Yucca

Farm & Cottage Holidays is one of the largest independent cottage holiday agencies in the UK with over 1,200 holiday letting properties throughout Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.

The business has been family run for over 30 years and has always adopted a progressive approach. Farm & Cottage Holidays’ first ecommerce website launched 9 years ago at www.holidaycottages.co.uk the most desirable URL in the sector - and today the majority of the brand’s bookings are taken online.

Farm & Cottage Holidays’ brief to Yucca was to 1) attract more quality traffic and 2) ensure that site users are converted into customers.

So we conducted a user testing program (both remote and one-to-one) to help us understand the key user challenges. We then defined the site architecture with the client and validated our conclusions with site users prior to design and build.

The new website was built to balance the user experience with SEO, PPC and affiliate marketing requirements, and has performed exceptionally well since launching in December 2009 with a 20% increase in organic traffic, and a 15% year-on-year increase in site revenue.

The planned activity for the coming year will leverage Social Media to further engage audiences offsite and drive users to purchase, along with content enhancements including video, rich imagery and user-generated content that will effect a step change for the brand.

"We think our new website delivers the best online research and booking experience in the cottage holiday sector. The feedback from our holidaymakers and property owners has been excellent."
James Morris, Managing Director

Take a look at the site: www.holidaycottages.co.uk