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World renown golf venues

www.dalehill.co.uk | www.sandfordsprings.co.uk | www.theoxfordshire.com

Project brief

Creating an online home for The Leaderboard Group of finest golf resorts, The Oxfordshire, Sandford Springs and Dale Hill - world-renown hotels, championship golf courses and luxurious spas, wedding venues, restaurants and bars of outstanding quality.

The Leaderboard Group is a privately owned company with a golf venue portfolio that includes some of the finest, and well recognised, golf courses and resorts in the south of England.

The Oxfordshire is their flagship golf venue. Designed by eminent American golf course architect Rees Jones, and the host of many prestigious tournaments including the Benson & Hedges International Open and the Brabazon Trophy, this is a fantastic challenge for all golfers.

Dale Hill, located in Wadhurst, East Sussex, boasts two excellent 18-hole challenges including the 'Woosnam' course which was designed by the former Masters champion himself, Ian Woosnam.

Sandford Springs in Hampshire is their newest venue boasting 27 holes, The Park, The Woods and The Lakes – ensures a varied challenge amid enviable geography that is both distinct and memorable.

Project delivery

We created a new digital platform, initially called CMS3, and used The Leaderboard Group of websites to drive the client requirements for the platform to get it market-ready. The CMS3 platform enhances website performance, particularly on mobile devices, so that we can affect big SEO improvements in online performance. The Leaderboard Group of websites were deliberately deployed on this "infant" platform to ensure they benefit first, and most, from this software.

We designed a website to compliment The Leaderboard Group's identity and brand. The focus was to showcase the photography, displaying the location, grandeur and finer details of the hotel, golf courses, facade and other services and amenities. Visuals of the sumptuous interiors are also maximised to make the best use of the browser viewport.

The new websites allow The Leaderboard Group to powerfully market their hotels, golf offers, spa deals, news and events with an immersive story-telling layout, rich in content and user-friendly.

Project details

Through a series of workshops, we engaged with the project team and client to plan an experience that would connect with the core audience and beyond. We helped to define the site architecture, use experience (UX), the content strategy and visual design for the responsive website.

We worked with The Leaderboard Group's new identity and applied it to the website. Taking new colour palette, typography and layout structure we evolved the new style for browsers and screen.

Our designers created a series of prototypes with responsive, grid layouts to fit a variety of viewports. This framework allowed us to iterate and improve quickly, testing the look and feel on the fly and getting focus group responses from the client to drive further enhancements. Paired with elegant imagery, interactive design and video content this provides the audience with an engaging and memorable experience.

The all-new Leaderboard Group sites launched across three golf venues owned by the group:

www.dalehill.co.uk

www.sandfordsprings.co.uk

www.theoxfordshire.co.uk

Each website is centrally managed and undergoes regular performance review for key areas of their business. The latest annual design and functionality review was completed in March 2018.

Marketing

The brief from Leaderboard Golf Group was to carry out SEO services, as well as PPC and Display Network Remarketing services to improve search visibility and increase relevant traffic to all their venues, with a view to ultimately increase conversions.

Conversions from Leaderboard Golf comprised hotel bookings, golf break bookings, wedding bookings as well as bookings for their venue’s restaurants and spas.

It was critical that the traffic generated was highly relevant, made up of users who had shown high purchase intent and would likely engage with the content on the site. The overarching goal was to position each of Leaderboard’s venues as premier golf and wedding venues in their respective locations.

Due to the scope of the brief, the work focused largely on on-page optimisation. Keyword research was a key part of the solution in order to pinpoint valuable, relevant terms that were not currently being exploited. Following thorough keyword research, unique, relevant keyword-focused content was created, aimed at gaining new organic traffic for the venues for local and global search terms.

In terms of PPC, we’ve managed numerous campaigns for the client, focused on generating highly relevant traffic to their venues for the promotion of their golf breaks, wedding venue and restaurant and spa facilities.

In terms of results, we've highlighted results for each individual venue. Please see below.

The results below show Oxfordshire data in 2019 compared to the previous year, 2018.

  • 9.81% increase in overall traffic
  • 16.59% increase in organic traffic
  • 8.13% more sessions on the website
  • 4.53% bounce rate, compared to 14.69% (-69.15% change)

The results below show Dale Hill website data in 2019 compared to the previous year, 2018.

  • 17.23% increase in overall traffic
  • 21.27% increase in organic traffic
  • 17.24% increase in sessions
  • 3.77% bounce rate, compared to 13.38% (a depreciation of 71.8%)
  • Pages/session increased by 7.52%

Project summary

We have a long and proud history with The Leaderboard Group, and have provided them with web design, development, optimisation and digital marketing since 2007. We are very happy and proud to continue helping them maintain their exceptional standards and online presence.