Invitation to Tender For VisitAberdeenshire Website Hosting, Support Services & SEO Consultancy Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited ...
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Invitation to Tender
For
VisitAberdeenshire Website Hosting, Support Services
& SEO Consultancy
Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited
T/A VisitAberdeenshire
January - December 20211. INTRODUCTION
Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited T/A VisitAberdeenshire (VA) is the officially
recognised Destination Management and Marketing Organisation (DMMO) for Aberdeen &
Aberdeenshire.
VA:
• promotes fantastic visitor experiences in North-east Scotland to targeted audiences in the UK
and overseas
• works to grow the visitor economy through initiatives that help tourism businesses to
understand, and meet demand from, an ever-changing market
• leads and supports bids for targeted business events and works with partners across the
region to deliver a great delegate welcome
In March 2018 a redefined destination strategy for the NE of Scotland was launched – with an ambition
to grow visitor spend to £1billion by 2023. The revised strategy reflects both the new macro-economic
environment in which the visitor economy operates; and the scenario for tourism in the NE Scotland,
where a downturn in the offshore energy sector coupled with investment in significant visitor
infrastructure developments presents major opportunities for the tourism sector.
VisitAberdeenshire is seeking to appoint a website developer to host its website (including four
subsites), provide support services and maintenance (including domain registration services), deliver
SEO consultancy, and where appropriate, develop the VisitAberdeenshire website to ensure that it is
effective as possible in attracting visitors to Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
2. PROJECT BACKGROUND
Visitabdn.com is the go-to website for all visitor information for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. In 2019
alone our consumer site (visitabdn.com) welcomed 764K users and generated 2.4m pageviews.
Visitabdn.com really is the bread and butter of VisitAberdeenshire’s marketing efforts. The consumer
site (visitabdn.com) is the hub of all destination content and the place where we send all organic (e.g.
organic Google searches as well as social media) and high volumes of traffic from our year-round highly
impactful brand and partner campaigns. This website hosts listings of all relevant tourism business
across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire as well as user tools including social media feeds, an ‘Inspire me’
trip planning tool, itinerary builder (with log-in functionality) and brand new, map builder tool. We
even have a partnership with The List, where by the what’s on listing site provides a daily feed to our
website to populate our very popular ‘what’s on’ calendar.
Lead generation is vital to VisitAberdeenshire’s digital marketing strategy and therefore the website
is key to collecting data through prize draw forms e.g. visitabdn.com/great-escape/win (with data then
manually uploaded to Campaign Monitor) as well as an integrated direct sign-up form to our
Campaign Monitor account.
As aforementioned, we drive high volumes of traffic to our consumer site year-round with paid-for
campaign activity. It is worth noting that this traffic is predominantly directed to purpose-built
campaign landing pages e.g. yourabdn.com, visitabdn.com/mackies and visitabdn.com/great-escape.
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VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 2018Our digital marketing strategy is not solely about driving paid-for activity to our website; it is also
essential that our consumer site appears top in SERPS and SEO is therefore a crucial marketing tool
too.
Due to the nature of our high impact campaigns, as well as the high levels of traffic on our website, it
is paramount that the site functions efficiently (with absolute minimal downtime). The user
experience must be as effective as possible, and the site should adopt innovative technologies that
contribute to both UX and UI. It is a requirement that the appointed website developer be innovative
and proactive in its approach.
The website in its entirety also consists of four hosted subsites. Although these subsites have less
traffic drivers and therefore less users/pageviews, it is important that these are hosted, maintained
and developed where and when necessary:
• https://industry.visitabdn.com/ - hub of content for local businesses and stakeholders. Please
also be aware that functionality exists to allow businesses to create an account/log in for their
business, and here they can claim previous listings and submit new business listings to the VA
website
• https://travel-trade.visitabdn.com/ - hub for Travel Trade and OTAs to understand offering of
the region. Hosts business listings (similar to the consumer site) but includes additional and
relevant information for Travel Trade
• https://business.visitabdn.com/ - hub of content for business events and conference
organisers.
• https://media.visitabdn.com/ - a hub of downloadable content including videos, images,
music and posters (please note that videos and images are currently not live on here but
functionality exists (which will be developed further by end December 2020) to allow users to
download this content)
VisitAberdeenshire is seeking to appoint a website developer to host its website (including subsites),
provide monthly support services and maintenance (including domain registration services) and
provide monthly SEO consultancy. Please note that any significant development work will be issued
separately to the appointed website developer and therefore any significant development work
does not form part of this monthly service provision. Time, however, should be accounted each
month for small development tasks.
