Oxford City Council
Increase in
Organic Traffic
Increase in
Enquiries
Reduction in
User Retention
Key Achievements
- New website for Oxford Direct Services & Subsequently, other council websites
- 42% Increase in Organic Traffic
- 66% Increase in Enquiries for Council Services including Waste Management
- 49% Increase in User Retention
Oxford City Council provides local government for the city of Oxford and is part of a network of councils covering Oxfordshire including Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, West Oxfordshire Council, Vale of White Horse District Council & South Oxfordshire Council.
Oxford City Council approached Assertive for website re-design and development for the commercial arm Oxford Direct Services.
This involved research, planning and scoping exercises to understand key requirements, user experience requirements, content for landing pages and website functionality.
Challenge
The challenge for Assertive was to build a new, organic friendly / user focused website that incorporated updated design on a new content management platform allowing the client more control.
The challenge also included increasing organic growth on the back of a new website – this involved new content creation, new landing pages, extended service information & more.
Alongside the new website included new functionality such as an MOT booking platform to help speed up the MOT booking process for Oxford Council MOT’s.
- Research competitor websites (commercial)
- Produce wireframe / schematic for new website
- Plan out new website content profile & navigation
- Build a website on a new CMS migrating away from a custom platform
- Produce new landing page content
- Trial new page layouts
- Improve user experience cross-browser / cross-device
- Improve site speed
- Improve organic keyword coverage
- Improve local SEO performance
The Goals with Oxford
City Council
- Improve Organic Rankings for Relative Keywords (Local and Non-Local Commercial Terms)
- Increase Website Engagement
- Increase Website Conversion Rate
- Reduce POGOing (returning to Google)
- Increase Volume of 1st to Last Interaction
- Increase Client Ability to Self-Manage Website
- Move Client away from Bespoke CMS to Industry Standard CMS
- Integrate New Booking Functionality
- Increase Brand Awareness
The Strategy
The strategy for Oxford City Council was to break down each set of requirements into independent tasks, identifying, in priority order what was required for the end user as well as service perspective.
We took into consideration the clients wants/requirements to be able to have more control over the website, content and website functionality.
The strategy covered SEO as well as website design and development. Our goal was to build an “SEO” friendly website whilst producing new content focused towards the end user to help drive engagement.
The SEO / Marketing / Design strategy was interconnected, factoring search intent at keyword level alongside service promotion, USPS and functionality. Using services, we were able to conduct service level keyword research followed by competitor analysis & landing page analysis to ascertain the best page layout / framework.
Client Testimonials
What our clients say about the service we deliver.
We were really happy with the delivery from Assertive – they designed and built a really nice looking website which was far more functional and easier to manage. They helped us to reach more customers which is fantastic – very pleased
