The challenge
Moors Valley Country Park is a 1000-acre award-winning visitor attraction, offering a variety of countryside pursuits. From miles of walking and cycling trails to playful adventures like Mini Land Rovers and Adventure Golf, there is so much to do. The park’s website, however, was in need of modernisation. Reliance on manual updates led to inefficiencies, while declining engagement suggested it wasn’t resonating with the audience as it once had. In addition, the site wasn’t mobile-friendly, leading to high bounce rates as more users accessed the site via mobile devices.
Moors Valley needed a solution that would automate processes, effectively showcase its plethora of activities and ensure a mobile-first design aligned with modern web standards like W3C, all while maintaining fast load times.
Our strategy
Our first priority was to gain a deep understanding of Moors Valley’s needs, its broad offering and its diverse user base. Using our experience in visitor attractions, we developed audience personas and identified 20 key pages which were driving 62% of page impressions. This insight allowed us to streamline navigation and enhance the layout while reducing the number of pages.
Recognising that most visitors were accessing the site via mobile, we prioritised a mobile-first design strategy. This approach was vital for future proofing the website.
To ease administrative burdens, we introduced a CSV upload system to automate updates including opening hours and parking fees. We also empowered different departments by granting them access to manage their sections of the website, including the critical emergency banner.
To boost commercial results, spotlighted content was used to promote upcoming activities, as well as making the ‘Things to Do’ section easy to browse. Visual appeal was enhanced through the addition of videos and images, while features like newsletter signups and social media links further increased engagement.
Despite the site’s previous design shortcomings, it was already performing well SEO-wise. We ensured these strengths were preserved and continued to prioritise SEO in our content strategy.
The results
The revamped Moors Valley website delivered outstanding results.
Mobile performance saw a dramatic improvement, with the mobile performance score increasing from 39 to 82. The site successfully passed the Core Web Vitals assessment for the first time. Additionally, the first contentful paint time for mobile reduced from 3.0 seconds to 1.8 seconds, offering a smoother user experience.
Administrative efficiency improved significantly with the new automated functionalities, also directing calls to the appropriate concession areas rather than the central admin team.
In terms of engagement, within the first three months post-launch:
- Website sessions jumped by 63.81%
- Engaged sessions increased by 56.44%
- Average engagement time per session rose by 6.04%
This transformation showcases the impact of a strategic, user-focused website redesign, driving engagement and simplifying management for visitor attractions.
“We are really pleased with our new website and are particularly impressed by how well it has met our brief and how visually impactful it looks. The initial engagements is really positive and we’re getting lots of newsletter subscribers each day since it’s launch. . THANK you so much for all your hard work and for understanding and rising to our operational challenges so well.”
Melanie Keddie, Marketing Manager, Forestry England