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Designing the Asylum Ghost Tours Website - Brand Strategy

Writer's picture: Alex PerkinsAlex Perkins

Updated: Sep 4, 2024

Do you believe in the supernatural?


We recently had the pleasure of working with Geoff, Dawn, and the team at Asylum Ghost Tours to give their website a hauntingly good makeover. For the past eight years, they've been giving visitors an unforgettable experience, and it was time their website did the same.


With tens of thousands of people visiting the asylum each year, Geoff and Dawn wanted a site that captured the style, and eerie atmosphere that Asylum Ghost Tours is known for.


Asylum Ghost Tours homepage Hero Section
Custom Website Design and Build for Asylum Ghost Tours

When we start a new project, we always kick things off with a Brand Strategy session. It's a fun and straightforward workshop where we dive into understanding everything about our client's business, from their current marketing efforts to their target audience - past, present, and future. This way, we know exactly who we're designing for.


For Asylum Ghost Tours, this approach didn't just result in a website they're proud to share; it ensured their message is clear and the user experience is smooth. After all, the only thing scarier than ghosts is a poorly designed website!


Asylum Ghost Tours Brand Strategy Document
Brand Strategy Front Page and Contents

When redesigning a website with an existing high traffic flow, there are key factors we need to consider. SEO was a major focus, as the old site already attracted a healthy number of organic visitors from Google searches—we needed to not only maintain this but improve it. We also had to ensure the new website offered a superior user experience, especially for the repeat visitors who frequently book tours. This wasn’t just a surface-level makeover; we completely restructured the site to enhance the user journey and meet the business goals.


We spent considerable time with Geoff and Dawn, both in strategy sessions and throughout the build, to address key issues with the old site and define goals for the new one. These included creating a more visually appealing brand image, simplifying the booking process, clarifying FAQs to reduce admin work, and ensuring the site stands out from the competition.


Asylum Ghost Tour Website before redesign
The Old Asylum Ghost Tour Website

The old website had an intense colour palette, and not in a good way. The highly saturated red, combined with stark black and white, caused every section to compete for attention. This contrast, along with poor type selection, made it difficult to read essential booking information. Additionally, the call-to-action buttons for booking blended into the background, making them hard to spot. This made it challenging for users to navigate and complete bookings easily and resulted in the owners receiving questions in their mailbox that had already been answered on the website it was just difficult to spot!


Asylum Ghost Tours old colour palette before redesign
The Old Colour Palette

We decided to use a new Red, a more blood red with a new hue and saturation. The white was replaced with an off white and a soft black was used instead of the full black.


New colour palette for the Asylum Ghost Tours Website
New Colour Palette for Asylum Ghost Tours

We chose a new, more blood-red hue with adjusted saturation to replace the old website's overpowering red. The stark white was softened to an off-white, and a soft black replaced the harsh full black.


The previous imagery lacked the eerie atmosphere needed, so we added subtle horror elements like twitches and glitches to create a creepy vibe. Geoff mentioned that 60% of visitors already believed in the supernatural, while 40% were sceptical. To entice the sceptics, we included a visitor-submitted image of a ghostly figure and used the line, "see it to believe it," to draw them in.



Last but not least we wanted to give more of a highlight to Asylum Ghost Tour's feature product which is their gift vouchers for friends and family. We gave the vouchers a visual design that feels more like a gift even digitally! We highlighted this feature product across every page of the website.


New Asylum Ghost Tour Gift Vouchers
New Asylum Ghost Tour Gift Vouchers

There’s so much more to explore with this custom website design and build. Be sure to check out the Asylum Ghost Tours website—and if you get the chance, visit them in person! We’re definitely planning a trip to meet the team and the ghosts first hand!


If you’re ready to upgrade your website, boost your sales, and drive more traffic, book a free consultation with Alex today!



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