Gosforth Pets and Aquatics

When we received a referral from Laverock Hall Farm we were delighted to be introduced to Gosforth Pets and Aquatics. Work commissioned from happy clients is always special and this project was made even more so by virtue of the sheer opportunity presented online to Mike and Marie Middleton, the owners of Gosforth Pets and Aquatics.

Gosforth Pets have traded for a number of years from their store on Wansbeck Road South in Gosforth, a suburb of Newcastle Upon Tyne. As a popular commuter town, Gosforth and the surrounding region has delivered a loyal customer base to what can best be described as a hidden gem of a retail store. Our task was simple - to move Gosforth Pets onto a new level by delivering a website that could proudly be claimed to be the best pets retail presence online in the region.

When we visited the store it immediately came to mind that it is a prime example of an Aladdins Cave. The exterior gives no indication of the sheer wealth, volume and diversity of creatures, accessories, food and essentials that you see inside. It is, quite simply, staggering. The shop is packed from door to rear and side to side (as well as floor to roof) with everything you could ever wish to buy for your pets - no matter how exotic or unusual they may be.

Aging and Uninspiring Website

However, this wasn't to be Gosforth Pets first journey online. Three years ago they'd invested in a site that delivered little or no return. Uninspiring and basic in design, template-looking in style and generally lacking in the core fundamentals for success online, they'd become disillusioned with its purpose. Whilst the site offered the ability to maintain news items they had never received so much as a single call for their efforts so had not added to its content in a long time.

This is commonplace and something we see and sympathise with regularly. If you don't see a return on your investment after a solid year of trying to maintain content, only the most optimistic of site owners wouldn't give in (and a poorly designed site will never return your investment no matter how much you write on it).

Making the site aesthetically pleasing, bringing the true colour of the animal world to the fore yet ensuring that the goal of the site becoming a key revenue generating tool was essential.

Colourful and Creative Design

The Gosforth Pets site needed to be vibrant in its colour yet fitting in its use. The need to communicate to a user that the choices Gosforth Pets offered was well beyond that of your average pet shop had to be done in a unique, eye catching and creative manner.

So, how do you achieve this when the client offers everything from rabbits to guinea pigs, birds to hamsters, spiders to tropical fish, millipedes to rats, snakes to shrimps and lizards to chinchillas! The answer wasn't an easy one to find but we eventually settled on something that all these creatures need - a habitat.

By grouping creatures and products into similar habitats we were quickly able to arrive at a set number into which almost everything would fall, thereby giving a structure that visitors would find easy to understand but didn't compromise the scope of products available. It also meant we could deliver a design that is remarkably clean in its execution yet has the the wow factor needed to stand out from the crowd.

This gave us a structure and design that allowed us to introduce real character - through the use of graphic web design elements that fit in so well that you'll often miss the little character-like animals that are included on every page of the website. Our initial draft met with immediate approval and we managed to encapsulate the message Gosforth Pets wanted to get to potential customers in a style that has met with a fantastic reception.

Successful Navigation

We have learned through experience that even the best looking websites can be awful experiences for visitors. If you can't find what you're looking for, you move on. Captivating the eye is one thing, motivating the brain to buy is another.

The Gosforth Pets website addresses this with a fully database driven product catalogue divided into its habitats but further divided into categories and sub categories. All are searchable from a full text search facility within each habitat. Products are presented in a way that minimise screen change and always brings the selected product into focus in the same place, the same size and with the ability to enlarge an image. In actual fact the site caters for 3 images for every product, though quite how Mike and Marie will ever find the time to upload 3 images for the thousands of items they can sell you is another challenge for them.

The main site menu above product selection is simple, effective, obvious and intuitive. No fancy methods were required, no multi-level complexity and no bright ideas that didn't deliver bright results. We stuck to the basics of good web design by having a top header placed main menu that serves its purpose on pages that follow in structured content of a consistent nature.

Content Management System

Regular readers of our case studies will know what is coming here. We don't do 'stock' solutions. Whilst there are a multitude of off-the-shelf and freely available content management systems, we stick to our ethic that management should be easy, effective, to the point and as custom as possible. Because of that, every single CMS we deliver is custom written. By us, for the client, for the job at hand. There are no compromises, no corners cut and no complex answers for simple questions.

