Natural Bloom
Natural Bloom is a community-driven web site offering information on holistic health.
While Natural Bloom is essentially our site, we've included it here as a prime example of our work. The site offers:
- Content management system
- Practitioner directory
- Social bookmarking links
- Email newsletter
- User registration
- Link exchange program
- Targetted advertising engine & integrated google adsense
Site Design
Natural Bloom had a complete redesign in 2004. The initial design was optimised for a tiny 640x480 screen size, which resulted in a very cramped feel to the pages. The new design retains the Natural Bloom branding (such as evocative nature photography and corporate colours), and makes better use of the larger screens common today, allowing a more open feel to the site. With the wider layout the font sizes could be increased, making the content much easier to read.
The frames used in the initial design were also dropped, making Natural Bloom easier to navigate and allowing visitors to bookmark individual pages of the site.
Content Management
Natural Bloom includes a powerful content management system, which allows administrators to add and modify content for the majority of the site. The system significantly reduces the time taken to add new content to the site, and means that site updates can be carried out by non-technical staff.
One of Natural Bloom's great strengths is its use of visitor contributions, and the site includes several interactive areas where registered users can post content. Staff are alerted when visitor contributions are received, so that they can be checked and edited if necessary.
Marketing
Natural Bloom is carefully crafted to be search engine friendly, and has been optimised to rank highly in the major search engines. As a result, the site has seen a sharp increase in traffic coming from search engines.
The majority of people visit a web site only once, and never return. There are many ways to encourage repeat visitors, the most important being regular content updates. Natural Bloom follows a regular publishing schedule and also uses an opt-in email newsletter to ensure repeat visits to the site.
The success of our marketing efforts can be seen by looking at Natural Bloom's visitor numbers, which average around 12,000 visitors a month.