Pod1's Web Design Expertise Sees Paramount Hotels Website Enter the Top 100

Pod1 was enlisted to redesign the web presence for the Paramount Hotels group and due to a successful build and online marketing campaign the company has seen a 400% increase in revenue and entered the top 100 for UK 'Travel Destination & Accommodation Websites'.

London (PRWeb) November 30, 2006 -- Pod1 (www.pod1.com) client, Paramount Hotels (www.paramount-hotels.co.uk), has entered the top 100 UK 'Travel Destination & Accommodation Websites' by market share of visits, as ranked by online competitive intelligence service, Hitwise.

Paramount Hotels was ranked 300 in May 2006 out of the 6,927 sites monitored by Hitwise within this category. But by 21st October this year it had leapt 208 places up the rankings to 92, showing a trebling in visits to the site over the last five months.

Website generated revenue has increased respectively, with Paramount seeing an amazing 400% increase in monthly revenue during the period.

Sally Osborne, Director of E-Commerce, Paramount Group of Hotels said: "For a relatively small hotel chain to enter the top 100 is a huge achievement. Hitwise monitors over 8.43million ISP's so we can be assured their data is representative and robust. Naturally we are delighted, and for Paramount to have a dramatic increase in web traffic that puts us at a ranking of 92 on a weekly basis, is very impressive. Working with Pod1 (http://www.pod1.com) enabled us to realize, with astounding success, the full potential of the Internet and the many online marketing opportunities available to us."

The heart of the campaign involved web design company, Pod1 (http://www.pod1.com) creating a new website that was attractive, accessible, easy for visitors to use and above everything, search engine optimised. A Content Management System, easily manageable in-house, was required. A new email communications strategy was created and a search marketing campaign also undertaken.

Pod1 (http://www.pod1.com) worked through design and build options to create something user-friendly, a site which is effortless to navigate. It is also a site coded to the highest standards of accessibility (minimum level AA W3C compliance) and therefore able to fully engage people with disabilities. SEO was considered throughout the process and live active data streamed direct from The ABC Connection (hotel and venue data) and from WOW (What's On When travel & entertainment solutions) keeps the site fresh and content rich and of course keeps search engines very interested. A simple and effective CMS was created to encourage frequent hassle free in-house site updates. A response orientated email campaign was devised and upon site launch a comprehensive SEO effort began.

Notes to Editors:

Pod1 is an independent web design agency (http://www.pod1.com), based in West London, providing specialist web design, technical development and online marketing solutions since 2002. The agency has the fastest organic growth of any digital outfit in the UK with an amazing 90% of all work coming from referrals and repeat business.

Paramount Group of Hotels was established in 1994 and is now owned by Dawnay Shore Hotels plc. The Paramount brand now operates 20 four star quality hotels across Scotland, Northern England, Central England, Southern England and Wales, including the prestigious Lygon Arms Hotel, A Paramount Signature Hotel, the Paramount Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh, the Paramount Marine in Troon, the Paramount Majestic in Harrogate, and the Paramount Oxford Hotel in Oxford.

With over 2700 bedrooms and over 160 conference and meeting rooms across the Group, 18 Health & Leisure Clubs and spacious grounds for team building and outdoor events in many locations, Paramount offers extensive facilities to both corporate and leisure guests. For more information on Paramount and its hotels, visit www.paramount-hotels.co.uk.

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

For further information or images, please contact:

Craig Morrison

PR & Marketing

Pod1

Tel: 0870 246 2066

Direct: 0870 246 2002

www.pod1.com

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