Update: This case study has been updated to include the results from the second year of the website's operation.

David and Elizabeth Smith operate Fabulous Feast, a Spit Roast Catering Company operating in Western Victoria.  In a competitive industry, David hoped that establishing a website presence would enable the company to access a new market that they had previously not serviced. Our brief was to create something straightforward with all the information readily accessible and easy for people to use.

Solution:

 

  • Customisation Design: David and Elizabeth were on budget. Being new to the web they wanted something that would work for them. They selected a pre-built catalogue design, and we personalised it for them with their logo and colours that matched their mobile vans. As no electronic version of their logo was available we assisted them with scanning it from existing literature and creating a digital version.

  • Arranging of Content: Written content and digital photos were supplied by Fabulous Feast. All photos were optimised for the web to ensure that the site would load quickly for visitors.

    Testimonials were scanned and published to build more credibility than the “These guys were great” testimonials as seen on some of their competitor's sites. All text was proofread and checked for grammatical errors before being initially posted to their website. On longer pages, additional navigation and “To Top” hyperlinks were added to enhance user experience.

  • Dominating desired keywords: Once completed, Managed Content Webs added a link to their site which ensured that it was submitted to Popular Search Engines (Google Australia, Yahoo7 Australia, MSN Australia and Sensis). Within a few weeks the site was ranking on the first page of search results for their company name.

    Fabulous Feast (Google) (Yahoo!) (Bing)

  • Editable Website: For first time website owners, the issue of website maintenance is not often on the radar, as their focus is on getting the site up. Foreseeing these problems, we build all our customer's sites so that they are easily editable. Sure enough, after 9 weeks the information on this site needed to be updated.

    Although possessing only basic computer skills, and on a dial-up modem connection, with a short on-site training session and a brief view of our online training videos, David was able to change his pricing information whenever required.

  • Measurability of Spend: A standard feature of all our developments is advanced web statistics. David and Elizabeth are able to see who’s visiting their website as well as what pages they are landing on and what they are typing in search engines to find them.

    By following search engine friendly design principles, Fabulous Feast began to record searches by people looking for more general searches as well. Some examples of what their site visitors had typed into their search engine include:

Spit Roast Catering Ballarat (Google) (Yahoo) (MSN)
Spit Roast Catering Western Suburbs Melbourne (Google) (Yahoo) (MSN)

Results:

Having been in business for more than 15 years, David and Elizabeth like to see the results of their marketing efforts in new sales and bookings. They track the origin of every enquiry that their business receives. Within the first 2 months of operation, Fabulous Feast have:

  • Positive Return On Investment: Received bookings directly as a result of the website which has generated income to pay for the initial website development. (In fact, their catering company website paid for itself in first 60 days of its launch).
  • Generating Business: 33% of all business enquiries for each month were linked to the website.
  • Supports Offline Enquiry: Learned the majority of people visit the website first but still have their personal questions answered and enquire over the phone and not by email.
  • Faster Customer Service: Saved hours in producing and sending out quotes.

Published with permission David and Elizabeth Smith.

Update: This case study has been updated to include the results from the second year of the website's operation.