About Go Ape

Go Ape is the UK’s number one forest adventure attraction, found in 34 of the UK's most breath-taking locations. Days out at Go Ape are about living life more adventurously, having fun, spending time with friends, and getting in touch with your inner Tarzan.

Go Ape has a clear vision and mission which everything it does follows - “It’s pretty simple really – we want to create adventure and encourage everyone to live life more adventurously.”

The challenge

Unhappy with its previous content management system, Go Ape engaged Reading Room's website development team to re-develop a brand new website using a CMS better suited to its needs. The whole project was timed to coincide with the public launch of a new brand identity.

The digital marketing team at Go Ape is large, so the challenge for Reading Room was to create a feature-rich CMS that would allow multiple users to upload and update content simultaneously. The CMS also had to be robust in terms of reliability, with high traffic expected all year round, but especially in peak holiday seasons where spikes are common. Site speed was also a key consideration, as this is a major search ranking factor and usability metric.

As the main aim of the site is to drive bookings, our team was tasked with building a user-friendly booking system which would integrate seamlessly with back-office systems, and minimise friction in the purchase journey.

Our approach

We recommended Kentico as the most appropriate CMS due to its advanced user structure. Kentico allows certain users to edit restricted content while super users can control user access and make changes to all site content.

Additionally, Kentico offers an extremely stable and secure platform, and one which will effortlessly scale alongside the business as further activities and locations are added to Go Ape’s portfolio. In fact, from day one, we worked with Go Ape to shape an ongoing digital roadmap. Through continuous development, we’re already releasing a backlog of features and enhancements to the website!

Throughout the project, the Reading Room team worked collaboratively within a multi-agency setup, bringing to life static designs, and delivering through the Kentico platform.

The outcomes

The timescales for delivery were tight but to the delight of the client, we were able to coordinate the multi-agency delivery teams to meet Go Ape’s business-critical launch date.

Since launching the site, we have exceeded all targets in terms of page speed – with a sub-3 second load time. Site accessibility was an essential deliverable for Go Ape, and we’re delighted that the site scores 100% on all major accessibility tests.

Our relationship with Go Ape has continued following the launch of the website and we continue to offer long-term 24/7 website support and maintenance services, in addition to website hosting services, and digital consultancy services. 

The Go Ape website was recognised by Kentico themselves and featured across its network as ‘Site of the Month’ soon after launch.