Website Case Studies

Topmast Maritime Training

Topmast is one of the few RYA (Royal Yachting Association) sail training centres in North America.

Their website needed a refresh to better reflected their customers, who are amateur sailors, rather than professionals or racers. They also needed a more modern, up to date look that would be more appealing to that clientele.

Their website was formerly hosted on Wordpress which presented problems with upkeep and reliability of plugins. The site was moved to Squarespace which resolved those issues, and made it easier to make changes going forwards.

Old Topmast Website

Looking at the old site we have a number of obvious issues you can see right away:

  • The hero image is dark, obstructed and not really clear that it’s a sail training site, visually

  • The darkness gives a heavy, overly serious look

  • The tag line is much larger and clearer than their positioning statement

  • The main audience is recreational sailors, not professionals and the site lacks visual appeal for that market

Going further along there are other problems:

  • The icons in both above and below the fold flipped to reveal info, but there’s no visual indication they should, you have to happen to mouse across them

  • There’s a lack of appealing text that really says why pick this school

  • There’s not enough visual interest to grab people’s attention

  • There’s no obvious course offerings

New Topmast Website

Visual changes with the new site:

  • With a white background and more open space, the new site looks brighter and cleaner

  • The brighter look is more modern and more appealing to the main audience

  • The positioning statement is large and clear, saying exactly what the site is about

  • The hero image more reflects what the audience can expect and suits their interests

Major additions:

  • A clear appeal to why choose Topmast for lessons

  • Main courses are highlighted with direct calls to action

  • Lots of images for visual appeal without being too overwhelming

  • Images and text are broken up into simple grids to facilitate skimming

  • FAQs to allow for easy answers to common questions and for SEO purposes