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The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts
2020Community SpaceCharityThe Bridge Centre for Visual Arts was established in 2016 as a venue for Darlington residents to enjoy and experience visual arts following the closure of the Darlington Arts Centre.
Keeping art accessible in Darlington.
As a registered charity, the The Bridge Centre for Visual Arts is fully volunteer managed and operated. The charity puts a focus on making art accessible to everyone, offering a range of courses for all abilities and interests delivered by local tutors. Affordable hire space is also available for private groups and meetings.
The trustees approached Outward Digital with a brief to both raise the profile and awareness of the Centre (in turn increasing course enquiries and room bookings), as well as ensuring that the website was intuitive to administrate by a number of volunteers on a rota basis. We were impressed by both the facilities available (including kiln and traditional printing press!) as well as the commitment by the volunteers with a common goal to spread the enjoyment of visual arts.
Preview WebsiteOur Approach
With the Centre being managed solely by volunteers, we approached this project with a goal to automate as many tasks as possible; both reducing the administration time required by the volunteers as well as making the website as intuitive as possible for visitors to do what they need to - and quickly!
The core of the site is a fully bespoke Courses system that includes listings on a term by term basis using an online calendar with recurring dates. Visitors are able to find when terms begin, which date sessions take place (accounting for any half-term breaks) and ultimately register for a course, with e-mails sent directly to the tutor. This Course system ties into a wider Room Booking calendar which can be used by individuals looking to book a room to check for availability and make an enquiry. Events and Exhibitions, a key element of the Centre are also tied in to this system and displayed prominently on the home page. Administration is simple, secure and accessible with most bookings automated on a recurring basis.
Visually, we wanted to retain the striking red colours of the original Bridge logo, however the complementary scheme simply uses white and grey tones, allowing the stunning imagery produced by students and tutors to do the talking. Typography was selected based on both readability and airiness.
Trustees and volunteers also needed a means to share documents, issues and keep in touch on a regular basis. In response, we developed a private Members area with two-tier access based on whether the user is a Trustee or Volunteer. This allows the sharing of meeting minutes, reports and templates, as well as a fault report form, where faults can be marked as received, in-progress or resolved, along with any notes via the Members area.
We also established a mailshot to be sent prior to the arrival of each new term using branded e-mail templates which link through to individual course pages. This has proven invaliable, with the subscriber base growing dramatically and resulting in many new course students.
Finally, the website is of course fully accessible for mobiles, tablets and desktop. For volunteers on the go, the site can also be edited and updated from a smartphone too.
The Result
Our solution is a 'version 2' of The Bridge Centre website and the result is one we're very proud of.
In the year following its launch, our work has resulted in:
- 320% increase in visitors
- 65% increase in sessions per user
- 3x number of average pages per session
- Bounce rate halved
Further, the new website has received:
- 350+ Course registrations
- 40+ Hire Space bookings
- 170+ General enquiries
Our SEO strategy's core focus was on improving organic search rankings on a local scale.
To this end, The Bridge Centre website now ranks #1 for many priority keywords and phrases including 'Art Courses', 'Pottery Classes' and 'Visual Arts', as well as first page listings for keywords including 'Hire Space Darlington'.
As the charity grows, Outward Digital look forward to being on hand to introduce new features that help further secure The Bridge as the place for Darlington residents to learn and enjoy visual arts.