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The Bunker

Ultra Secure Hosting Services, Outstanding SEO

Download The Bunker case study .pdf

The Company:

Ultra Secure Hosting Services from 30 Metres Below Ground Level!

The Bunker provides ultra secure, ultra-available managed hosted and data centre solutions that ensure business continuity for the widest possible range of enterprises - from UK financial services giants such as Scottish Widows, to fast growing technology SME's.

Its hosting solutions are delivered from 30 metres below ground level, from within armoured, military grade, nuclear proof facilities that are situated outside the perimeter of the M25.  Each of them is based upon The Bunker's unique security model - known as The Bunker Ultra* secure Shield - which addresses every potential physical, human and digital security threat.

The Challenge:

Build Awareness, Conquer Google, Create Scalable Web Services Platform

Having been recently acquired by a new management team, and with a new business plan in hand to become the UK's leading provider of secure managed hosting solutions to organisations of every shape and size, The Bunker was looking for a web partner in mid-2006 that could help create a new footprint in the marketplace,  drive new revenue opportunities via the web, and create an online platform capable of growing to handle a variety of business support channels.

As CEO Peregrine Newton explains:  “As a managed services hosting company, we knew we had something totally original and essential to today's market.  We live in a Bunker outside of London.  That means we're more secure than any of our UK competitor's could ever hope to be.  We also have an outstanding technical offering, and some of the UK's finest security and hosting platform experts amongst our team – like Ben and Adam Laurie, who over the years have contributed hugely to the global IT security and open source industry.  And in today's environment, these kind of security assets really matter.

“What we needed next was a web site that was capable of raising awareness through better search engine performance, as well as providing a platform onto which we could graft essential business services – like customer support, partner sales enablement, and key marketing and communications processes.

“We've always had very aggressive plans, and so we wanted to do this quickly, but in a graceful way that meant we remained in control of our own destiny.  So finding a partner that shared our vision was important, because, whilst moving fast is taken for granted in the web world, commercial objectives are sometimes overlooked.”

The Solution:

MySource Matrix Open Source CMS, Designed and Built by Squiz

Squiz and its open source Content Management System (CMS), MySource Matrix, proved to be a natural fit for these tough requirements.  Essential to The Bunker's core technology offering is the fact that it delivers its managed hosted solutions using industry leading, ultra secure open source software.  As such, the company already knew that an open source web CMS platform was likely to give them the control and flexibility that they needed to build for the future – and the security of owning the resulting system 100%.

Squiz's innovative and open approach to providing web implementation services also sat well with The Bunker's management team.  As a technology company, The Bunker already had significant IT resources in place:  the people responsible for servicing its own clients on a day to day basis.  As such, the company really only needed help to implement the web site in specific areas – such as front end design and system build...as opposed to system administration and server-side development and maintenance, which, whilst these things could have been done by Squiz, they knew they could handle them very well themselves.

From an early stage it was also obvious that MySource Matrix could deliver on The Bunker's requirements for advanced search engine performance and optimization (SEO) via Squiz's previous work with consumer-based web businesses such as Premier Holidays and Mark Warner Holidays, where superior Google rankings are critical.  In addition, through its experience with  other leading UK B2B technology and service firms such as Argogroup, Portrait Software and Imparta, it was clear that Squiz could help The Bunker to quickly build out a variety of different online 'channels' for the provision of online customer and partner support and marketing services.


The Squiz Approach:

A B2B Web Relations Platform

Squiz delivered a classic 'B2B Web Relations' platform for The Bunker.  The system was built to provide two core marketing and communications channels on the site:  firstly, a number of dynamic 'publishing channels' that would enable Bunker staff to quickly, easily and regularly publish new communications content to the site – such as event alerts, press releases, news stories and white papers (all of which would be published via simultaneous, automated RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds; and secondly, a number of 'positioning' channels that would describe the company's core product and service offerings, its commercial credentials and its history – including an innovative Flash-animated 'Virtual Tour' of The Bunker's unique hosting location.

In the future, this platform would also enable The Bunker to introduce new customer relationship management and support services to the site with ease, such as private extranet zones and the integration of 3rd party customer management applications such as ticketing and billing systems.
 

The Result:

Superior Design, Best Practice SEO, Controlled Project Management and Costs

The Bunker's new web site provides users with a clear view of the company's core commercial propositions via its clean and well organised user interface.  From a design and structural perspective, it also provides users with a number of ways to navigate through to key pages – via the use of homepage banners, related page listings, and, as already mentioned, an innovative Flash movie to showcase some of the company's key sales messages in visual form.

Importantly, The Bunker's marketing team is now able to publish new web pages in an instant.  This is essential to enhance The Bunker's position within major search engines like Google, as it encourages search spiders to index the site regularly.  It also enables The Bunker to establish a strong reciprocal linking plan with other web sites – for example, with partner sites or media sites that have published stories about The Bunker.  All of the above content is also published via RSS.  In addition, Squiz has also helped the Bunker to create an online strategy for its PR work by coordinating the distribution of press releases via specific online news hubs, and having this content indexed by Google News.  The combined effect is to establish a larger search engine 'footprint,' and is considered best practice for any company wishing to enhance its search engine optimization tactics.  (For further information, see Squiz's white paper, 'How to SEO Like a Pro.')

From a system build point of view, the entire site - including front end design - took under twelve weeks to complete, from initial planning meetings to a managed 'go live' event.  As part of this process, Squiz's project team worked closely with The Bunker's management to divide the work into three core stages:  plan (and design), implementation and launch; and was responsible for driving the overall project forwards - whilst at the same time working closely with The Bunker's technical staff to ensure that they were able to control the delivery of key assets such as the site's hosting environment.
 

The Future:

Establish Stronger Customer Relationships via New Web-Based Support Services

The new web site was launched in September 2006, and has since this time risen straight to the top of Google on key search terms such as 'secure hosting services,' and 'secure managed hosting.'

At the same time, the company's marketing team is now able to publish and maintain the web site on a regular basis without requiring additional help from Squiz.  From an administration point of view, this means that The Bunker has succeeded in its primary objective to control costs and maintain operational control over its web presence.

Looking ahead, and using Matrix's advanced user and permissions management modules, The Bunker is beginning to integrate important backoffice business services within the site, in order to remove costs from other areas of the business – such as customer support.  As Newton says:  “We've fixed the 'pull' part of our communications challenges.  We're doing great in Google, and with a little extra help from PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns, we're successfully driving new leads through the site.  Now we're looking at how to solve the 'push' part.

“In the short term this means introducing a new customer extranet to the site so that our customers can do 'self-servicing' for important things such as lodging a support ticket, reviewing their billing and contract information, and accessing support information from FAQ-style listings.  Our aim here is to make it easier to do business with The Bunker, and to become more open and transparent for our customers.

“On the one hand putting this stuff online will save us money, but another very important benefit is that it'll establish stronger relationships with our customers and generally increase the level of trust between us.  And, as a business partner providing security services, this is invaluable.”