In 1992 Keith Ward a dairy farmer, took the decision to diversify and began selling outdoor children's play equipment, such as swings and climbing frames. Nine years later in 2001 Wicken Toys launched it's first website. Keith explains that it was a basic website built by a friend using off the shelf software. Aside from being the way ahead it was one disaster after another. "We were novices when it came to the internet, the website hosting would fail at weekends which was our busiest time of the week." 
Keith explains that in the early years, bringing in the customers was a bit of a hit and miss affair. "We relied on newspaper and magazine advertising such as Yellow Pages, Country Living and local publications. Although these did work in getting the word out, the effectiveness of this media was becoming reduced each year, mainly due to the popularity of the Internet. We then turned our attention to Google Adwords (Pay Per Click), business increased but unfortunately so did our expenses as the costs of advertising soared."
It was in 2006 that Keith's son Chris (pictured right), received a telephone call from a company selling SEO services. He explains "We signed up straight away for a SEO campaign, we chose five keywords and within a few months I saw a slight increase in the number of orders. Things continued for two years and the online orders came in at a comfortable although not astounding rate."
All this changed in October 2008, Chris contacted Paul Keene at Little Big Voice to discuss setting up a new SEO campaign and improving upon the work that had already been started. Without delay Paul and his team began researching what key phrases were suitable for Wicken Toys. Except for one, all the key phrases that the previous SEO company had chosen were deemed limited as not enough people were searching under these phrases. Upon further investigation it was also found that the bounce rate (when a visitor goes to the site but leaves without clicking on another page) was reaching a high of 87%.
Sales increased by 84.2% and transactions more than doubled. Average monthly page views increased by a colossal 1,547% to almost ¼ million in April '09.
The SEO campaign began with Little Big Voice and after only a few weeks the effects of this were beginning to take effect, a marked increase in the number of orders could be felt by Chris and his family. It was now time to turn their attentions to the high bounce rate. After lengthy discussions about user habits and the sites first impressions a sample home page was developed and uploaded to the live server. Overnight, the bounce rate dropped and was reduced from the previous 87% to 28%.
The combination of new key phrases, improved rankings on the major search engines and the reduction in the bounce rate amounted to a breathtaking change in the business. Sales increased by 84.2% and transactions more than doubled. Average monthly page views increased by a colossal 1,547% to almost ¼ million in April '09.
To date the family business has grown to include eight family members who work in the business, a fleet of new delivery vehicles and an extension to the outdoor display area. Wicken Toys has since stopped all magazine advertising and drastically reduced it's spend on Google AdWords to cover only specialist areas. Paul at Little Big Voice is currently working with their developers to design, build and launch a new website for late 2010.
With 36% of people set to spend more online than on the high street, together with effectve SEO from Little Big Voice, there's little reason why many businesses shouldn't be able to thrive during difficult times.