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VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 20183. PROCUREMENT SCOPE / SPECIFICATION
To ensure best value, VisitAberdeenshire is inviting quotes from suitably skilled and experienced
website development company to undertake the VisitAberdeenshire Website Hosting, Support
Services and Consultancy for the calendar year of 2021, with the intention for a further two years
(2022 and 2023) on a rolling annual basis (subject to agreement between both parties).
Hosting, service and maintenance requirements
• High specification website hosting
• Telephone, email and dedicated account management support during normal office hours
with 24/7 emergency out of office support also available
• Ticketing system and/or online tool for logging/requesting website requests with the ability
to prioritise tasks (excellent communication required between both parties)
• Technical maintenance, including but not limited to: operating system updates, package
updates, bug fixing
• General amendments and additions to existing pages or functionality
• Daily and weekly backups, including but not limited to: PHP files, MySQL database, uploaded
assets
• Content management system (CMS) user support (VA currently uses SilverStripe)
• Support, where required, in using, and creating newsletter templates for Campaign Monitor
• Training and instruction as required
• Primary and secondary domain name server (DNS) provision and management for Client
portfolio of domain names, including but not limited to: A records, MX records, CNAMES, SPF
records
• Liaison and assistance with third-parties where required
• Provisions against hackers by using proprietary tools, operating system tweaks, network
procedures, patching and constant monitoring
• SSL certificate administration
• Website migration, set-up and configuration
• Domain registration, renewals and support (to be paid separately and not part of the on-going
fees)
SEO
• Support in increasing VA results in SERPS and assist in driving organic traffic to visitabdn.com
(consumer site)
• Predominantly support is only required with technical SEO; VA’s marketing team will be
responsible for on-site and off-site SEO, however VA expects that the website developer will
provide recommendations for strengthening these areas, on a monthly basis
Duration of work
The contract will cover monthly website hosting, support services and maintenance, as well as SEO
consultancy for the VisitAberdeenshire website and subsites covering the period of 1 January – 31
December 2021, with the intention for a further two years (2022 and 2023) on a rolling annual basis.
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VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 2018Reporting required
• Monthly time sheets detailing time spent per support request/ticket per month
• Monthly hosting, support and maintenance reports (include more in-depth analysis on Google
Analytics). Recommendations for future actions expected within the report
• SEO reports. Recommendations for future onsite, offsite and technical SEO expected within
the report
• Monthly/Bi-monthly catch up meeting – to discuss reports as well as plan future activity
Project Scope
Proposals should address, but not be limited by, the following key project components:
- Details of secure website hosting, service provider and abilities to host/maintain current CMS
(SilverStripe)
- Details of security measures (including compliance with data protection and GDPR)
- Details of back up procedures and disaster recovery
- Details of how the website and account/client will be managed on a day-to-day basis
(including protocols for requests and the staff team responsible for the account/website)
- Demonstrate how the company is innovative and proactive in its approach
- Examples of how the UX and UI could be improved/developed on the consumer website
(visitabdn.com)
- Examples of how the website developer could improve SEO on the consumer website
(visitabdn.com)
- Breakdown of monthly support allocation - including hosting, maintenance, support services
(allowing time for small development work) and SEO consultancy
- Examples of relevant experience, including details of at least 2 previous examples of work
that are relevant to this tender
Budget
VisitAberdeenshire has a monthly upper budget of £950 to cover website hosting, support services
and maintenance and SEO consultancy. Please note that domain services will be paid for separately
and should not be part of on-going fees. As ‘cost’ is weighted at 40% of the overall scoring, please
ensure your tender and value for price, is as competitive as possible recognising the not for profit
status of the organisation.
Supporting Material
Upon appointment, VisitAberdeenshire will provide further supporting material, to include:
• Handover meeting with current web developer
• Access to Google Analytics and Google Search Console
• Access to CMS
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VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 20184. PROCUREMENT PROCEDURE & DELIVERY REQUIREMENTS
VisitAberdeenshire are issuing an invitation to quote based on the following timeline:
The ITT will be issued by 2 October 2020
Note of Interest to be with VA by 7 October 2020
Last date for questions will be 21 October 2020
Tenders should be submitted by 23 October 2020
Interviews with shortlisted companies 30 October 2020
Company will be appointed by 6 November 2020
Initial project meeting between VA and the w/c 9 November 2020
successful company
Work Period (start to end date) 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2021 (with the
intention for a further two years on a rolling
annual basis)
To respond to this request, please send a written tender proposal by 5pm on 23 October 2020 with
your electronic submission to include:
- description of how you propose to deliver the project (the earlier Project Scope section should
inform this narrative);
- an outline of the team who will be responsible for the project, including details of any third-
party sub-contractors;
- a summary of previous similar work;
- contact details of at least two relevant referees where similar work has been undertaken; and
- detailed costs as per the framework provided.
