Archery GB - Building a new website for a National Governing Body of Sport

93ft created a new website for Archery GB from strategy to design, development to content.

Archery GB is the national governing body for the sport of archery in the UK. They’re responsible for regulating archery in the UK, from grassroots clubs to performance level athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. After the success of archery beginners brand Start Archery, built by 93ft, we took on the task of an entire website redesign to create a site that serves Archery GB’s members, and that acts as a resource for the wider organisation.

When websites are added to over the years, the overall design and structure can be lost, leading to a site which no longer functions as it should. This is how the Archery GB website had become when we began work; pages had been added in places that didn’t work, the menus and navigation didn’t work in a logical and intuitive way and finding the relevant information had become extremely difficult and frustrating to use.

Building a logical sitemap for Archery GB

The first stage of the build was to create a logical sitemap for the website that allowed the dissemination of the vast amounts of information AGB needed to put out, in a way which allows for easy navigation around the site. 

Our SEO specialists split the pages into main navigation headings menu and created subsections containing parent and child pages to allow an intuitive flow through the various parts of the site. The aim of this exercise was to allow the site user to be taken on a journey, from wherever they enter the site, to ensure they have the information they need and are guided towards the appropriate call to action. 

The sitemap was critical in allowing the following stages of the process to begin.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to get Archery GB found in Google

Search engine optimisation is the process of ensuring that a webpage, and the wider site, is easily findable by the search engines, who can then show it to people searching for that information. It needs to be clear to the search engines what the page and overall site is about, including synonyms and alternative phrasing. 

Archery GB needed to be found for a myriad of search queries, both highly specific - e.g. “what is compound archery?” and much more general - e.g. “activities to benefit mental health”.  

93ft’s SEO team worked through every last page on the current website using a variety of industry standard optimisation tools to determine what is most viewed, what is ranking well and what is essential to keep and be improved. They then documented this into a coherent content strategy detailing what each page needs to include, along with internal linking recommendations to allow for easy navigation and a logical flow through the site. 

If the content on a website is not optimised, it can run the risk of being ranked lower i.e. on Page 10 or worse, compared to content that has been analysed and optimised. 

Copywriting to inspire action

Copy - the words on a website - is one of the most important aspects of any website, and the part of the website that contributes to a website or web page to rank in Google’s top 10 results. Getting the tone and language spot on can mean the difference between a high bounce rate and a long term customer. It’s especially vital to get it right when your site visitors are expert in the subject, as many of the visitors to Archery GB’s website are. 

The AGB site caters to people at every level from those who have never picked up a bow, to Olympic and Paralympic gold medal winning athletes, archery competition judges, the parents of young athletes, and everyone in between. This means that the language and tone used had to be not only technically correct, but variable depending on who the specific pages were targeting. 

One of the issues with the Archery GB site was that information was often hard to find, being presented in PDFs rather than on a well designed and SEO friendly page. PDFs can be difficult to access from some devices and don’t work for SEO, so getting this info into a format that was easy to access and helped the search engines was vital. 

Our content and copywriting experts took on the task of condensing hundreds of pages of information into around 150 essential pages of copy, including headings and metadata that works for SEO, natural keyword additions, compelling call to actions, and interesting copy.

Working with a team of specialist copywriters who can quickly upscale your organisations resources and deliver key requirements for a new website is an effective way of working.

Design and development

Archery is a sport for all, so Archery GB's website is used by all ages, backgrounds and levels of online savvy. Our design and development team worked on the UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) of the new site, creating an immersive on-brand experience that was intuitive and easy to use for site visitors of all demographics. 

93 created an engaging user-experience alongside building a robust CMS-driven engine that allows website administrators at Archery GB to manage all the content on the new platform, including pages, news, resources, athletes, memberships, sponsors & partners, and other general information.

We realigned Archery GB’s content strategy and built the new website, aggregating all AGB information, including news, competitions, events, athlete profiles, statistics and results, all under one, easy to navigate roof. We achieved this by creating a clear and concise navigation which takes visitors on a logical user journey, housed in a mobile-first responsive web design. 

Working with a digital studio that understands how to shape a brand led design interface with on-page SEO and optimised content is vital. This means poor page design is replaced with engaging pages, helping the user to not only find what they want quickly, but also enjoy the overall digital experience.

Information finding

93 created Find a Document? - a searchable database that contains the hundreds of resources Archery GB’s members and site visitors need. Users can quickly filter by frequently visited categories, and subcategories or can search for specific file names which makes finding the right document much easier and quicker than the previous system.

National Squad Athlete Profiles? - Users can read the biography and find out interesting facts about the athletes representing Archery GB. We also integrated the World Archery API to pull through live International Competition Achievements and Statistics

Sport:80 Integrations? - Find a Competition, Find a Course, Find a Club. Our website integrates with the Sport:80 API to pull through all the latest data from the database. The results can be narrowed down with useful filters to make that information easy and quick to find. Find a Competition and Find a Course are designed in a calendar list format, and Find a Club is designed to show points on a map that are within your specified radius of the postcode you have searched for. Sport:80 has been both a client of, and a co-creator with 93 for nearly a decade. As Sport:80’s preferred web design and development partner, we’ve worked alongside them for National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) around the world, including USA Archery, British Weightlifting and Inclusive Skating, as well as Archery GB.

National Records - This function integrates with Archery GB’s database of records. The information can be filtered by Round Type, Bowtype and Age Group, to display the national records in a table.

Our team of developers utilise code to manipulate website searches, meaning the correct information can be quickly retrieved and displayed in the best way for the user. It is vital that these user moments are identified during the content strategy and design phase.

Increased engagement, decreased bounce rate and selling out in record time

“Since launching Start Archery we have seen a huge spike in traffic around our biggest acquisition event of the year ‘Start Archery Week’. The new site has also enabled us to promote our resources to schools and build a database of prospective members who sign up to our Start Archery newsletters.

“With our AGB site, members, volunteers and staff have commented on how much easier it is to find resources now and spot announcements. Our recent National Indoor Competition sold out in about 30 minutes after promotion on the new site.

We have also seen increased engagement since the launch with a 12% increase in users, 14.5% increase in sessions and session durations up by 15%. Bounce rates are down by 7% and overall our members have commented on how the new site shows a more modern and exciting face of archery in the UK.” - Emma Kasprzak, Head of Communications, Archery GB

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