Lawn Tennis Association is only British website honoured in Association section of Webby Awards
‘Official Honoree’ status is awarded to only the top 15% of the 10,000 sites nominated. The LTA is the only British website to appear in the top 15% of ‘best associations’ category this year.
The site (www.lta.org.uk) is designed by digital design agency Fortune Cookie (www.fortunecookie.co.uk) and is maintained by a small web team of LTA staff using the award-winning EpiServer AB content management system (www.episerver.com).
The Lawn Tennis Association aims to grow the sport of tennis and to increase the opportunities people have to play tennis at all levels.
As part of a broad digital strategy to drive exponential returns on its investment in digital, the LTA asked Fortune Cookie to re-design www.lta.org.uk with the aim of becoming the world’s premiere online resource for tennis, through digital creative designed to capture the energy of the sport.
The site was re-launched in time for Wimbledon 2008 and as a direct result:
- 20% increase in page hits
- 39% increase in unique visitors to the site
- 43,170 unique visitors and 510,000 page hits in a single day during Wimbledon 2008
- 19% increase in player searches
- 148% increase in tournament searches
- 167% increase in player ranking searches
Justin Cooke, managing director of Fortune Cookie, says: “The LTA set Fortune Cookie a challenge: to build a website to support their goal to find the next British Wimbledon champion, to promote the sport of tennis and to create the greatest resource in the world for anyone interested in competitive tennis.
Cooke continues, “Tennis people, from players to coaches, parents to sponsors, and fans expect the LTA to be the definitive source of the very latest information about the sport. We have worked with the LTA to develop the ultimate resource for tennis people. The LTA website is now a mine of useful and inspirational information and interactive tools such as Googlemaps mash-ups make discovering more about tennis interactive and fun.”
Colleen Higgins, Web Communications Manager of the LTA, says “Since we re-launched the site we have reached new record traffic levels time and time again. Critical to this was the strategic partnership with both Fortune Cookie and EpiServer. The new site has given us the flexibility to really optimize the website as a communication channel and provide tennis people with the tools and resources they need to enjoy the game and develop the sport in Britain.”
www.lta.org.uk
The Webby Awards is the Internet's most respected symbol of success. The 13th Annual Webby Awards received over 9000 entries from over 60 countries worldwide. Webby Awards are awarded in over 125 categories. Winners are chosen by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences a global organizations whose members include David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, Matt Groening, Internet inventor Vinton Cerf, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson, and R/GA Chairman and CEO Bob Greenberg.