WEEK 3 - WEB DEVELOPMENT!

Happy Cog & Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation

1. What role did navigation and usability play in the redesign of the website?

The original website was hard to navigate and was confusing to people attempting to use the site. As a result of this people avoided booking through the site to avoid confusion, which also resulted in low visitor rates to Philadelphia. 

happy hog simplified the site to have three choice processes:

• Selecting a destination
•  Then Building the itinerary
• Then obtaining detailed information about the city 

They also made use of visual aids such as photos and videos so the site was more engaging to those viewing it.

2. Why was the addition of social layers important in the redesign?

By adding social layers such as Facebook and Twitter this opened up the tourism campaign to a new audience,  Facebook and Twitter both give the option to share links to the website which would have been seen by people who before hand would not have looked at the website. With social media sites been a huge part of every ones lives it would have been ridiculous for them not to use social media as a marketing outlet.

3. Why did the developers decide to consolidate the content management platforms?

The developers needed to consolidate the site content to ensure the it was organised and had a lesser chance of the site crashing, they did this by adding a coding system which allowed them to work on the front-end and back-end concurrently. The old site was messy and unorganised, the old system relied on entering data manually which left room for error. By consolidating the information it was easier for users to navigate through the page. 

4. Having considered the case study, discuss in general terms what role you now understand a website plays in an overall digital marketing strategy.

A website plays a vital role in the marketing of any company or organisation, we live in a era where computers and Internet dominate the world of marketing there fore it is essential for business to be involved in e-marketing. Without a strong website to satisfy the needs of customers they can and will simply go elsewhere.