An Interview with Dr Christina de Kéroualle, Publications Officer of The Scottish Big Cat Trust
By Sean Proske, The Web Host Company, 22 nd June 2004
Recently I had an opportunity to discuss the elements of what makes a
successful website with Christina de Kéroualle, Publications Officer
of The Scottish Big Cat Trust. Just like any other webmaster, Christina faced a number of challenges when getting the website
http://www.bigcats.org for The Scottish Big Cat Trust to the point
it's now at. Hopefully the experiences shared in this discussion will
help other webmasters to overcome their own obstacles. The Scottish
Big Cat Trust is involved in Education and Research.
"The objectives of the Scottish Big Cats are to advance the education
of the public about free-living exotic cats in Scotland and in
furtherance thereof the organisation shall seek:
1. To build as complete a database as possible concerning the
sightings of all naturalised non-native cats (either large or small)
in Scotland.
2. To increase public awareness of these rare members of the Scottish
fauna and stimulate debate about their nature and origins.
3. To provide and exchange information in an open and frank manner to
all interested parties."
Here is what Christina had to say during our interview...
thewebhostcompany.com: Can you tell us a little bit about your
personal background?
Christina: De Kéroualle is my married name - it's Breton. I was born Christina Anne Smith in Edinburgh in
July 1974 . I first became interested in exotic cats in 1985 when
my father gave me a copy of Michael Boorer's Hamlyn paperback "Wild
Cats" . I then devoured the "Born Free" trilogy and other books by
Joy Adamson, and George Adamson's biography "Bwana Game". I have a BSc (Hons) in molecular biology, a PhD in biochemistry, an
MSc in biocomputing and I now manage several research labs. My personal interests include whether the Kellas
Cat is Scotland's Black Panther and whether the true Scottish Wildcat
is now extinct. I have studied coat colour genetics in the mouse and
am now applying these findings to the investigation of coat colour
variants in cats. I also continue to follow non-nativecat sightings in
my home areas of Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
thewebhostcompany.com: How would you describe your business, what
sorts of products or services do you provide and what is your target
market?
Christina: The Scottish Big Cat Trust is not a business. It is a charitable organisation that is at the forefront of research
into Non-Native Cats in the UK. It provides public access to a unique
database of sightings, as well as information on the cats that are
currently living freely in the Scottish Countryside. The Trust has a
team of highly respected researchers who can provide comment and
advice for publications and organisations wishing to produce accurate
material relating to Scottish Cats. In addition they have research
links with a variety of specialists in Cat behaviour throughout the
World. The recognition of the Trust as a charity will ensure we can
continue our work researching the Cats that are free living in
Scotland and in turn educating the public regarding what species are
present. While SBCT in no way whatsoever advocates the illegal release
of these animals into the wild, we also have no wish to capture or
eradicate them. Our aims are to study, learn and educate. (SBCT does
appreciate that in certain circumstances the authorities may have to
take appropriate action with regard to public safety).
thewebhostcompany.com: How large would you say your organisation is in comparison to other firms in your industry?
Christina: We have never sought to be the largest group. Our goals are
rather to provide accurate information, to educate the public rather
than frighten them, and to conserve the unusual animals that we are
studying rather than putting them in danger.
thewebhostcompany.com: What would you say your biggest advantage is over your competitors?
Christina: I wouldn't use the term competitors, but the Scottish Big Cat Trust is the only one of the many organisations researching into non-native cats which has charity status, and we have additional official collaborations planned for the future.
thewebhostcompany.com: How long has your organisation had a presence on the
Internet?
Christina: While the Scottish Big Cat Trust has existed only since June
2003, the website itself was initiated in September 1997 as a
collaborative effort between myself and my husband Antoine.
Originally only part of our website was dedicated to unusual animal
sightings, but in December 2001 a dedicated "Scottish Big Cats"
website was set up when the cat sightings started to swamp the
original website.
thewebhostcompany.com: How and why did you decide to go online, and
what obstacles if any did you encounter during the process, how did
you overcome these obstacles?
Christina: We decided to go online as back in 1997 very little information was available on the internet about exotic cats in Scotland.
One
of the main obstacles that we encountered was an individual who
started using the name of our group, Scottish Big Cats. In addition to
setting up a spoof website using information taken from our site,
right down to photos of our committee members, he also contacted
newspapers and pretended to run our organisation. We therefore changed
our name to the Scottish Big Cat Society, but the individual also
started to use that name and claimed that he had always been known as that!
Therefore, when we achieved charity status, we changed our name again - to
the Scottish Big Cat Trust. But journalists are still contacted by the
individual, who has at times even claimed to be a charity.
How did we attempt to overcome
these obstacles? By complaining to the service providers concerning the
spoof websites, which included libelous character assassination attempts on several of our members. However each time a site was closed down, the individual
simply opened a site with a new service provider. We could have taken
out a legal action but believed that our money should be spent only on
charitable purposes rather than in court cases.
thewebhostcompany.com: What is the main function or purpose of your
website?
