidity and County Car agreed on a number of elements. “We knew there would have to be large, engaging images to instantly convey exactly what County Car does”.

“The booking form went on the top left of the homepage, right where the eye begins browsing a page. The page then followed the natural flow of the eye right down to the ‘call to action’ button.

In finalising the design section, we kept the page tight. We contrasted the bright green of the County Car brand with a dark grey. We felt this communicated the metallic texture of an automobile and brought the images and forms used on the website out strongly”.

We kept copy down to a minimum so as not to distract the users along their journey through the site. The ultimate aim was a clean and simple experience at all times.

The site went live in January 2011 and by the same summer, what was once this: 

had become this:

 

Luis:  SEO/SEM Analyst

Once we had finished making the site look great, it was time to focus our efforts on a rock solid SEO campaign
Aside from the design element, County Car has undergone extensive SEO and optimization work. These efforts have seen County Car shoot up to the top of Google search results on everything from keyword results to Google place maps. 

 

The above screenshot was recently taken (09/02/2012) from a Google search for ‘County Car’.

What we can see is the following:

·         Page one landing for the keywords County + Car (misspelled brand name)

·         Position one landing for countycar.ie

·         Google map pins for County Car locations

·         Location list and address for County Car depots

There are many avenues that web design companies adopt in ranking their clients. Here at Lucidity we focus on website development and SEO to name but a few. In doing so we have returned excellent results for County Car and this has been echoed by County Car.

Conversion rates from site traffic, to actual customers, have increased two-fold and with its fresh look and on-going SEO efforts the results were seen in November 2011. 

Click the link to get your website built or redesigned by Lucidity Digital. 

For a more in-depth look at SEO and Google Places have a look at this related article. 

 

REsults

They say the proof is in the pudding and none more so than the Eircom Spiders. The ‘spiders’ are held every year and honour companies and individuals who have embraced the Irish online and digital markets.

The ‘One to Watch’ category for 2011 was what cemented County Cars status as a thriving e-commerce site. The title was for the most innovative indigenous website launched in the last twelve months.It is said that to be in this category, “the site should be engaging, with innovative mechanisms that encourage interaction from the user”. Both Lucidity and County Car certainly felt this was the case with their new site.

If you are looking for a website revamp or need your SEO efforts bolstered to achieve the results County Car are enjoying then contact us today.