Background
British Ski Center and Sierra Essence are 2 companies that have a director in common. The first focuses on ski and snowboard lessons in the Sierra Nevada, Spain, whereas the second deals with accommodation, lift passes, transfers and facilities bookings. They had separate, but very similar websites previously with most content duplicated across both sites. This was confusing. In addition, the Portuguese ski school had an almost identical site. All the sites had served the companies well for several years but a more modern design was needed with a different site structure.
Project
We decided to have a single WordPress website for British Ski Center / Sierra Essence that would cover all their business activities and a separate website (but with a similar design) for the Portuguese ski school which was simpler and less extensive.
Again, this project was a collaboration with Nikki from Designs Like These. Nikki designed the site elements we built, tested and implemented the new site.
The site has nearly 200 pages and 2000 images. Most of the images are of the hotels and apartments that are rented out through the company.
As with all of our projects, we went through a comprehensive testing process, checking page load speeds, appearance and functionality across a wide range of browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge etc.), operating systems (Windows, Android, OSX, iOS) and devices (desktops, mobiles and tablets). Older versions of all these were included in our tests so we could be confident that the site looked good and worked properly on the vast majority of devices currently in use. It seems that 3% of site visitors are still using Internet Explorer so well worth checking the site on these older browsers.
The migration from the previous site went smoothly but the redirection of the old pages to the new ones was hampered by the sheer volume of pages (more than 1000) that the old Content Management System had built and the complexity of the web addresses it created which, in some cases, were long and cumbersome. However, we constructed a mapping between the old and new pages and ensured the old pages were properly redirected to appropriate places on the new site to avoid ‘page not found’ errors.
Outcome
The British Ski Center and Sierra Essence now have a modern, fast, mobile-responsive website to help them grow their business. The feedback from management and staff has been excellent and we continue to work with them, making changes such as adding new properties as well as monitoring the site and updating software components.
Testimonial
Roger offered us a meticulously planned programme based entirely on our needs and requirements having previously studied in depth the full nature of our business to grasp a true understanding for himself of what we strive do and achieve. Out of his understanding and continued liaising with us, he was not only able to structure a series of ideas but also many significant suggestions to wholly enhance the effectiveness of the final product. From his in-depth research into the many search engine related elements (keywords, meta tags etc.) to the choice of images, typeface, style and colour themes not to mention a full study into our target markets, he made what is effectively a complex project into something entirely stress free for us. The final result feels entirely like a true reflection on us and what we offer not to mention being many times more efficient and effective in captivating clients and generating new business.
What is more, Roger consistently demonstrates total efficiency in his work in response to our requirements, whether it's for simple tweaks or reviewing other potential projects/improvements. Basically put, Roger knows exactly what he is doing and our investment in his work has been more than fully justified for which I have no problems in recommending his services to anyone seriously looking to give their business a massive online boost!!
Summary
Client
British Ski Center / Sierra Essence
Our role
Development, testing, migration of existing site and implementation.
