SEO website design for a campervan and van rental company
Committed to building a website optimised for search engines, we designed and programmed this custom website using the Bootstrap 4 framework, SCSS, HTML5 and
PHP.
Design of the website
Bonfire Vans is a European campervan rental business with a recognisable and uncomplicated logo designed
by illustrator and graphic designer Eline of Brein
Boerderei in the Netherlands.
The website you see now is a redesign of the original website. The business owner, Simon, wanted to
switch
to
white from his original colours; five vibrant colours on a black background.
The aim was to make the website lighter and brighter to give a more vibrant holiday feeling and bring it
up
to date.
We used two fonts; a contemporary slab serif for the headings and an elegant sans-serif for the body.
There’s a satisfying contrast between the two. We kept the bright colours but laced them through to
differentiate the sections.
My main aim though was to keep this website practical, usable and accessible within budget.
The site is programmed according to Google's quality guidelines, so I've kept the website loading fast
where possible.
The client asked for large hero images at the top of the pages to show the beautiful camping photos.
However, these ramped up page load time, so there was a balance to achieve.
bonfirevans.com
Search engine optimisation
First, we structured the website according to the keyword research we carried out.
One problem we faced was that we needed to target terms for the campervan and van hire in independent
locations across France.
So it wasn't as simple as targeting one geographical location or a single service. A van and a campervan
are similar but serve completely different purposes.
The campervans and the vans have separate location pages, which serve as landing pages.
The location pages are super helpful, encouraging search engines to rank the pages higher. Visitors
return to plan their adventures using the local information and links. These valuable pages do well on search engines.
The campervan pages appear first or second on page one for their targeted key phrases.
Bonfire Vans currently appear third on page one of Google for van hire in Bordeaux, under Europcar and
Enterprise - two huge websites.
I’m pleased with the results because Simon is still a small business with many competitors with lots of
spending power. He hasn’t used a blog to support the website - the rank comes purely from the value on
the web pages.
Below is an excerpt from one of the Bonfire Vans' pages, written by Kaydee Web. You can see I've used external linking on anchor text to help search engines navigate.
About Bordeaux, south of France
Bordeaux city is located close to the
European
Atlantic coast in the Southwest of France. It’s a port
city on the Garonne River, so you’ll find stunning bridges and gardens lining the quays.
The
18th-19th
century buildings are charming and if you do go into the city be sure to visit the
Gothic Cathédrale
Saint-André.
The Bordeaux area is most famous for wine production, and the city itself is the hub.
You’ll
soon
be
wine
tasting in one of the many quality caves or enjoying your Bordeaux wine at one of the
quality
French
restaurants.
Languages for SEO
The original version of the website was written by us with search engines in mind. Our founder, Kelly, loves camping, so with her interest it was easy to know what people would look for on a campervan hire website.
The site was translated into French by a native speaker - something we believe is essential when
considering how a customer reads the website of a business based in France.
The French side of the site is available from any page simply by clicking a French flag, switching
quickly - speed is essential. Pages written in French engage with French-speaking customers and rank higher on Google’s French index.
