URL
http://www.cash4scrapcars.co.uk/

The brief
Produce a site to generate leads and interest in the business.  The design needed to incorporate the green nature recycling aspects of the business.  Competition in this business sector is strong, and the site needed to equal and better competitor’s sites, in terms of building client confidence, company image and SEO

The design
We opted for a powerful simple clean design.  This reflects the “We do what it says on the tin” nature of the company.  We unusually opted for a top and tails menu, but this does not distract from the simplicity of the site, and navigation is easy

Feature list

• HTML Brochure site
• Validating, secure information collection form, with cleanly formatted e-mails, ready to print for a collection job
• SEO by design

The e-mail form
We put a lot of effort in the front and back end of the booking form.  In the backend, the client is sent a clearly formatted e-mail, ready to print for a driver or telephone operator to work with directly.  The last thing we wanted was to create extra work for the clients, chopping and changing data form the form before they can begin working on an enquiry

CSS & Typography
We opted for a very clean crisp typography.  There is a clear visual split between the titles (serif) and body (non-serif).  We carefully massaged the text for readability

Cross browser support
By design the site is coded to support and display correctly in Safari (on a Mac + PC) IE5 upwards, Firefox 2, 3 and Opera

Technologies
This site uses HTML, PHP, CSS and Javascript

SEO
The scrap car business is fierce, and competition is pretty stiff.  Because of this, as a bonus to our customer, we have opted to make this site a SEO showcase site.  We have carefully crafted the text, descriptions, title tags etc. We are fully expecting the site to perform excellently on search engines, once the site has had time to mature and be spidered by the search engines. We will update this page in a few months to report on how the site is doing for our targeted keywords and phrases

*** update  ***
The site was launched on 14th August.  It was entered onto google local on 14th August.  It generated it’s first sale on 15th August.  The site was spidered by Google on 23rd August, and is now enjoying page 1 Google results for the customers target phrases!

Google result for Cash for scrap cars

The site is achieveing even better results for GEO targeted searches, which is exactly what the customer specified

Hosting
This site is hosted on our commercial hosting package, which costs just £100 pa

The brief
We were to design and develop a bespoke site, which represented the way the customer sees her business, both in terms of style and delivery.  The site would have a portfolio, secure contact form – along with a tightly integrated gallery and blog

Site history
Caron previously had an incomplete Joomla installation, which was attempting to sell and show photography using a Virtuemart store.  Joomla + Virtuemart is normally an excellent combination, but as a vehicle for showing and selling photographs, it really doesn’t work

The design
We worked really closely with the client to produce a template, and the typography for the site.  We bounced around ideas for a few weeks, fine tuning some ideas, and resigning others to the recycle bin.  In the end, we produced a really clean fresh airy template, that lets the customers photography shine out

We wanted the blog and gallery to have a total visual integration with the site

Working with the client
We had a very close working relationship with the client allowing us to produce exactly what the client asked for.  We developed some ideas, demonstrated them to the client, and then had a 2 way discussion with the customer.  We then modified these ideas, taking onboard the clients comments.  Working like this allowed us to produce a unique site, which the client is delighted with

Feature list
- Customer updatable portfolio – with a beautiful slideshow
- Static information based site
- Fully integrated, secure, fully featured photo gallery with e-commerce
- Fully integrated blog
- Security by design
- SEO by design

CSS & Typography
The typography for the site was developed in-house, and then tweaked to the client’s specification.  The seamless integration of the very diversely different dynamic parts of the site with the static parts of the site is due to the smart way the template and CSS are put together

Cross browser support
By design the site is coded to support and display correctly in Safari (on a Mac + PC) IE 5,6,7 Firefox 2, 3 and Opera

Technologies
This site uses HTML, PHP, SQL, DHTML, AJAX, A server firewall,  CSS and Javascript

SEO
As with all of our sites – the site has SEO built in – across both the static and dynamic parts of the site

Portfolio’s
The client shoots a range of different types of photography.  The portfolio section is simple, and to the point, allowing the work to showcase itself.  We used a particularly pretty reflection slideshow which we heavily modified and crafted into the site design

Photography gallery
We used a standard installation of Gallery2, and then got to work on the templates to fit the site design.  This has produced a visually unique installation of G2 retaining all of the backend and front end functionality.  One feature that is particularly excellent for photographers is Gallery Remote – which allows drag and drop of images from the photographers desktop

Blog
We used an installation of WordPress, and then wrote a template for it, to match the sites template

Training
We don’t just install and run.  We install, and bring our customers up to speed with the front and back ends of the website.  WordPress and Gallery2 have fairly steep learning curves, and we are there all the way through the learning process with the client, ironing out issues, and explaining how to use the site

Total integration
It might seem that we are banging on about this, but a bespoke static site, with a blog, and gallery, with a seamless integration between all of the component parts is a big deal, and not seen very often.  Often, sites have 3 different looks, as users jump between the different sections.  We are really pleased with the overall look

The future
We will continue to support and work with the customer over the following months and years, providing further training, minor tweaks and updates as required

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.

