Edinburgh International Conference Centre
World Class Events from the Heart of Scotland's Capital
The Client
Situated in the heart of Scotland’s capital, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre has been home to world-class conferences and events.
Continuing our 7 year digital partnership with EICC and following internal brand repositioning, our client was eager to refresh their online presence to better tackle new objectives, and more accurately reflect their new mission to create 'An environment to inspire ideas that change the world'.
This refreshed site must also align to EICC’s global gaze, their commitment to transformational, international-tier events and sustainable innovation within the wider events space.
Brand re-Discovery and Audit
Following brand rediscovery workshops with the EICC team, we carried-out a thorough UX audit and benchmarked current SEO performance against this renewed strategy and positioning.
Our audit also encompassed an assessment of EICC's content which was considered well-performing but overly fragmented which resulted in friction to content discoverability and browse-ability. On a related note, key pages were typically deep in the structure, reducing their SEO value and contributing to a frustrating UX.
The overall visual presentation had held-up extremely well in the 6.5 years since launch, but there was an appetite from all stakeholders to evolve the user interface design to be more current, visually functional and internationally on-trend – better reflecting the graphical wayfinding and signage experienced within the venue itself.
Solution
A human-centred and SEO-friendly site restructuring and set of user journeys was undertaken - driven by the following distinct user types and their aims:
- Event organisers - benchmarking EICC’s key capabilities and suitability against other international event destinations
- Event attendees - typically not local and in need of key venue information, what to expect, and inspired to get the most out of their visit to the Scottish capital
- Local/national customers - looking to book from EICC's public event programme, including Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe and European Tour events
EICC offers a range of facilities including adaptable auditoria, break-out suites and spacious exhibition and reception areas – all with the latest technologies. This section was reworked for faster, more inspiring cross-facility comparison.
Intelligent restructuring highlights flexible configurations through rich content, including interactive floorplans and 3D walkthroughs to give users a real sense of the spaces from anywhere in the world.
Our client likes to get the most out of their chosen CMS, Umbraco - and create their own landing pages or modify current sections. With Umbraco’s intuitive and modular grid editor, EICC has access to a powerful toolkit of flexible, mix-and-match content modules.
This provides ongoing autonomy and control in being able to better reflect what they need from pages, without relying on Radiator or a pre-set template - while maintaining consistency of presentation and rhythm of layout across the whole site.
This admin function also boosts opportunity for content cross-pollination while highlighting key mission aims. Examples include Step Change - EICC's commitment to sustainable events and high standards driving transformation across the industry – as well as their popular Ideas Hub articles – magazine-format thought pieces and guides, providing valuable insights to those visiting the venue and the wider city.
Digital Marketing
Our digital marketing team targeted competitive keywords to rank naturally for top positions against national and global competitors. This included conference centres in London, Birmingham, Paris & Berlin.
We achieved our goals through a multi-level SEO strategy:
- Appearing highly for 'conference organiser' and related searches from target prospects including international institutions and organisations looking for venues
- Ranking in the top positions for upcoming events / conferences at the EICC and attract interest and attendees
- Flexible SEO approach - meaning we can switch focus as required, as realised when successfully focussing on hybrid events
Embracing the digital marketing mix and dovetailing with SEO, we also manage Google search/remarketing ads and social ads mainly through LinkedIn.
We enjoyed working with Radiator on the development of our new website. In the early stages the team at Radiator took a thorough approach to understanding our market to design a website which would meet the expectations of our clients and stakeholders, as well deliver against our KPI’s. Radiator’s process made the development and feedback smooth and efficient. We are delighted with the final result, which is a slick new website with a simplified navigational structure and vastly improved use of images and videos, as well as increased opportunities for engagement. We are looking forward to the business benefit that the new website shall deliver for EICC.
Jill Spink, Marketing, EICC
