National State Tourism Directors Mercury Awards > Travel Website

TravelWyoming.com

About This Entry:

Following a user experience study, the Wyoming Office of Tourism identified it was time to take TravelWyoming.com to the next level. With an eye-catching site redesign and rebranding behind them, the next step in their evolution was to optimize the user’s path through the website to the content they were looking for—as well as leading them to content they didn’t know they wanted. Providing streamlined access to content-rich pages for each topic not only led to higher engagement with the site but also pushed site visitors further down the travel-planning funnel to complete meaningful signals of intent to travel.

Campaign Strategy:

Working with a limited budget, the goal was to make small changes that would have a big impact on the user experience. A twofold approach was taken to help users find inspirational content sitewide:

A Refined Design: A new “mega menu” and sticky footer were added to the site’s design. The larger new drop-down menu logically exposes users to the most popular pages more than once. For instance, Wyoming’s National Parks & Monuments – its main draws for visitors – can be found under Places to Go, Things to Do, Plan Your Trip and That’s WY in addition to being its own navigation item.

The main goal of the sticky footer, which remains at the bottom of the browser window as the user scrolls, is to constantly give the user the opportunity to order a Vacation Guide or sign up for the monthly e-newsletter, which are two of the Office of Tourism’s primary goals.

A Site Structure with More to Explore: To support the newly designed menu and footer, updates were made to the site’s overall structure. Categories were simplified to topics like Outdoor Activities, Food & Drink and Travel Resources, and all fall under one of the five main menu items, giving users several access points to the site’s content.

National Parks & Monuments, Places to Go, Things to Do and Plan Your Trip use labeling that’s self-explanatory, and the That’s WY logo is where users can go to explore more of the Wyoming lifestyle, such as the culture of American Indians and cowboys.

Site improvements didn’t stop with the navigation—secondary landing pages were also adapted to guide users through the site. For instance, the National Parks & Monuments landing page at left begins with an introductory paragraph to help set the stage before providing a visual grid of options for deeper exploration. Getting users to content more quickly by reducing the number of clicks to get there has led to increased engagement sitewide.

Results:

The site’s new menu and footer were published in mid-February, so we looked at year-over-year metrics for mid-February through mid-April. Overall, average time on site has increased 22 percent, and sitewide bounce rate is down 9 percent.

Additionally, Google Analytics’ Behavior Flow insights suggest users are diving deeper into the site, with 56 percent of users who land on the homepage diverting to more than 100 different pages rather than following a single path through the site.

Thanks to the new sticky footer, year over- year visits to the e-newsletter sign-up page increased a whopping 82 percent, and visits to the guide order page increased 45 percent.

Why This Is A Finalist: 

Wyoming exhibited good positioning and execution with their website redesign. The design shows gorgeous imagery and content, and the “sticky footer” concept works well, especially in a mobile application. It was smart to break out national parks and monuments and weave those attractions throughout the navigation tools. There were excellent user results noted by marketers, including positive reactions by visitors to the order page.