Benches.co.uk is a venture of the Garden Furniture Centre Ltd, one of the country’s leading suppliers of garden furniture. Our client had enjoyed tremendous success with other projects we had worked on together, and we were very pleased to have the opportunity to work with them again on a new website.
Benches.co.uk would showcase our client’s extensive range of wooden garden benches and associated items.
Benches.co.uk is a premium domain name. The website URL was acquired by Styles Creative on behalf of the client. This first-class domain name is both the primary description of our client’s products as well as a perfect keyword for attracting traffic to the website. Combined with Ecommerce Web Design by Styles Creative, this will ensure a healthy search engine rankings from launch of the website.
Brief
Our client wanted an attractive, informative custom-made site, which would encourage customers to buy online with ease and confidence.
Offering some of the finest benches available today, the client wanted to showcase the products in detail for a competitive advantage. This would be achieved with a gallery of high quality images running throughout the site.
A zoom function would help customers to see the detail of the products.
In page promotions would direct users to the newest products.
A fast and secure online payments system was required, with continuity of branding for customer confidence.
A Contact Page for easy customer communication, also enabling the client to capture data for future marketing campaigns.
The client has an impressive showroom at their Midlands base, displaying the biggest range of garden benches in Warwickshire. Keen to demonstrate to viewers that this venture is so much more than an online shop, the client wanted to feature a map detailing its location. Customers from across the country visit the showroom and are always welcome, and the client was anxious to encourage people to try the products on site.
Accessories and additional services would be offered to present a one-stop centre for benches.
Services Conducted
Website Features
A premium website name for the site was secured. This was important to achieve high levels of traffic from keyword searches on search engines such as Google.
The website has a custom design with strong branding throughout. Styles Creative designed the website logo and brand identity with significant direction from the client. The client was keen to incorporate the grain from the teak of the benches into the design. Initially we thought this might be problematic, and it certainly created a challenge for our design team. However the combination of the grain and the logo give the site a natural look and enhances the product range for an overall winning design.
We requested that the client provide us with a large number of images so that we could feature shots of the benches from a variety of angles. We felt it was important to provide four images of each item for the picture gallery. This made the website stand out from all competition, where poor quality or limited images often prevent customers from completing a purchase. Detailed photography gives the customer confidence that they are buying a quality product. We added a clever zoom function which allows viewers to look closely at every inch of the image. It is fast-loading and user friendly.
A secure payment page which has been fully customised to match the design and quality of the website. Customers are navigated away from the site to the payment service provider in order to complete the transaction; however customers are directed to a page which has been customised to match the benches.co.uk site, thereby reducing concerns about online purchases.
Opportunity for the customer to buy add-on items, such as bench covers, cushions and anchors.
A bench engraving facility was integrated onto the site, whereby different benches could be engraved with one, two or three lines of text for a standard additional charge. If required, customers could add more text by paying for each extra letter. We also integrated the client’s existing video, demonstrating the engraving process to customers. This video is included on the homepage to demonstrate that the site offers added value.
We included optimised copy for enhanced search engine results. We achieved this by arranging the content on specific benches into keyword targeted sections with supporting optimised text. This wording helped to attain strong search engine results and a high positioning on Google.
An interactive map on the Contact Page allows potential visitors to view the location of the Benches.co.uk showroom.
Data capture enables our client to utilise the customer details given for future marketing purposes. The Privacy Policy fully explains if and how this will be used.
The homepage features a ‘Latest Products’ section. Every time the site is updated the homepage reflects the changes by updating the products featured here.
The homepage also boasts a fade and rotate gallery which promotes special offers and featured products with direct links to the product pages.
Product pages detail related products to encourage customers to buy accessories or other goods.
The Outcome
Our client was delighted with the finished website which has already achieved great success. The overall look of the site is fluid, with the branding running through each page beautifully. The high specification photography adds richness to provide a well-developed online solution which is good to look at and easy to use.
The website is number one on Google.co.uk for the search term ‘Benches’, it ranks fourth on Google.co.uk for the search term ‘Garden Benches’, and is the first result on Google.co.uk for product specific search terms including ‘Lutyens benches’.
The client is receiving many enquiries and has secured some impressive sales. We are currently preparing the website for spring when the majority of people will be searching for benches online and when we expect to have a significant rise in traffic and sales.
Ongoing Marketing and Support
Traffic to the website continues to grow due to increased high-ranking search results. This will be monitored alongside offline marketing to maximise potential sales.
Styles Creative will continue to support the client with full internet marketing.