Working with the client
We feel part of web design is working with and listening to a client to understand their needs.  In this build, it became apparent the client was pretty OK with FTP, and wanted to be able to update the site herself.  We designed aspects of the site to make this really easy, all the way down to the point of supplying specifically modified slide show template files for Photoshop

The approach to this website was pretty easy.  The client being a creative sort, already had a firm idea on the design and look for the site.  See: www.clairejuliette.co.uk

Claire Juliette Creative Photography

We followed the clients ideas, chipped in a few of our own and produced this superb compact website.  The client had an existing Coppermine gallery, which we re-templated to suite the site

Hosting woes
Late last year, the clients original web host begun to pull all sorts of strange stunts – for example changing the SQL database passwords without telling anyone and generally service levels dropped.  The client has now migrated to our servers

The migration
We needed to move a SQL database, and a lot of scripts. we managed to do this and just swap DNS servers over at the last moment causing little loss in service.  The migration was pretty seamless

Hosting
Like most of our clients, this site is hosted in our unlimited hosting package – that is unlimited bandwidth, web space, SQL databases, POP accounts, FTP accounts.. you get the idea

The future
We have created the client a lovely new gallery that back-ends onto a e-commerce setup.  We will be launching this fully with the client in the near future.  As the client is a wedding photographer, selling images online is a absolute necessity nowadays

We used DHTML, AJAX, HTML, JavaScript, and some server side technologies to pull this off

Address: www.journeyafrica.co.uk

Design process
We provided the client with an initial template which covered a few page variants.  We bounced a few ideas back and forth, and come up with a winning idea that stuck. One notable part of the design is the scrolling tab method of embedding lots of information in a small space on the page, also incorporated into this was a DHTML AJAX slide-show that could accommodate differing amounts of images from property to property

We then begun a process of populating the site with the very varied content, and the flexible design provided a good framework for presenting very differing content structures from page to page

The template
The template was designed in house, and reflects the subject matter perfectly, a warm rich easy going template, offering easy navigation and a even site flow, from page to page

Sub template
There is a sub-template for the accommodation pages, which is presented in a small tabbed slider.  Within the tabbed slider there is layered information about the properties, pricing, a individualised contact form and a mini image gallery. This technique is really useful for presenting lots of unified information quickly, which from a usability perspective is the goal

Technologies used
We used DHTML, HTML, JavaScript, and some server side technologies to pull this off

Presenting the images for each property
The gallery / slideshow component we used was implemented because of it’s ability to show differing numbers of images between each page, each image being in any dimensional format – either landscape or portrait orientation

Information
There are so many different webpage’s on this site that early on we decided to have two consistent menus. Information related pages on the left hand menu and destination (product) pages from the top drop down menu.  Our testing panel found this really easy to find pages and loved the consistent look

E-commerce?
Not on this site – the point of the company involved is a true bespoke package, tailored to the customer. Any form of e-commerce would have destroyed the human input.  However, due to the nature and scale of the site, we have used personalised contact forms, so the client knows what page of the site a client used the contact form on

CSS and typography
From the outset we wanted nice clear, crisp consistent typography. We took a standard web font and carefully adjusted the line, word and character spacing to achieve this

Search Engine Optimisation
This is the next stage in the site build.  As per all the sites we build, SEO comes naturally. We tend to individually SEO every page on the site, not just the front page, this gives us great results. As we will say time and time again – content is king, and the best way to ensure great search engine placement is to have lots of relevant content

Customer testimonial

Journey Africa was a life long dream and eventually became a reality when I faced up to the fact that I was in a boring full time job and even worse a nightmare of a boss. Then along came Place of Design and Richard King.

It was mainly through Richard’s positive outlook, creativity and patience that I have the website that I thought would never reach this standard of work. I had never attempted anything like this before but knew what I wanted, Richard has been on the same page as myself throughout, his contribution has been worth its weight in gold and an absolute pleasure to work with.

From start to finish communication has been open, honest and transparent, and full credit must be given for Richard’s insight into dissecting my sometimes many vague requests and ideas.

Would I hesitate in recommending Place of Design, no not at all, to find a trustworthy, honest, hard working and amicable person to work alongside in creating your Company is truly a rare find. It is without doubt that Journey Africa and Place of Design will be working together on future projects.