The CMS gives non-technically inclined site owners the ability to be in total control with minimum training. In no time at all, Gosforth Pets were preparing their products for upload, constructing and inputting their product categories and starting the process of populating the system with information. Mike commented on how pleasantly surprised he was with the ease of using the CMS and it is a comment that is always good to hear and testimony to the reasons we keep to our ethic of custom CMS design. We could deliver sites faster without them, we could make more money without them, but the overall service, feel and ease of use wouldn't be something our clients want to change. They know we'll make the extra effort for them and the use of completely custom written, from scratch, content management systems is the ultimate example of the lengths we will go to.

The Extra Mile - The Map

We needed a map for Gosforth Pets. We could have taken one from Google, directly integrating it with the site. However, because of the virbrancy of colours used on this project it presented us with a dilemma - we wanted to be in complete control of the colour matching throughout the site, and you can't do that with a Google interactive map. Furthermore, we weren't convinced of how good the Google Map was in this particular area. What it couldn't do was emphasise the geographical marks we wanted to - the things that would make it easy for visitors to find the store quickly.

Because of this, Ben, our lead graphic web designer, set out on creating a hand drawn map. He took the basics of a Google map and stripped it down so all we were left with were the road lines, nothing more. From there, he custom coloured it, drew the points of reference on it that were needed, listed the primary transport networks in a way that didn't clutter the design and gave the site its very own map.

Below the map sits a CMS controlled section of text that the client can use for publishing directions, by road, by rail, or by air if things really take off (that's an awful joke, sorry).

SEO Benefits and Links

Now we turn to something that even we are astonished by. A lot of effort goes into making sure a site is found by the people the client wants it to be found by. However, Gosforth Pets has broken all records in this respect.

When we started this project we knew the market was there to be captured. In realising this we put a lot of effort into liaising with the client to ensure we were targeting the areas they wished to focus on most. Tropical fish, reptiles, exotic creatures and more. So, you can understand our feeling pleased with ourselves when, within 2 weeks, the website has achieved Google Page 1 listings for 9 keyword areas that are very broad in appeal (i.e. not very specific keywords and excuses for results such as 'pink spotted guinea pig in Newcastle' as many of our competitors claim as page 1 results). This is even more pleasing when you consider the fact the client had never previously had listings for these terms in the first 10 pages of Google.

That, in even the most understated of terms, is what we'd call a result. Hopefully our client will see the revenues this brings in time from the subsequent enquiries, new customer base it'll attract and the wider audience becoming familiar with the Gosforth Pets brand.

Our SEO services continue on the site so whilst the present news is good, the future looks even brighter (or Orange if you visit the Jungle habitat on the site).

Client Feedback

The first thing to say is that we are delighted with the way the project delivered a site that has brought fantastic feedback. There is little better than hearing how much a client or their visitors like your end product.

In doing so we've been pleased to hear of customers referencing the site within days of it going live. You can't ask for much more than direct footfall in such a short timescale.

Whats Gosforth Pets said...

Mike Middleton told us he wasn't very good at giving testimonials. He spends his time maintaining what is easily the best pet shop in Newcastle, so we appreciate he wasn't going to have much time to write an essay for us.

Instead, he was very kind to give us this statement:

"We were nervous about a new website. We had no need to be. ClarityWEB have guided us through every step without us ever needing to have cause for concern. Any query we had, they answered it in very quick time (usually within an hour!) and made us feel confident we'd made the right decision."

"Ben and Ray both helped us on the phone, whilst Chris seems to answer e-mails at all kind of unearthly hours! There isn't much more I can say. We asked for a brilliant looking website that we could take pride in, and they've given us it."

Chris Shaw, Managing Director of ClarityWEB, said "Gosforth Pets has been an immensely enjoyable project to work on and the results to date have been incredible. However, it does come with its disadvantages - my youngest daughter now wants to visit the shop at every opportunity and buy every creature known to man! To Mike and Marie, we wish the very best of success and it is richly deserved. Seldom do we see such commitment and will to win online. With their new website, we're confident they'll do just that."