BCV Affiliate Blog

If you go down to Blue Chip today – you’re in for a BIG surprise…!

Following a comprehensive usability and user experience study by Foolproof, Blue Chip have made some big changes to the look and feel of the main site; as well as improving functionality and navigation for a more user-centric approach.

What does it mean for you?

Well first of all you don’t need to change your links. The new site has been fully tested and all affiliate tracking and click-append to remove the main phone number are working correctly as for the old site. All the changes are aimed at improving customer experience at whatever stage of their holiday planning journey – from fact finding about the area to comparing features of individual properties. The big picture is that this should help in the decision making process and lead ultimately to increased online bookings and improved conversion rates.

The slides below indicate the changes that have been made to the site and the benefits that these changes should have.

The Home Page

The changes to the home page are largely cosmetic, with a new cleaner look and feel. In addition we have introduced new ways to search for a property, breaking down by holiday type for those browsers without a particular area in mind.

Search results page

The search results pages now include a horizontal search box allowing the user to amend their search criteria on the page. It more clearly shows the choices that they have already made and offers further options for refining their search.

We have also introduced a shortlist function to the search results page, allowing users to save their favourite properties while they browse others and to compare their property choices before making a final decision.

Town Landing page

The changes to the town, area and county pages include a written introduction to that place, large image banners and a brief introduction to Blue Chip. These pages can all be deeplinked to and may provide more appropriate alternative landing pages to the home page for much affiliate traffic. The changes to content and layout of these pages means that they should work out of context of the rest of the site; they do not assume that the visitor has any prior knowledge of either the area or Blue Chip, and so should provide a smoother journey and reduce bounce rates.

Property Page

The property pages have undergone perhaps the most radical overhaul. Blue Chip are particularly proud of their property images – all of which are commissioned by professional photographers. To make the most of them, the lead display image is now much larger than previously, and any interaction with the images will generate a full screen lightbox slideshow of all the images.

Other big changes to this page include:

thumbnail Google Map with the property location

at-a-glance pricing and selection information with prominent call to action

Summary of key information above the fold

Clear and prominent user reviews

Prominent tab structure to take the user to more detailed information

Pricing and Availability tab

The move to a 12 month calendar on the price and availability tab for each property means that customers can more easily see at a glance what dates the property is available to book. It is also easier to select their dates and get a price for their intended stay and go on to book.

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Hopefully this summary of the changes to the Blue Chip Vacations website has been useful and we think you will agree that they will be beneficial to improving conversion rates.

If you have any feedback on the new site or would like to discuss working with Blue Chip in the future, please get in touch at affiliates@bluechipvacations.com or feel free to leave a comment.