Website increasing web traffic by 24%
My Role: Lead Designer
Summary: Cache Valley Martial Arts is a gym where I trained for several years. I created CVMA a new website, optimized their SEO, developed brand standards, and delivered a marketing campaign.
By the end of the project, we saw web traffic increase by 24% and became ranked #1 on Google for gyms in the area.
Undiscovered
CVMA is full of some of the best coaches Utah has to offer. World team members, Gold Glove winners, and black belts could be found on their staff.
CVMA wanted to take the next step to increase its customer base and grow its semi-pro fighting team.
Local gym with world level talent
Have you ever been secretly good at something and it was fun to keep it on the down low? Well, CVMA was great at what they did and was tired of being kept secret!
The problem was that CVMA is in Logan, UT, which is usually flooded with seasonal broke college students. CVMA would need to switch its brand and marketing strategy to attract its target audience of students and families.
🧑🏾👩🏻👦🏽 CVMA would need to highlight their youth programs as a way to help parents trust that their children were safe and developing healthy skills.
👤 CVMA's online presence needed to be confident and inviting to people who had negative connotations against fighting gyms
🔐If CVMA didn't make changes to its branding and website experience it was possible that the company would fail.
After doing extensive market research comparing CVMA's offering and brand to other fighting gyms in the area, I realized I needed to perform field research to understand what CVMA was doing well.
I interviewed people who attended classes and several students on campus to get a better understanding of the:
Overall opinion of fighting gyms
Why someone would think about joining
What are people concerned about regarding martial arts
Establishing great information architecture
Before we talked about UI principles, it was important to get the content right! Content is king when convincing potential clients to try something new and scary. It was critical to work with the business to create content that stayed true to the brand and made martial arts more inclusive.
My research showed that our target audience wanted a low-risk trial period as well as to be educated on the benefits of martial arts.
Choosing a font and voice
CVMA's voice needed to be friendly and inviting but sound confident and full of authority. This was to encourage students and families to try something new but reinforce that CVMA staff was full of trained professionals.
While unpopular, I decided to have "Impact" be the header font and paired it with "dins-next-w01" as the body to emphasize the boldness and authority of CVMA.
The language on the website changed from "wishy-washy" to definite and inviting.
ex. Safety is a top priority -> Your child will be safe
Getting Ranked #1
A new website and brand can only get you so far if people can't find you. It was important to research the trending keywords in the area that would get CVMA to the top of Google listings.
Some of the top keywords that I implemented into our content and page descriptions were:
- Self Defense
-MMA
-Boxing
-Fitness
-Coaching
I was concerned that I was going to create a system that was incredibly hard for them to manage after the project was done. The business was excited about the re-brand but needed help to ensure scalability.
I worked with owners to install a booking system that would automatically inform coaches of new students attending and how large class sizes would be.
I was able to lead a small team to create an in-depth marketing plan for CVMA. Equipped with a new website, brand, and SEO, a marketing plan was the last thing CVMA needed to be successful.
This plan included an estimated budget, measurements of success, examples, and clear instructions on the type of content they needed to attract their target audience.
See our marketing plan👀
