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UPDATE 1/20/10 – Burj Dubai has made an official name change to Burj Khalifa.  Along with this name change, they have moved their website from www.burjdubai.com to www.burjkhalifa.ae.  Please visit the new Burj Khalifa website (formerly Burj Dubai).

SiteLab is pleased to announce the initial launch of the much anticipated new website for Burj Dubai, The Tallest Building in the World.  This is the first phase of the launch of the site with new features and site enhancements to be rolled out over the next few weeks.   Check out the new site at www.BurjDubai.com.

We’re proud to say that the site has already attracted over 30,000 visitors, despite the fact that the site’s launch hasn’t officially been announced.

UPDATE 12/22/09:

With all the recent news about Dubai amid their credit crisis, a story was featured on the Yahoo home page, prominently displaying an image of Burj Dubai.  This led to over 30,000 visitors on that day alone (almost 90% search traffic).  Since launch the site has averaged over 8,500 visitors a day (with nearly 80% of this traffic coming via organic search).  Usage of the site has also been quite impressive with visitors averaging over 4 pages a visit and more than 3 and a half minutes on site.

We’re especially pleased with the site’s organic search performance as the former site was designed completely in flash, without any regard for search visitors.  The site’s new structure allows for visitors to enter the site through any one of the HTML pages designed to attract search traffic from highly relevant, highly searched keywords.  Not only does this provide a better user experience for search visitors (as they land on the page directly relevant for their search), but it also allows the site to attract more search visitors with content that is both accessible by and desired by search engines.  The previous site designed in flash had no indexable search content and made it impossible for search visitors to land on a page relevant to their search.

Posted in Cool Websites, SiteLab Clients, SiteLab Creative, SiteLab News & Events | 3 Comments »

When Chiquita approached us to develop a new website appealing to health conscious consumers there were several challenges we had to overcome.

Challenges

• Audience Fragmentation – Chiquita appeals to so many different audiences and demographics that it was difficult to determine exactly where this website would fit in to the whole family of Chiquita properties. Before we started we found that the most visible web property to consumers was actually on the corporate Chiquita.com website, which gave little attention to the fact that consumers would browse this information.
• Creating Offline Results Online – Our efforts would have to result in increased sales at the store level, which is more of a challenge when stores typically carry one brand or another, rather than having two brand compete in-store. We would have to develop a plan where users either search out Chiquita grocery stores or get consumers to ask for Chiquita by name.

Goal

The goal was clear – develop an integrated retail and online program generating interest at the store level. Educate consumers about the nutritional value of bananas when compared to their low cost.

Solution/Outcome

• Content Development – The first step of our solution was to develop a new website catering solely to promoting Chiquita Bananas to consumers. The new website, at www.ChiquitaBananas.com, addresses the void of banana-related information that was out there online. The new, fully search engine optimized website gives consumers usage ideas, nutrition information and general banana information, such as where bananas are grown and how to select the best bananas. There’s also a section devoted entirely to kids, where kid-related recipes are promoted to give parents ideas for incorporating bananas into snacks, lunches and dinners.
• Consumer Incentives – We started a free recipe newsletter to serve as a way for Chiquita to start email marketing efforts with an attractive, no risk offer. Through the free recipe newsletter we will be able to keep Chiquita Banana top of mind for health conscious consumers. We also incentivized the website even more with calls to action inviting users to participate in Chiquita’s Tropical Getaway Sweepstakes, where consumers could win a trip to Costa Rica, a Chiquita growing region. As the final piece of the incentive puzzle, stores themselves are invited to participate in a contest where the most effective in-store displays are rewarded with one of several valuable prizes.
• Integrated Offline Promotion – Even though the above is compelling, we felt strongly about integrating our efforts with in-store and offline promotions. As a result, a retail program was developed with in-store point of sale (POS) materials. POS displays showcase Chiquita Banana recipes and promote the sweepstakes that is running through October to supplement our online efforts. Coupled with the store contest encouraging in-store displays, this program has been warmly received.
• Online Promotion – To encourage even more traffic to the site beyond in-store promotions, the site was developed with Search Engine Optimization in mind every step of the way. This allows the website the best opportunity to capitalize on existing search traffic related to bananas and other desirable topics, such as ‘healthy’-related searches. SEO sometimes can take a little time to develop traffic, so this was also supplemented with an integrated PPC campaign on Google to ensure that traffic would start flowing almost immediately.

Overall, we are still waiting to see the ultimate results of the programs that have been put into place, but this plan nonetheless represents a strong step forward for Chiquita in the online marketing space.

Tags: integrated online media campaign, online marketing, SEO, website design, Website development
Posted in Cool Websites, SiteLab Clients, SiteLab Creative, SiteLab News & Events | 7 Comments »

San Diego news is going online with the San Diego News Network.  When the husband and wife team of Neal Senturia and Barbara Bry joined forces with Ron James, the former editor at signonsandiego.com to form the new San Diego News Network (SDNN.com) – SiteLab was tapped to provide the templates for the new site design.  Even though the final design templates provided by SiteLab (pictured) won’t be in place until the phased roll-out is completed over the next several weeks – we are proud to be affiliated with the new and improved way that San Diegans will be getting their news.

SDNN is a pioneering venture as a news site in that it will share ad sales and content with it’s partners.  In addition to licensing Associated Press news, SDNN is also taking stories from contributing editors, freelance writers and bloggers who will be paid based upon the popularity of their stories. These stories will also be tailored for each subscriber based upon their location and preferences making every subscriber’s news as targeted as possible.

In the coming weeks SDNN will introduce the city to their team of talented journalists and the rich and diverse content expected from a local news website.  Visitors will find new San Diego stories and features showcasing world-class reporters and editors. They may be the new kid on the block, but their editorial team has more than 500 years of journalism experience. In the coming weeks, they will begin rolling out our editorial sections on topics of interest and importance to San Diegans, ranging from health and the environment to entertainment, food and drink, and home and garden.

Posted in Cool Websites, SiteLab Clients, SiteLab Creative, SiteLab News & Events | 1 Comment »

To complement the next generation of its video conferencing software, WiredRed joined with SiteLab Interactive to create Nefsis.com.   The new site offers a brand new, refreshed look and feel to go with the new brand name, Nefsis.  Using SiteLab’s proprietary website development process, the design of the site was driven by search engine optimization research to ensure the best possible mapping between user expectation and information architecture.  Competing against industry giants such as Citrix, Adobe and Microsoft, one of the major prerequisites for designing the site was to maintain prime real estate in search engine results pages without sacrificing design considerations.

The new site will feature a flash-based header to promote user interaction.  The header will rotate between six different screenshots and accompanying text that will expand and play a short movie upon a user’s click.  Upon completion of the movie, users can choose to continue to the accompanying page on the website, or he/she can choose to return to browsing.  Combining world class web design, a well informed information architecture plan, and interactive elements, SiteLab Interactive and Nefsis have united to release a site that is as enjoyable and useful to the users as it is profitable to the company.

About Nefsis:

Nefsis is a next generation, video conferencing service designed for effortless, business-to-business online meetings. It is backed by WiredRed Corporation and over 10 years of secure, real-time communications technology development, thousands of customers, and a team of professionals dedicated to advancing the state-of-the-art and customer satisfaction.

 Nefsis Corporation
4669 Murphy Canyon Road
Suite 108
San Diego, CA 92123

Tags: online meetings, SiteLab Interactive, Video conferencing service
Posted in Cool Websites, SiteLab News & Events | 1 Comment »

Nike is raising the bar in terms of integrating the product into the consumer’s day-to-day life.

http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/features/reg_builder/

Posted in Cool Websites | No Comments »