In an era of digital transformation, the Visit Norway website holds immense significance in shaping the country's tourism landscape.
In an era of digital transformation, the Visit Norway website holds immense significance in shaping the country's tourism landscape. It serves as a crucial tool for inspiring travellers, aiding in their planning process and promoting Norway as an attractive destination.
In an era of digital transformation, the Visit Norway website holds immense significance in shaping the country's tourism landscape. It serves as a crucial tool for inspiring travellers, aiding in their planning process and promoting Norway as an attractive destination.
Visit Norway has consistently set the benchmark for DMOs worldwide, excelling in various aspects of digital marketing, from content creation to strategic planning. Its unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence has earned it recognition as a leading figure in the industry. As a testament to this, Visit Norway's innovative project of reimagining the DMO website was awarded the winner of the Transformation Award from the DTTT at the 2023 X. Awards.
In an era of digital transformation, the Visit Norway website holds immense significance in shaping the country's tourism landscape. It serves as a crucial tool for inspiring travellers, aiding in their planning process and promoting Norway as an attractive destination. Amidst the rapidly evolving digital landscape, it's paramount for Visitnorway.com to uphold its reputation as an authentic, reliable, updated and helpful travel resource, especially when accessed on the most popular device of choice: mobile phones.
Since its last overhaul in 2015, Visitnorway.com had become outdated, primarily catering to desktop users. With 70-80% of website traffic now originating from mobile devices, the need for a mobile-first approach became an urgent priority. The revamped website, launched on August 28, 2023, addressed these challenges by placing a strong emphasis on mobile accessibility, alongside innovative and robust technical solutions.
The redesign encompassed a holistic approach, enhancing the content, visuals and technical aspects of Visitnorway.com. The mobile-first design prioritised a dynamic and immersive user interface, ensuring a seamless and engaging experience for mobile users. Powered by a headless CMS, the new website is a smooth and engaging experience for visitors. This success story holds valuable lessons for other DMOs; prioritising user-friendliness and investing in enhanced experiences can significantly boost website engagement.
Another example of a DMO who's transformed their websites with a headless CMS, creating exciting journeys for their visitors:
Stepping beyond a conventional travel guide, Visitnorway.com now offers detailed and customised content for avid travellers. Over 800 unique editorial articles, translated into nine languages, significantly expanded the website's digital and searchable footprint. Despite budget constraints, this strategy effectively extended organic reach and influence, attracting higher-quality traffic to the website. Users spent more time on the website and read articles for longer periods, demonstrating the effectiveness of the strategy in enhancing user engagement.
A key component of the redesign involved modernising the technology stack. By developing and implementing an extensive component library and adopting a cutting-edge 'headless' CMS, Visitnorway.com enhanced developer experience and user performance. This approach empowered the team to pioneer innovations in front-end development.
A new phrase being popularised by VisitNorway is 'Scrollytelling', the idea behind this is a visual storytelling technique to display content in more immersive and visually appealing ways to engage users by creating hybrid articles which use a combination of scroll and regular articles. The articles featured in this format captivate readers for longer periods compared to standard articles, captivating attention with their powerful visual appeal. These are always combined with planning tools to enhance the booking usability of planning. User engagement and satisfaction have seen an uptake as a result.
The overarching goal of the redesign remains firmly in sight: to inspire travellers to visit Norway, extend their stays, delve deeper into regional experiences and embrace responsible and sustainable travel practices.
The results of the redesign are evident in the improved user experience. Faster page views and a more inspiring and useful website have garnered positive feedback from visitors. In the two months following the launch in September-October, traffic to the website increased by 19% compared to the previous year, with an astounding 92% of this traffic being organic. The scrollytelling format has maintained consistent user engagement with the articles featured in this format captivating readers for longer periods compared to standard articles.
The redesign of Visitnorway.com has propelled the website into the future, positioning it as a dynamic and engaging resource for travellers exploring Norway. By embracing a mobile-first approach, enhancing content and modernising the technology stack, Visitnorway.com has successfully transformed into a leading destination for inspiration, planning and responsible travel experiences. As the tourism landscape continues to evolve, Visitnorway.com stands poised to remain at the forefront of digital engagement, promoting Norway as a captivating and sustainable travel destination.
Visit Norway's website redesign offers valuable insights and actionable strategies that can be replicated by DMOs of all sizes to enhance their digital presence, improve engagement, boost organic traffic and elevate their overall website design. These are our recommendations on what DMOs can do to make these improvements.
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