Tourism Squarespace Website Development, King Country, NZ
Let the scenery do the talking
Photography by Felicity Jean Photography
For this brand-new tourism operator based in the stunning King Country region, the goal of the Squarespace web design project was to create a visually-driven website that let the breathtaking imagery speak for itself.
With a minimal page structure focused on essential trip details and visitor information, together we crafted a clean, intuitive layout that prioritised photography over graphic-heavy design. The site also features a seamless booking form integration, enabling secure online bookings and payments.
Built on Squarespace, the final result is a streamlined, mobile-responsive website that highlights the natural beauty of the experience while making it easy for customers to plan and book their trip.
A stripped-back structure provided for a stronger visual story
When this client approached Aim, Fire!, they already had a website in development — but were looking for support to refine the visual style, integrate with a reliable booking system, and restructure the content to make it more intuitive and user-friendly.
One of their key concerns was that the imagery on the site wasn’t capturing the quality or atmosphere of their real-world experience. It became clear that the solution wasn’t to add more, rather, strip things back, to allow the imagery to sing.
By removing unnecessary graphic elements and stylised user experience features, space was made for immersive, widescreen imagery to take the lead. Minimal text and a simplified layout allowed the visuals to speak louder, creating a more authentic and impactful digital presence.
Visit the full website here.
“Before diving into the website itself, we first developed a brand guide and three detailed buyer persona profiles. This foundational work helped shape the visual direction and provided clear guidance for content and copy development.
Having a well-defined plan in place from the outset ensures the website design process runs smoothly and stays aligned with the overall strategy - and ultimately saves time and money.”
— Zoie Burgess, Nuku Walk Website Project Lead
Use Buyer Personas to Shape Helpful, High-Impact Content
When you have clear buyer persona profiles in place, you gain valuable insight into the topics your audience cares about and the questions they are likely asking when they engage with your product or service. This understanding allows us to make informed decisions about your website page structure, including what pages are needed, how they should be grouped, and what content should be prioritised for ‘go live’, and what can come later.
It also gives you an early line of sight on content and copy development, so you are not starting from scratch but building around what your audience actually wants to know.
Step 1: Strategy & Plan
This is where the foundations are laid. It includes defining the website goals, understanding the target audience through buyer personas, and establishing the tone of voice and messaging.
It also involves mapping out the sitemap and deciding on key user journeys. The goal here is to ensure the website structure aligns with business objectives and audience needs from the start and establishing your keyword strategy to optimise Search Engine Optimisation.
With a clear strategy in place, the focus shifts to content creation. This includes writing copy for each page considering search engine keyword strategy as well as brand tone, developing headlines and calls to action, and drafting supporting content such as blog posts, FAQs, or case studies.
During this phase, content is created to fit the visual layout and vice versa, meaning close collaboration between copywriting and design to ensure each element enhances the user experience.
Step 2: Content Development & Design
Once the draft content is in place - including copy, imagery, graphics and any custom -designed assets, the project moves through rounds of review to ensure consistency, accuracy, and brand alignment.
Feedback is incorporated, and content is fine-tuned for clarity, SEO, and performance. This phase may also involve testing messaging across channels, uploading final content to the CMS, and preparing for launch with quality checks and tracking in place.
Step 3: Review, Edit, Optimise
Booking System - Rezdy and Squarespace Integration
Choosing the right booking system is a crucial part of any tourism-based service to create a seamless booking experience for potential customers.
A well-integrated booking form should work effortlessly within your website’s design, allowing users to check availability and pricing in real-time without unnecessary friction. Just as importantly, it should connect with your analytics tools to provide valuable insights into user behavior, drop-off points, and conversion rates. A user-friendly, data-enabled booking system helps streamline operations, improve customer satisfaction, and optimise your marketing efforts with clear, measurable data.
This client chose to set up their walk using Rezdy, and well-established tourism booking platform which securely accepts deposits and payments, and allows trip-specific communication with those that have booked, and collects details of participants, trip organisers, and so much more.
Integrating the Rezdy booking form onto the Squarespace website such that potential customer don’t need to leave the website was important to the overall, seamless, user experience.
The Rezdy booking calendar is integrated onto the Squarespace page, so users can view available dates and pricing instantly.
Finding the right tone and voice
The brand guide and content plan laid the foundation for a clear and cohesive online presence, ensuring consistency across visuals, messaging, and structure. From there, the client brought their own unique tone and voice to the project, and provided their preferences for colourways and styling, infusing the content with their own personality, warmth, and authenticity.
Their input evolved the copy and gave it voice, adding style and character that reflected their brand’s true identity. The result was content that not only aligned with the strategic framework but also felt genuinely theirs—distinctive, engaging, and full of personality.
