3Sixty site traffic rises by 48% thanks to blog efforts

Around about this time last year we spent quite a bit of time thinking about our brand.

We wanted to redevelop our website, and — as we always tell our clients — you can't design a truly effective site if you don't know what you stand for and what makes you different.

That's what led us to work with the fabulous John Simmons and the whole concept of useful beauty.

It also got us saying to ourselves: "everyone at 3Sixty is a real expert at what they do. But it's no good just saying it. We need to follow our own advice...in the digital age it's more important what you do than what you say."

So we set ourselves two challenges:

• If we are self-proclaimed experts, prove it.
• Be useful to our readers.

The result was a website that eschewed the usual formula of placing work front and centre and instead made our thinking the hero. Personally I've always felt that looking at screenshots of work that's not your brand is a bit like looking at photos of other people's children — i.e. only interesting up to a point.

With such a prominent role given to our own content, we knew that we had to produce lots of it if we were to be credible.

The challenge was set to all the team: produce one article per month. Quite an ask given how busy life gets at an agency!

How have we done?

Our new site went live in early January 2011; almost a year later we have published 120 pieces of original thinking covering a hugely diverse range of topics. Here are just a few examples to give you a flavour:

* What I learnt about User Experience Design from riding bikes
* What is a server?
* Has air travel lost its glamour?
* Dinner with Facebook
* Buying clothes online or on foot?

All well and good I hear you say, but has it made any difference to the success of 3Sixty?

Our web stats give some insight.

For several years our visits per month flatlined at around 2,000 a month. This year they've started to average around 3,300 — a 48% increase. I think that's quite an impressive result!

Having lots of content has also meant we've been able to send out our newsletter every month this year. And rather than filling it with puff pieces about us, we've delivered useful thinking to our subscribers.

So what?

But of course, like most web stats, these numbers mean very little unless you can draw a line between them and the commercial performance of the company.

That, of course, is not easy to do. New business seems to come in from the most unpredictable of sources and if we are honest, no one has appointed us in 2011 and explicitly said 'it's your website wot won it'.

But when you've run an agency for as long as I have (16 years) you get a good gut feel for the temperature of the business. It took a while, but our new business enquiries started to hot up in the late summer and we've had a steady flow of decent leads ever since. Our pipeline is the fattest it's ever been.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but I'm convinced that over a decent period of time there is a correlation between the new business effort you put in and the sales enquiries you get out (you still have to convert them of course!)

Footnote - 2011's top ten blogs

What were the most read blog posts on our site this year? Here is the top ten:

1. Why the iPad isn't mobile
2. The technical breakfast
3. Getting your first job at a digital agency
4. What is wireframing and why Axure is the best tool for the job
5. 5 tips to sell more hotel rooms
6. What does it take to be a great account manager
7. Successful kick off meetings
8. Adjusting your website for tablet and smartphone viewing
9. Top digital trends 2011
10. Colour theory and web design