One of our sites – Photolearn
Photolearn sold photographic training videos and PDF’s online on a home grown site. They realised sales would be much higher with a more professional site from Our brief was to provide an informative, user friendly site, that sold the product
Site history
Historically the Company used U-tube – to showcase the video’s. This was a problem, as U-tube would then put competitors videos on the same page, which meant potential customers were going elsewhere. For this reason, to increase sales and customer retention we decided to stream video from the site, and not from U-tube
Site features
We produced a site to showcase each product. By request of the customer sales are dealt with via PayPal. The Photolearn site also incorporates a message board where users can discuss flash lighting, and a mailing list where the site owner can keep in touch with customers
Development
We begun by developing a template for the site. When the site owner was happy with the look and feel, we then populated the site with text and then added interactive features such as a mailing list, and a forum
Working with the videos
One part of the build was streaming preview videos. To achieve this we needed to convert them from the .AVI format into short .SWF flash clips. The movies are approx 3 – 5 mins. The video on the front page is designed to just run, with no sound. The longer, larger video’s on the preview pages to have user control
Hosting
The videos immediately lead us to a problem… The customers hosting for the site was restrictive… The videos consumed all of the customers allowed bandwidth. This was resolved by us moving the videos onto our own servers – hosting the videos for the client, while the rest of the site remains in the clients existing webhost
And then a year later – Adobe steped in!
A year or so down the line, a second problem arose. Adobe in their infinite wisdom decided to change the rules and code required for the new Flash player 10, causing issues when customers using the brand new player viewed the videos. We informed the customer of this, and re-scripted the relevant codes free of charge
SEO
We also did extensive SEO – Search Engine Optimistaion on the site to increase relevant organic traffic. The site owner is happy, long term sales are up, and the site is delivering what we both wanted
Customer testimonial – Written by company owner – Garry Edwards
Photolearn developed almost by accident, it was basically just an idea I had a few years ago which ended up growing into a business. So, in the early stages, I just produced a simple HTML site which I constantly updated in the hope that I’d get it looking professional one day.
But then I gave up that idea and looked around for a professional I could trust to do it properly. Unfortunately getting a web designer who was actually able to deliver what he promised proved difficult and I then placed the job with Richard, who delivered it on time, on budget and delivered a website that did exactly what he promised it would do.
Since then, Richard has provided outstanding customer support, updating my website as necessary.
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