Artec website was a long term project that spanned 2 redesign cycles over a course of 8 years.

Project Goal for 2005 release:
Redesign the website to be user friendly, provide intuitive navigation. Produce Search Engine friendly site to increase web traffic. Increase amount of data highlighting company’s track record. Drive visitors to Download Center.

Project Goal for 2011 release:
Further increase amount of information by providing new website sections to accommodate new web traffic channels relevant for keywords specific to the industry “Concert Hall Acoustics” “Acoustic Consulting” etc. Redesign most popular Landing Pages to draw visitor’s further into other sections of website such as Services and Projects.

Design Process 2005:
Internal research into user friendliness of website showed unsatisfying results. Consultants found navigation confusing, cumbersome and as a consequence they rarely used website as a sales tool during meetings, conference calls or online discussions.
Search Engine statistics showed very poor results for 2002 version of Artec website. The daily visits maximum barely reached 30 during the work week. Google rank for the site stood at 2 out of 10. Google indexed only about 1/3 of entire site which ranged between 100 and 200 pages.

To increase traffic flow to Artec’s site I have shaped architecture implementing simple and logical organization. Search Engine optimization researched helped a great deal in site organization and file naming convention which later proved to be vital in drawing targeted traffic to Artec site.

Results of 2005 release:
Newly redesigned Search Engine friendly website increased traffic flow from 15-30 daily visits to 100-200 range. Google rank changed to 4 out of 10 from former 2 out of 10. Google has indexed more than 600 pages while the entire content of website ranged near 800 pages at the time of release. Artec started showing up in top spots among Google Search results for Artec related searches.
Internal Usage undergone a major shift. Consultants found website navigation to be intuitive and very easy to use. They began using it internally as well as externally during work meetings, sales presentations and online forums. I quickly learned that I have to install filters into Google Analytics to filter out visits from internal IPs as well as factor in for site usage coming in during consultants travel.

“. . . rich in content, yet easy to navigate and logically organized. . . “

Todd Brooks
Partner, Artec Consultants Inc
See full review on LinkedIn

“. . . Our original, rather perfunctory website became a huge sales asset, which is now a very helpful tool in guiding our clients through our design process. . . “

Christopher S. Darland
Associate Partner, Artec Consultants Inc
See full review on LinkedIn

As a subsequent result of increased traffic flow, we started to receive more form submissions which came from visitor accessing Downloads Center. While a third of those were students the amount of an audience we wished to reached appeared as well. Performing Arts professionals in senior and mid-level managing positions started accessing Downloads Center and providing their contact information which Artec followed up with either a phone call or a mailing.

Design Process 2011:
There was no doubt that new stream of traffic coming from search engines has increased Artec web presence. Therefore number of referring sites grew. Furthermore, I insisted Artec request live links whenever its consultants are interviewed for online publication and whenever current and former clients mention Artec on their sites. Partners and senior personnel agreed and were proactive in this endeavor whenever opportunity presented itself.

Even though 2005 release has significantly improved Artec website effectiveness my research revealed that there was still room for improvement. First of all, I believe Artec could draw more potential clients to its site if we were able to increase amount from traffic targeted to specific keywords. Even though such keywords did bring traffic to the site (see tables below)

I am positive that there is an opportunity to increase number of possible clients coming to Artec’s site by building an additional section that would create landing pages for keywords related to industry specific terms, such as “Concert Hall Acoustics”, “Theater Planning Consulting”, etc.

Those new landing pages would need to be logically interlinked within the site to drive their ranking up and improve the chances for top spots on search term results pages.

More research into functionality of Artec website has revealed that many “image pages” where among top landing pages on Artec’s site.

Due to website architecture and naming convention Google has placed many of Artec’s images among top ranking for industry specific keywords. See snapped screen shot below.

In my research I found that people viewing pictures often do not associate an image with the website that is displaying them unless website layout accommodates the visitor to notice its brand. I have redesigned image pages to include several mentions of Artec and the services it provided to the facility on the photo I also considered that if a potential client landed on an image page he may be interested services provided to that facility by Artec.      

Wireframe sample 2011:

Experience latest Artec Consultants Inc website

Results of 2011 release:
Due to redesign visitors had perform fewer clicks to get to desired pages. Secondary navigation within most heavily populated Services and Projects sections were easier to access. Slight increase in traffic flow has occurred. Internal interviewed showed that newly redesigned increased ease of navigation and saved more time during research performed by consultants.

Experience latest Artec Consultants Inc website