Located just 90 minutes west of Denver, Granby Ranchis an easily accessible, family-friendly community with something for everyone to enjoy. Granby Ranch offers skiing, hiking, biking, fishing, golfing, event venues, and premier real estate for sale. Family-owned and operated, Granby Ranch is an opportunity for residents and guests to build lifelong memories.
Built on an outdated content management system (CMS), Granby Ranch’s previous site was vulnerable to security attacks. By the time AOR began the website redesign and development process, there were new bugs popping up daily.
It was clear that our first job was to transition the site to AOR’s custom WordPress theme as soon as possible. This process happened to coincide during Granby’s peak ski season, so our team had to be mindful of creating a seamless visitor experience during this high-traffic time.
We began with a website discovery phase, allowing us to gather information on the user journey and engagement with the past website. Based on this information, we were able to create a sitemap and content map to best accommodate the typical Granby Ranch website user. Our goals were to improve the navigation and calls to action while also creating the ability for a visitor to easily plan a trip and purchase tickets.
We also wanted to use engaging imagery to tell the Granby Ranch story. Integrating photography and real-life experiences through user-generated content was a key component to executing an authentic user experience online.
Once we had the sitemap and content map in place, our web team worked through wireframes to show how our plans for navigation and page hierarchy would come to life. Next, site designs integrated the new brand identity AOR had previously created to ensure there was cohesion within the online experience and overall brand.
We then moved into development, where we executed key functionality and extensive integrations with ticketing systems, trip planning, news and events, user-generated content from social media, a live camera from the mountain’s base, and member portals.
We launched the site mid–ski season when online traffic is typically very high, making it paramount to create a seamless process for visitors. To facilitate as few disruptions as possible, we scheduled the site for the wee hours of the morning.
In the first 45 days, the site is loading 32.16% faster, with an average page load time of 3.09 seconds. Compared to the same period last year, the site has a 9.14% increase in organic traffic and a 4.47% traffic increase overall.
Faster
Average load time
Increase in organic traffic
Increase in overall traffic