Recap:
Advanced development solutions for a fast-growing hospitality brand.
Timbers Resorts offers beautiful for-sale and rental luxury properties in one-of-a-kind destinations like Kaua’i, Vail, and more. Their team needed new websites for two of their properties – Timbers Kaua’i and Timbers Kiawah – with a responsive design that could accommodate a growing portfolio, and polished UX to ensure easy on-site bookings.
Skills:
- Research & Discovery
- Strategy Development & Planning
- SEO Audit
- Information Architecture
- UX/UI Design
- Website Development
- Custom 3rd-Party Integrations
- Marketing Automation
- Quality Assurance
- Search Engine Optimization
The Challenge:
Combining technical expertise with creative design.
When Overlap joined the team, Timbers was already working with a creative agency on branding and design, but they needed a development partner with both advanced technical expertise to support their complex tech stack and creative abilities to translate their design files into a top-performing digital asset for multiple rental properties.
Not only did the project involve connecting a variety of 3rd-party integrations including their booking platform, accounting system, events calendar, two CRM systems, and more, Timbers also challenged us to enhance the functionality of their toolset, including developing custom interactive maps with hotspots.
Melding beautiful design elements while developing a complicated infrastructure is not an easy feat. We took the time to understand the platforms Timbers wanted integrated into the site and ensured a smooth UX through extensive planning and troubleshooting.
The Solution:
Optimized integrations for enhanced functionality and UX.
Overlap’s experienced design and development teams worked to ensure the websites could support the multitude of integrations already in place. At the same time, we were working to optimize the functionality of these integrations. The SynXis Book Engine booking platform integration now shows real-time availability, and the integration with the accounting platform can both validate customer payment data and evaluate the transaction risk.
To showcase the quality development and beauty of the Timbers Resorts destinations, Overlap built a photo gallery that could automatically pull images from the property Instagram accounts and videos from YouTube and BrightCove. We also implemented a live webcam and virtual tours to showcase the properties and amenities in detail and in real-time.
Streamlining on-site conversions and contact communications was critical. Overlap ensured clean contact submissions into two separate CRM platforms: Eloqua and Salesforce, and created a New and Events section that could display all upcoming events and capture RSVPs for accurate attendance management.
To ensure optimal results, we performed a comprehensive SEO Audit to identify opportunities for improvement. We acted quickly on a number of “low hanging fruit,” like adding missing H1s, XML sitemap updates, Google Search Console (GSC) monitoring and submission of XML sitemap, GSC coverage error fixes, 404 redirects, and meta data optimization across all existing pages. Additionally, we worked with Timbers on a long-term redirect strategy, Google analytics monitoring, and provided best practices for optimizing future blog posts.