Shores and Islands launches upgraded website
PORT CLINTON - All across Ottawa County, residents and tourists have been seeing the new Shores and Islands Ohio logo popping up on signs, flags and advertisements.
In October, Shores & Islands Ohio updated and refreshed its website to better serve online visitors and the county businesses and communities it promotes. The site, which focuses on telling the story of living and vacationing along Lake Erie, now features more and better accessible content on everything from hotels to dog parks.
In an effort to improve its destination marketing services for Ottawa and Erie counties, Shores and Islands utilized the services of digital marketing agency Simpleview to research its strengths and weaknesses. What they found was that people outside the region had trouble connecting the former Lake Erie logo with Ottawa and Erie counties.
New website creates a better link to fun along the shore
“People would ask, ‘Where is that?’ Lake Erie is pretty big,” said Christopher Lewis, Shores and Islands Ohio director of marketing and sales. “We decided to drop the Lake Erie name and keep the Lake Erie Love logo. We use geographical identifiers with the logo when we are out of town — like Cedar Point and Put-in-Bay. Feedback from our partners and residents show they really embraced our new logo.”
The next step was to create a redesigned website. The new Shores & Islands Ohio website is fun, colorful and filled with practical information embedded in written and visual content, including blogs and videos, that easily connects online visitors with Shores and Islands Ohio partners. Vacationers, meeting organizers and their clients, and sports events organizers and their sports families can now find lodging, dining and recreation information more efficiently.
The website utilizes two Simpleview resources to create a more impactful experience for visitors and partners. The Customer Relationship Management system offers personalized web content based on the user’s interest, and the Customer Management System is a platform for data organization that empowers business partners to update their website information on demand.
“Our partners can upload their own pictures and content,” Lewis said. “It gives them more control and allows them to provide updated information, and they can now create their own blog piece.”
New site highlights activities for all ages
The new design better represents Lake Erie as a fun destination filled with activities for all ages. Content is filtered by North Shore, Central Shore, East Shore, West Shore and Islands tabs and will eventually be broken down by season. Information from Shores & Islands Ohio says the new website “focuses the site’s content on storytelling, bringing blog posts, itinerary ideas, and event information front-and-center and celebrates the area as not just a place, but the feeling one gets when visiting, living or working within the region’s diverse communities.”
The website features partner-only content to keep businesses updated on the most current Shores and Island Ohio information.
“We provide news for partners only that is not open to the public,” Lewis said.
Becoming a Shores and Islands Ohio partner brings many benefits that help businesses connect with the 11 million visitors that travel to the region each year.
“We’re always looking for more partners to join Shores & Islands Ohio,” Lewis said. “We want to promote everything that’s happening.”
The new website can be viewed at shoresandislands.com.
Contact correspondent Sheri Trusty at sheritrusty4@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Port Clinton News Herald: Shores and Islands launches upgraded website
