Estancia Ranquilco
Making memorable moments through delightful experiences.
Legacy Agency Design Project -> from 2017
Estancia Ranquilco is a beautiful Argentinian horse and cattle ranch in the foothills of the Andes. The ranch extends for tens of thousands of acres & in recent years has begun to host guests for luxurious horse packing trips and in opulent guest cabins.
They had been a client of EvenVision’s pre-dating my arrival at the company in 2012. However, while we had retained communication from the original SEO work that we did for them we had not yet had a chance to provide them a complete website.
As part of a client relationship program I developed for EvenVision we conducted a comprehensive SEO audit of their website after which their owner T.A. struck up a conversation about how we might be able to help them make some dramatic improvements. As it turned out, over the years since EvenVisions original work their ranch had begun to struggle filling their seasons which T.A. had attributed to a marked drop in traffic over the years.
The back story
The Problem
Through a series of comprehensive conversations with the owner, careful analysis of their website through our propriety SEO audit and a comprehensive dig through analytics we uncovered the follow core problems.
Their site no longer mapped to Google Search best practices owing to information architecture, site structure and underlying data mapping which was resulting in a drop in raw search traffic.Once visitors arrived on site these issues were compounded by visitors struggling to navigate the site. This was further illuminated by the drop in raw requests, and an increase in direct email referral inquiries for their vacation services. The current website infrastructure lacked the ability to be retrofitted with the appropriate changes to make a meaningful impact on their businesses search ranking.
The Design Solution
Ultimately this led to my proposal an comprehensive rebuild of their website on a more robust SEO optimized platform that would not only allow them to strategically improve their search ranking but further improve the user experience once a visitor arrived on the site.
With T.A.’s blessing I led the design and development of a new website that focused on the following items:
A more robust and user friendly SEO optimized data infrastructure and information architecture for easy maintenance.
A revitalized user experience driven by the powerful imagery of Estancia Ranquilco, accompanied by subtle but distinct visual design elements.
The question that drove our solution:
“How might we provide a digital experience that leaves people with irresistible memories of Estancia Ranquilco that keeps them coming back to soak up more of the beauty and ultimately seek a booking.”
Sometimes the simplest things takes your breath away.
Implementation.
Visual Design:
In designing the visuals for Estancia Ranquilco, I really wanted to be sure to capture the rugged nature of the environment. This manifested itself in strong each tones, and strategic mountainous cutouts in the design which emphasis the natural environments of the ranch.
Typographically I selected Harfrang-Pro which is a serif font that blends itself nicely to a certain visual elegance while clearly bring something that can withstand a beating. This font was selected to mirror the fine elegance of the vacation accommodations without being too neutral, so there is a sense of character embedded into the font that maps to the modern rustic elegance of the Ranch.
The Results
Once launched the website an immediate success across our key metrics for the project.
Most importantly: once the season opened up, they were fully booked three months early, and by the time the season hit they have a extensive waitlist which subsequently opened the door new business opportunities for their business model which they would capitalize on to a dramatic degree in the following year.
Key metrics we sought to improve upon in the project:
Search Discovery (non-referral) inquiries jumped 96%
Traffic increased by 93%
Page views per session +350%
Return traffic increased +120%
Ultimately the designs succeed in creating a truly sticky memorable experience.
Personal Reflects.
Estancia Ranquilco highlighted the power of the SEO Audit program that I initiated at EvenVision. Along with rebuilding their website, we subsequently captured 3 other comprehensive rebuild projects within 2 months through the work that I did in maintaining relationships with clients.
This program was sparked by the simple question:
“How might we provide our client long-term value that keep them armed with the latest developments and up to date on the environmental changes that are impacting their business. “
Another way that I thought about it.
“How might we provide our clients with a product and accompanying service that would make them sad to leave EvenVision, as well as continually exceed their expectations.”