MAKING THE COOLEST (NOT SO) LITTLE CAPITAL WEBSITE EVEN COOLER
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Speaker: Rebecca Klee WellingtonNZ.com is one of New Zealand’s most successful visitor destination websites, keeping visitors and locals in the know on what to see and do. Last year WellingtonNZ.com was relaunched with a new look and feel, and the scope shifted from tourism-focused to becoming a single hub for those wanting to visit, work, study or do business in Wellington. Since the relaunch, Positively Wellington Tourism have continued to collaborate with local design agency DNA, as well as stakeholders Grow Wellington and Wellington City Council, in order to enhance the various distinct, but overlapping user journeys of this increased audience. Rebecca will present some of the key challenges and discoveries from recent projects making the coolest (not so) little capital website even cooler.
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MAKING THE COOLEST (NOT SO) LITTLE CAPITAL WEBSITE EVEN COOLER
- 1. WellingtonNZ.com Making the coolest (not so little) capital website even cooler
- 7. WellingtonNZ.com • Visit • Live • Work • Study • Do business • Invest
- 8. WellingtonNZ.com Destination Wellington 2012 programme approved by Wellington City Council
- 10. WellingtonNZ.com • 4 distinct brands • 7 websites • 11 supporting sites
- 11. WellingtonNZ.com • Users make decisions based on a variety of motivations • Often these motivations overlap
- 12. WellingtonNZ.com • Users make decisions based on a variety of motivations • Often these motivations overlap
- 13. WellingtonNZ.com
- 14. WellingtonNZ.com
- 15. WellingtonNZ.com
- 16. WellingtonNZ.com
- 17. WellingtonNZ.com What have we learned along the way?
- 18. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate
- 19. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate
- 20. WellingtonNZ.com Research shows that we’re innately drawn to information broken into discrete categories
- 21. WellingtonNZ.com 0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 Pageviews Top 10 must dos Best things to do for free Daily dining & drink deals Popular content
- 22. WellingtonNZ.com
- 23. WellingtonNZ.com
- 24. WellingtonNZ.com Previous year + 283% Previous period + 123%
- 25. WellingtonNZ.com
- 26. WellingtonNZ.com
- 27. WellingtonNZ.com • Small team of web editors • 1000s of pages of content
- 28. WellingtonNZ.com • Small team of web editors • 1000s of pages of content
- 29. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate
- 30. WellingtonNZ.com
- 32. WellingtonNZ.com • Location details • Opening hours • Menus • Reviews
- 33. WellingtonNZ.com
- 34. WellingtonNZ.com • Personality • Atmosphere • Food styling
- 35. WellingtonNZ.com
- 36. WellingtonNZ.com ? Design should help, not hinder, users in completing tasks
- 37. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate
- 39. WellingtonNZ.com We aim to complement, rather than compete with the major booking sites
- 40. WellingtonNZ.com
- 41. WellingtonNZ.com
- 42. WellingtonNZ.com
- 43. WellingtonNZ.com
- 44. WellingtonNZ.com
- 45. WellingtonNZ.com
- 46. WellingtonNZ.com
- 47. WellingtonNZ.com
- 50. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate
- 51. WellingtonNZ.com
- 52. WellingtonNZ.com
- 53. WellingtonNZ.com
- 54. WellingtonNZ.com
- 55. WellingtonNZ.com
- 56. WellingtonNZ.com
- 57. WellingtonNZ.com
- 58. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate
- 59. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate 2. Be well proud!
- 60. WellingtonNZ.com and Tourism Awards 2015 finalist. Bronze Best Awards 2015 Bronze Best Awards 2014
- 61. WellingtonNZ.com 1. Embrace the listicles 2. Let others be the experts 3. Stand out, but know when to step in line 1. Eliminate the debate 2. Be well proud!
Editor's Notes
- For any out-of-towners, or anyone else who might missed the reference in the name of my presentation, Wellington was named the world’s coolest little capital by Lonely Planet in 2011.
- So, of course that must mean that WellingtonNZ.com is the coolest (not so little) capital website.
- It’s also one of New Zealand’s most successful visitor destination websites. Over the past 12 months we’ve had more than 2.6 million visitors.
- In May last year, we replaced our well-loved, but rather dated website and separate mobile site…
- … with a striking image-rich, immersive design created by local agency DNA.
- That looks fantastic, no matter what device you’re using.
- AND as well as a new look and feel, the scope of the site shifted from tourism-focused to becoming a single hub for those wanting to Visit Live Work Study Do business and invest in Wellington
- This change in scope was first set in motion when Wellington City Council approved the Destination Wellington programme back in 2012.
- The objective of the Destination Wellington programme was to combine the expertise of Positively Wellington Tourism and Grow Wellington. And to build on the city’s tourism marketing success, in order to strengthen, celebrate and further develop the city’s economy.
- When the programme was launched, Wellington had at least 4 distinct brands, 7 websites AND 11 supporting sites. As you can imagine, this was not particulary efficient to manage and meant that we were missing a key opportunity to present a cohesive vision of Wellington to the world.
- And it just didn’t make sense from a user perspective either. As part of the site relaunch, we carried out persona research work on seven key audience groups, which highlighted that our users do not make their decisions in isolation.
- Many of the reasons that students come to Wellington or business event organisers choose the city as their host destination, are also the reasons that tourists come.
- A compact and accessible inner city and waterfront..
- World-class events and attractions
- A buzzing restaurant and café scene…
- And the daily fuel of quality coffee.
- So, what have we learned along the way?
