Website Marketing Directory — Search Engine Optimisation — Melbourne, Sydney, Australia

The New Water business also was in the process of preparing for the launch of new products and services and it was considered important that any web strategy should allow for the development and management of spin off product sites and an over all corporate presence.

The Challenge:
The website was under performing. Rather than allowing for easier actioning of sales leads it often delivered unqualified referrals and incomplete data requiring time consuming follow up by internal staff and agents. The site was difficult to maintain due to the complexity of its management system and it often stood idle with stale content and was operating as little more than an online brochure. To justify its existence the site needed to start earning it's keep. Enedia worked with New Water to isolate the key requirements for the business and then categorised these according to the Enedia four pillar web marketing methodology (EIES).

Exposure:
Increasing the number of qualified visitors to the Rain Reviva website. Focus was to be on quality not volume. The site is a sales tool and the emphasis needed to be on maximising the number of visitors who are interested and in a position to buy.

Interest:
Getting someone to a website is just the start of the game. The content needed to provide sufficient interest to encourage further exploration within and through the site. The structure needed to streamline the flow of customers to the core site areas. These core areas (or sweet spots) were identified as being the Product Information page, the Downloads page, the Price page and the Contact page.

Engagement:
As the primary purpose of the website is to generate leads the key metric for measuring engagement is the numbers of client contacts that can be traced directly back to the website. This includes submissions of enquiry forms, phone calls to the 1900 number that are identified as being web sourced and emails.

Sale:
The brief was to look into everything that could potentially contribute to (or hinder) the conversion of a lead into a sale. Particular emphasis was on reducing the time lag between a customer submitting an enquiry and speaking to a sales representative.

The Process:
After an initial series of briefing sessions with key stakeholders Enedia conducted a full web marketing audit of the Rain Reviva website and the broader New Water business. This covered all elements of online service and included a wide range of issues including usability, content structure and organisation, choice of technology, search engine implications, cross platform support, industry best practice, functionality and branding. These were categorised into quick wins (that could be implemented without delay) and items that should be considered for a future revamp. This included...

• Unnecessary segmentation of the site into members and non members areas which actively prevented full indexing of the core pages by search engines and acted as a disincentive for customers to engage with the site as they were required to register simply to view sales information.
• Use of images for navigation without corresponding text links
• Complex and unfocused web forms that generated numerous incomplete submissions, were inadequately vetted and required substantial back office time to process
• Confusing navigation and multiple pages named similarly
• Unfocused content composed without regard to search engine implications or stimulating customers
• Difficult to use Content Management System (CMS)
• Structural errors in certain browsers and platforms
• Heavy reliance on external web developer for menial day to day tasks

These issues were then elabotated upon as part of the Innovate strategic marketing service. The document examined and explained identified flaws and limitations, highlighted strengths for consolidation and considered future opportunities and potential and real threats. From this flowed a series of core recommendations that formed the starting point of the subsequent Plan component. During the Innovate service a variety of strategic marketing ideas were also floated and examined.

Core Recommendations:

• Redevelop the Rain Reviva website to incorporate a more flexible and easy to use CMS
• Utalise a database backend more efficiently to capture and distribute by way of postcode leads generated by the site. Site to store copies of leads and allow export of detailed reports.
• Site CMS to be flexible enough to allow it to be expanded to eventually manage an additional product spinoff site and a small corporate site. (ie. 3 sites managed through the one admin area)
• Site to be optimised for core keywords and CMS to be configured to allow main site content to be tweaked over time to maximise search engine impact.
• Navigation to be simplified and actively designed to push traffic to core site areas.
• Onsite forms to be simplified and key qualifying fields to be made mandatory

New Water then engaged Enedia to prepare appropriate design and development briefing documentation for these tasks. These were then supplied to a short list of developers and Enedia worked with New Water to choose the submission that best fit the requirements. Enedia then acted as a consultant project manager over the course of the development and rollout cycle. Once complete Enedia assisted New Water set up and run a range of Search Engine Marketing campaigns and establish a variety of link exchange and online affiliations to maximise referrals and search engine performance.

The Results:
The Rain Reviva website was successfully launched in March 2005 and in July/August 2005 Enedia assisted New Water with the development of the additional new product site for the Gray Water Management system. To date the following results have been achieved...

• The combination of the restructured site, easier content management & assistance with Search Engine Marketing campaigns have enabled New Water to reduce their lead generation costs from nearly $60 per lead through traditional media to approximately $30.
• The automation of the lead distribution from the site has significantly reduced the time commitment of the back office staff in managing leads
• The use of restructured forms with mandatory questions has practically eliminated the occurrance of leads being submitted incomplete or with errors
• The contribution of the website restructure to the ongoing success of the New Water business was recognised by a profile on the Channel Nine "Your Business Success" program on September 4th 2005.