Place of design

APS Global is a very successful, expanding company based in the UK. They provide outsourced payroll solutions for business of all sizes worldwide. The company had a site that was a little old and dated – they wanted a new fresh site to reflect the changes that had already happened, and to also provide a framework to use in the future as the business grows

The site
www.apsglobal.co.uk

The design
The design was a two way process with the company. The brief was to faithfully represent the company and present a smart business like, organised, operating worldwide, but based in the UK feel. We feel we have achieved this

We used a crisp readable typography, which follows through to the article editor on the backend. This allows new articles, to have a consistent feel to them

The build
This was a fascinating build for us. Partly we migrated content from the old site. We then restructured and re-formatted the content to fit the new site. We created a template, and then the content framework. We created templates for the content, and the corresponding CSS for the templates. Once the content was dealt with we concentrated on users. Firstly we modified the registration process, to collect specific customer data.

As the site is aimed at a global market, and because the laws and regulations and paperwork vary form region to region, we implemented an ACL, allowing different users to be presented with different content. Depending on if they are a customer or not, the size of the account, and the region they are in

Once we had sorted all the customer issues, we dealt with the SEO and security side of things

The Platform
This was based on Joomla 1.5. We migrated some content and users from the company’s previous Joomla 1.0 website
Dealing with users

APS Global wanted a system where registered users all over the world can be presented with different content. We have provided a structure and framework to facilitate this. We are using ACL (Access Level Control) systems to manage users in pre-determined groupings. This is especially useful for ensuring content relevancy and very useful for marketing. The site is set up to automatically contact users that have not logged in for a while etc.
Content management

We are using a ACL, we also created templates with the relevant CSS in the back end, to enable the company to add new content, including coulombs etc.

SEO
The site as we type is too young to report back on search engine optimisation. We have done some structural on-site / on-page SEO and put in systems to ensure new content gets the same treatment. Titles and URL’s are dynamically generated for optimum SEO. We have implemented a clever URL re-writing regime which creates pretty, readable URL’s. We are also doing some off-site SEO to drive targeted visitors to the website. Down the line we will be doing a SEO analysis, looking at site stats, Google analytics + commercial data, and we will tweak out the site as needed

Feature list
- Multi user CMS site
- Owners can update content as needed
- One touch site backup (database and files)
- Firewall, and other security features
- Automatic CRON based database backups
- Specific user data capture on registration
- Features to promote user loyalty
- Newsletter manager
- ACL – for granting differing users different rights to view content
- Form management (stores forms contents on database and also e-mails)
- Document management
- SEO by design
CSS
We spent a lot of time setting up the cascading style sheets (CSS) for this site. This has provided a uniform framework for user content. Typography was something we looked at carefully, which included the introduction of coulombs within content articles

Technologies
This site uses PHP, SQL, DHTML, XML, AXAX, CSS, HTML and JavaScript

Security
We spent a long time closing doors, adjusting server settings and generally locking the site out from attack and spam. We are using a firewall, white list and black list protection and obfuscated administrative login etc..

We won’t discuss security details here, but would be happy to discuss the issue as a topic on the phone with prospective clients

Hosting
We are providing our unlimited commercial hosting package for this site

Working with the clients
We worked really closely with the clients, listening to their needs, and delivering features and ideas that will allow the website to evolve with the customers business as it expands. It was a pleasure to be involved with this very two way process

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