- Here’s four findings that have helped us to deliver one digital platform that enables users to discover why Wellington is a great place to live, visit, study, or do business in.
- Now bear with me here, number 1 is Embrace the listicles
- Research has shown that it is an innate human characteristic to be drawn to information that is broken down into discrete categories, something which the Journal of Consumer Research calls the “Top 10 Effect”.
- Our site analytics certainly support this phenomenon, as our ‘Top 10 must dos’ page is consistently our most frequently viewed page. This is despite this page receiving little to no paid promotion.
- While the ‘Top 10’ format is a natural fit for tourism-focused ‘things to see and do’ content, we decided to apply this format to content enticing users to work, do business and invest in Wellington.
- To give an example of this, we re-wrote our content page explaining the benefits of working in Wellington And changed the title from “Why you should work in Wellington” to “Top reasons to work in Wellington”.
- This resulted in an increase of 283% in page views compared to the previous year, and a 123% increase compared to the previous period. Furthermore, this increase was predominantly via organic traffic.
- Listicles get a pretty bad wrap, largely due to their proliferation on certain sites known for churning out superficial clickbait, but ultimately a list is just format which can be applied to any content.
- And if that format captures users attention enough to encourage them delve further into your site’s content, then that can’t be a bad thing.
- As suggested by the title of my presentation, WellingtonNZ.com is a not so little site, with thousands of pages of content. We complement our carefully crafted editorial content with several listing databases.
- Despite having a relatively small team of web editors, we manage to keep the listing content on the site fresh, up-to-date and accurate by pulling content via APIs from other sites that are leaders in their respective fields.
- This is why, at times, it’s important to let others be the experts.
- We pull event listings from Eventfinda, eat & drink listings from Zomato and jobs, residential and commercial property, and businesses for sale listings from TradeMe.
- By freeing our web editors up from managing the basic details of this listing content, they are then able to focus on enhancing the relevance and richness of information available to each of our users.
- To illustrate one example of this, Zomato, one of our API providers, do an efficient job of collating restaurant and café location details, opening hours and menus
- But they steer clear of adding any subjective commentary, outside of user reviews, and they only photograph empty establishments.
- On the other hand we believe that personality and atmosphere (not to mention a wee bit of food styling) are essential elements in the decision making process of where to get a burger in Wellington.
- But I’ll just leave this here, for you to decide…
- Of course, while rich immersive design is enticing and wonderful to look at, it’s important that design doesn’t get in the way of users completing tasks.
- Which brings me to point 3 – stand out, but know when to step in line.
- We realised that the redesigned WellingtonNZ.com had departed too far from convention, when our on-site accommodation and activity bookings dropped immediately following the relaunch of the site.
- Although we don’t aim compete with the scale and discount pricing of the major booking sites, it was a concern that those users who did the prefer the reassurance of booking through a destination website were now being discouraged.
- We host a combination of both online bookable and non-bookable accommodation listings on WellingtonNZ.com, depending on the agreement that we have with the listing provider.
- On our old site, we displayed bookable accommodation options in a comparison table towards the end of the accommodation section landing page.
- During the site redesign, the decision was made to display all listing search results, both bookable and non-bookable, in the same way. The reason for this was to provide a simple, clear interface for users to easily find information.
- Rates and date availability for bookable listings could be found by expanding this information on both the search results and the listing detail page.
- However this meant that users could no longer directly compare accommodation options, which subsequent research showed was a key factor behind the drop in site bookings.
- To remedy this, we looked back to the success of our old site, as well as the functionality of the major booking sites. This time, it was clear that it was important to step in line with convention.
- We made a few simple changes that included reinstating the booking comparison grid to our accommodation section landing page…
- And to the accommodation search results page, above the non-bookable search results.
- These changes were implemented in September 2014, and the number of on-site bookings picked up following the change.
- Conversion rate optimization is of course an on going process of tweaking, testing and refining. While there’s no doubt further improvement that could be made, we were happy see the online booking performance pick up compared to the previous year.
- And now to my last point – eliminate the debate.
- We’ve just completed a fresh round of user testing with our key users groups, and one of the issues that came up across all groups was how users were interacting with our top level navigation.
- Following advice from design and IA experts during the site redesign, we made the decision to organise the navigation for each section within a large megamenu.
- The megamenu opens as an overlay upon click, rather than hover (or upon touch on mobile). So that the megamenu options can be viewed without the user leaving their current location, a second click (or touch) within the overlay in then needed to navigate to the relevant section landing page.
- Over time, we received occasional feedback internally that this wasn’t how people expected the megamenu to work. And since the relaunch, there has been a fair bit of debate as to whether this was the right solution or not.
- The recent user testing has allowed us to eliminate this debate, as we could observe that users were ALSO being confused by the action of the megamenu.
- Of even greater concern was that this meant users frequently missed the section landing pages altogether, which in turn impacted on how they could find information and understood the structure of the site.
- This experience showed that it’s important to trust your gut when you have an idea that something’s not working, as through testing it’s possible to reveal even greater learnings.
- So there’s the four findings that have helped us to deliver one digital platform that enables users to discover why Wellington is a great place to live, visit, study, or do business in. But before I go, there’s one more point that I should add…
- So there’s the four findings that have helped us to deliver one digital platform that enables users to discover why Wellington is a great place to live, visit, study, or do business in. But before I go, there’s one more point that I should add…
- We’re pretty proud of our coolest (not so little) capital website! The site receive a bronze in the Best Awards in both 2014 and 2015 and was a finalist in the Tourism Awards 2015.
- Embrace the listicles Let others be the experts Stand out, but know when to step in line Eliminate the debate Be well proud!