Christina: The main purpose of our website is to educate the public concerning exotic free-living non-native cats in cotland and the UK.
It is unfortunate that there are a number of extremely vocal self-proclaimed
felid "experts" with little actual knowledge of these animals. It has
to be stressed that while exotic cats are living and breeding in the
British countryside, the vast majority of sightings are genine
mistaken identity - confusion of dogs and feral cats due to a lack of
scale etc. There are also a number of clear hoaxes, some of which have
been promoted by publicity seekers as "terrifying attacks". We hope to provide a voice of reason amongst some of the scaremongering and deliberate misinformation.
thewebhostcompany.com: What sorts of things did you consider in
deciding how to structure your site in terms of both organization and
design?
Christina: An important part of the site is the sightings data which
is all carefully organised for ease of access and use. All sightings
are fully integrated into the database, by year, with a short
summary of the evidence, and by area. All evidence is also mapped
locally and on a summary Scottish map. We were very impressed when we
were told by a professional, that if she had had to set up such a
database, she could not think of a better way to do it than the way we
had chosen.
thewebhostcompany.com: How long after launching your site did you
begin to see results, and were the results what you expected to see?
Christina: Almost immediately. The website has served as an important point of contact. Through it, many other researchers became aware that they were not alone in their interests, have joined the organisation, given generously of their free time and money, and made the Trust the success that it is today. It has also allowed members of the public who believe they have seen an exotic cat to realise that they are not mad and that many others have had similar experiences.
thewebhostcompany.com: Has your organisation benefited from being online,
if so then how much business do you attribute to your website?
Christina: The website is an essential part of our work. It is the
public face of the Trust and an important part of our educational
programme and a means of contact with the general public.
thewebhostcompany.com: How often do you update your website, and what
sorts of things do you take into consideration with each update?
Christina: The website is continually updated, and a summary of the
updated pages is generated every week. The site is a mixture between an
educational resource, and a community site, where anybody can give
their opinion of the evidence presented.
thewebhostcompany.com: What methods do you use in order to drive
traffic to your site? Which would you say are the most and least
effective ways to generate traffic?
Christina: People find our site because of personal recommendation,
from reading reports in the media, and through search engines.
thewebhostcompany.com: Have you employed any search engine
optimization techniques? If so, what specifically have you done, and
has it been successful?
Christina: Search engine optimisation is somewhat difficult due to the
many spoof versions of our site produced by a certain individual. This
is one of the reasons that we changed our name when we were granted charity
status.
thewebhostcompany.com: Can you give us an idea of how much traffic you
receive at your website?
Christina: We have had almost 90,000 visitors (and that's individual
visits, not hits) since 1997. Currently we receive over 2,000 visits a
month.
thewebhostcompany.com: What role if any do you have in the design and
maintenance of your site?
Christina: I have been involved in designing and running the website
since 1997 and as Publications Officer, I have full artistic and
editoral control.
thewebhostcompany.com: How much time and money would you say has gone
into your website?
Christina: It is very difficult to judge, but certainly hundreds of
pounds and hundreds of hours of work, possibly thousands. Updating a website such as ours
could very easily become a full-time job. While our site has been
universally praised as the best of its kind, there is never enough
time and the site is never as up to date as I would like.
Unfortunately, without additional help, I cannot see the situation
improving.
thewebhostcompany.com: Was there much of a learning curve for you as far as the internet and web sites were concerned?
Christina: Not with this site. I already had considerable experience in web site design
before embarking on the current project, so the learning curve, which was
steep, had come some time before. Before embarking upon the current site, I spent a
great deal of time in planning the structure of the site and
attempting to create a resource that would not need re-designing in a
few months or a year's time.
thewebhostcompany.com: Were there any mistakes you made along the way
with the site that you learned from?
Christina: Perhaps our greatest mistake was not reserving the domain names connected to our group. This allowed an individual to reserve
two of the names and pretend to be us. We were perhaps rather niave
and never imagined that any individual would ever pretend to pass themselves off as our organisation.
We learned the hard way, and I would recommend everyone to register
all possible variations of their name.
thewebhostcompany.com: How soon after launching did your site become
profitable for you?
Christina: It is not profitable at all as it is paid for by myself! As a charitable organisation, we are not looking to make a profit. Any money received is invested for educational and conservational purposes, rather than spent on the website.
thewebhostcompany.com: Is there any advice you would give to others who are trying to make their websites more successful?
Christina: Plan ahead. Look very carefully at different websites
before you start to design your own in order to get an idea of what
will work for you. Have a template for your pages, but keep the design
simple and visually attractive - many sites designed by
"professionals" with all sorts of bells and whistles are a nightmare
to navigate and a real put off.
thewebhostcompany.com: Thank you for your time, Christina. I'm sure
this will be very useful information for many of our readers.
Christina: You're very welcome.
© The Web Host Company, 22 nd June 2004
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