Situation

Huntington Beach is located in Orange County, California, and is known as "Surf City USA" for its ten-miles of beaches and laid-back spirit; but there is much more to the seaside paradise, including a progressive culinary scene, numerous festivals, and ideal conference facilities.

The Visit Huntington Beach website was outdated and suffered from numerous usability and navigational issues, which resulted in an extremely high bounce rate. In fact, they had four separate websites for different audiences, which segmented traffic, frustrated users and were difficult to maintain. Although the bureau previously utilized a well-known content management system, it was cumbersome and not designed for the tourism industry. The bureau also maintained disparate databases for partner data, sales, media and visitors.

Solution

Upon partnering with Simpleview, a new digital strategy was established, which included merging four separate sites into a single, easy-to-navigate site (with a dedicated mobile version as well). The new site highlights visuals and immediately conveys the essence of the destination to site visitors. The Simpleview CMS/CRM allows bureau staff to easily manage all aspects of the site, and all of their data in one place. We incorporated a variety of tools and features, including a virtual tour, beach cams, multimedia gallery, social sharing/ social feeds, integrated maps, and even live surf reports.

Results

Visit Huntington Beach's new web and mobile sites launched on October 15, 2013. By September 2014, just 11 months after the website launched, there was a 55% year-over-year increase in both sessions and unique visitors. Additionally, organic traffic increased from 9,615 in September 2013 to 23,831 in September 2014.

These statistics demonstrate how a well-researched digital strategy can not only meet, but exceed goals over time.

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