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Brief: The brief was two fold:
1. to build a market place for silver dealers and auction houses
2. to build a family crest database using 19th century publications with 50,000
Initially we were faced with several 19th century books from which to decipher the data that was required for the site. For this we sourced additional help to check the information and then digitise it which resulted in a database of 47,000 English family name records and 8,000 family crests which had to be matched together with their appropriate family names. Crests were scanned and enhanced if necessary and are displayed with translated family mottos where appropriate.
We came up with ideas and solutions for the client in order to maximise the service offering. These include the ability for users to add an auction to their calendars, sign up for alerts for when their family silver is listed.
Tags
We also developed a complex tagging system that automatically categorised the products so that dealers didn’t have to and to avoid them making mistakes in categorising items.
Usability: Usability testing was carried out during the development stage of the bespoke content management system to ensure it was as user-friendly as possible. Signed up dealers and auction houses each have access to the bespoke content management system allowing them to manage their own catalogue listings, upload images and text. There is also the function for them to identify the crest by simply inserting a key word, eg horse, and the site then displays every crest which features a horse. The vendors can run reports to view activity on their listings, click throughs, enquiries, etc.
Conclusion: We dealt with a mammoth amount of data in order to make this project work. The result is an upmarket bespoke site which has attracted all of the large auction houses (Sothebys, Christies, Bonhams, etc) and major dealers, providing them with access to 1000s of potential customers.
SEO: SEO work was started six months before launch date by using a holding page and blog. This helped give the site traction in search engines by the time it was launched, thereby avoiding the 6 months "dead time" as it usually takes Google 6 months to list any new domain name. From nowhere the site now has 50,000 pages indexed by Google and ranks top 3 for their key phrase including "antique silver".
PPC: Originally Datadail were not in charge of the PPC account but have since taken this over. This has already resulted in a 50% reduction in the monthly PPC spend, saving an incredible amount of wasted money on non-converting clicks.
Due to handling the design, programming, and SEO in-house we are able to ensure that all areas develop concurrently, hand in hand, for maximum impact. Our flexible approach and passion is unsurpassed and our ability to turn a client's idea into a reality, with added value, is priceless. Kerry Bates, senior programmer, takes credit for deciphering the complex antiques and family crest information and then creating a structure for this data in an easy-to-use format.
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