Tender proposals should be submitted electronically to Julia Heys, julia.heys@visitabdn.com by 5pm
on 23 October 2020.
All tender proposals submitted will be assessed, in conjunction with all other proposals submitted,
against the evaluation criteria detailed below.
Any questions relating to the ITT should be submitted in writing to Julia Heys, Marketing Manager,
julia.heys@visitabdn.com . The last date for questions is by 5pm on 21 October 2020.
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VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 20185. EVALUATION CRITERIA
The following evaluation criteria will be applied to all proposals received:
All submissions will be scored on both price and quality. The contract will be awarded to the supplier
who receives the highest total score. Please note that the highest scoring tenders will be shortlisted
with interviews taking place to contribute to the overall scoring process. The overall Price: Quality:
Interview split for this project will be 40%:40%:20% respectively.
Any mandatory requirements or thresholds identified in the brief must be met before the submission
will be evaluated further. You must address each of the evaluation criteria in your submission in order
to receive a score.
Price Criteria Weighting %
Overall Price reflecting value for money 100%
Total 100%
Quality Criteria Weighting %
Demonstrate understanding of the specific project requirements detailed in 30%
the scope of services and methodological options presented
Evidence relevant experience, including details of at least 2 previous examples 30%
of work that are relevant to this tender
Evidence of an innovative and proactive approach to website development 20%
Evidence of effective and organised account management 20%
Total 100%
Interview Criteria Weighting %
Demonstrate verbally all evidence included in the quality criteria, and suitably 100%
and successfully answer any questions related to your tender
Total 100%
Each of the criteria will be scored using the scale below:
0 – Unacceptable – Nil or inadequate response. Fails to demonstrate an ability to meet requirement;
1 – Poor – Partially relevant but generally poor response. Demonstrates some understanding of the requirement
but contains insufficient/limited detail or explanation to demonstrate how the requirement will be met;
2 – Acceptable – Relevant and acceptable response. Demonstrates a broad understanding of the requirement
but lacks detail or explanation to demonstrate how the requirement will be met in certain areas;
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VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 20183 – Good – Relevant and good response. Sufficiently detailed to demonstrate a good understanding of the requirement and provides an explanation of how the requirement will be met; 4 – Excellent – Completely relevant and excellent overall response. Comprehensive and clear and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the requirement and provides a concise and persuasive explanation of how the requirement will be met in full. 6. LEGAL & CONTRACTUAL Any contract to follow from this procurement process will be between Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited (T/A VisitAberdeenshire) and the successful tenderer. This procurement and the legal form of any contract to follow therefrom will be in accordance with this Invitation to Quote, and shall be governed by the Law of Scotland, and Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited (T/A VisitAberdeenshire) standard terms and conditions of business, (which will be supplied). Tenderers must ensure that they are fully aware of all relevant statutory, regulatory and other requirements and should seek necessary advice before submitting a response. The contract to follow from this procurement process shall continue for the period identified in the tender, however Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited reserves the right to terminate the contract prior to the expiry of the Term in certain situations in accordance with this Invitation to Quote. In particular, Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited shall be entitled to terminate the contract prior to the expiry of the Term if, in its sole discretion, it considers that the selected tenderer is not performing the contract in a satisfactory manner (including without limitation poor performance and progress on the part of the selected tenderer). For the avoidance of doubt, the continuation of the contract for the full Term shall be dependent on the satisfactory performance of the contract by the selected tenderer, which shall be determined at Aberdeen & Aberdeenshire Tourism Company Limited sole discretion. V:\Office\4. General VA Information, Admin & Finance\Finance\Tender & Quote Process\4. Completed ITT Documentation\Marketing\Website hosting 2021\Invitation to Tender (ITT) - VisitAberdeenshire website hosting 2021.docx Page 8 of 8 VisitAberdeenshire Invitation to Tender V1 Aug 2018
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