Background:

Marcus Lewis runs a small boat building business in the Cornish town of Fowey. Marcus specialises in building, restoring and repairing all kinds of wooden keelboats, dinghies and yachts. In particular Marcus builds Troy class keelboats and Fowey River Dinghies. Marcus didn't have a website and was looking into the ways in which the Internet could support the growth of his business

Objective:

To increase quality enquiries into the business via a website. Website to be maintained easily by Marcus and to incur minimal cost to the business.

Strategy:

To create website with optimised keyword content and combine with a content management system that would allow Marcus to make any amends to any page within the website and to add new articles and pages.

Cornwall Marine Network:

• Met with Marcus and discussed the need for a website, how that website would look and the structure that it could take. Also explained the principles behind search engine optimisation. Discussed budget and possible options.
• After initial discussions supported Marcus by:
• Recommending hosting and domain name supplier
• Editing text provided by Marcus so that it was optimised for the web
• Creating the site using WordPress content management system (free open source software) basing the site on the Sliding Doors theme

• Training Marcus how to use the content management system
• Adding Google Analytics statistics programme to the website
• Adding search engine optimisation plugins into Wordpress to improve the search engine performance of the website
• Added gallery plugin to allow visitors to enlarge pictures in the gallery
• Embedding video clips into the website

Visit the website: www.woodenboatbuilder.co.uk

Outputs: The site was launched on the 14 July 2009 and is already ranking page 1 in Google for many keyword phrases, including wooden boat builder. This has already led to a number of enquiries.