The Technology Studio

We are delighted that the website we’ve been involved in developing for the past 5 years GoLearnTo.com continues to go from strength to strength and this year has been nominated for no less than 3 British Travel Awards.

The categories are:

1) Online tour operator of the year

2) Best specialist singles tour operator

3) Small tour operator of the year

GoLearnTo.com are learning holiday specialists and sell a wide array of inspired holiday courses where you can learn anything from yoga, photography, painting and cooking to surfing, horse riding, languages and even gladiator fighting.
It’s great to hear that a website we have been involved with developing for 5 years now has made it into such prestige award categories and we wish them every success.

Winning relies on votes from the public and if you like the website we would love any support you can offer. In addition, if you register to vote you’ll automatically be added to the prize draw to win some amazing holiday prizes.

To vote for GoLearnTo.com (and we really hope you will!), please follow the steps below…

1. Click here to open the British Travel Awards website

2. Fill in your details

3. Our categories are the FIRST and THIRD boxes you see so please click on them to expand the sub-categories…

i) WHO ARE THE BEST TOUR OPERATORS FOR SPECIALIST HOLIDAYS

Under here you’ll find a sub-section for ‘BEST SPECIALIST SINGLES HOLIDAY TOUR OPERATOR” (its the last one in the list)
Please vote for GoLearnTo here…

ii)  The third box down says ‘WHO ARE THE BEST OVERALL TOUR OPERATORS (OF THE YEAR AWARDS)’

Expand this box and the first one you see is ‘SMALL TOUR OPERATOR OF THE YEAR’
Please vote for GoLearnTo here…

The third box you see is ‘ONLINE TOUR OPERATOR OF THE YEAR’
Please vote for GoLearnTo here…

4. You can either skip the rest and scroll down to the bottom to click submit for your chance to win or if you have some time, feel free to run through other categories and fill in your favourites…

Thank you for voting!

The award winning GoLearnTo website has had a design update recently and we think it looks great – even if we do say so ourselves!

After some market research GoLearnTo decided that their website needed to be more focused on their target demographic. In addition they wanted to widen the site from 800 pixels wide to 1024 pixels wide, considering that now less than 1% of people use 800×600 displays. Yes, that’s less than 1%!

See more information about browser display statistics.

There are now a  lot more jQuery effects, such as slider panels and more aesthetic and functional photo galleries. These kind of things are great as they give more information to the user as well as being relevant for search engines. They can also add a bit of flashiness to a site which a lot of people generally like!

Check it out and see what you think!

We were recently approached by Bizspace to completely redesign (in their words!) their old, tired and basic website!

Their previous site was falling well below par on all three of the most important things that a website needs to get right…

SEO (Search engine optimisation)

Unfortunately the site was built with minimal search engine optimisation consideration in mind. There were very few pages with a serious lack of detailed, relevant content, as well as some other more serious issues such as using images for text headers. Without spending the required time and effort on SEO you are negating much else of what you do on a website – because nobody will ever find it!

Website Usabillity

Clarity is the name of the game here – not making people have to think! Unfortunately the navigation through the site was not clear and neither were the most important calls to action on each page. Always remember to keep things simple and clear and ensure the things you want people to do on each page are easy to see and understand.

Website design

Aesthetically the design was below average. I say it all the time but people will make up their mind within seconds of visiting your site on who you are, what you stand for and whether they trust you. A clear professional design is extremely important to instantly reassure their subconscious that you are worthy of their trust.

But, it’s all of them working together that’s the key!

Getting one or even a couple of these things right is a good start, but it’s the combination of all three together that we here at The Technology Studio believe is the real goal. It’s not good enough to have a fantastic looking site if nobody knows how to use it. There’s no point having  a site with search engine optimisation tuned perfectly if it looks unprofessional and shabby as people will go elsewhere. You see where I’m going here!

With our help the new Bizspace website has released to much praise in each of the areas above. The proof as always is in the pudding however! Their previous site achieved half of the visitors that the new site achieves, but it’s the site goals that are really interesting. Previously the old Bizspace site achieved an average of just 4 contact forms per week. It is now achieving an average of 40. That’s a ten fold increase!

Our solution to a common problem for Web Developers

At The Technology Studio we have lost count of the number of times we’ve been approached by potential clients with a brief that consists of nothing more than “we need a website – how much will it cost”! Even the better briefs we receive are often no more than a Word document listing the content the client could put on the site.

In our view this is like asking a builder to quote on an extension without telling them how may floors, rooms, bathrooms, windows or doors you need. Of course in the building trade this is used by some of the less scrupulous builders to their advantage as each additional feature that the client asks for is met with a rub of the chin, a sharp intake of breath and the response  “that’s going to cost you – you didn’t mention that when I quoted”. Whilst this might work for cowboy builders we prefer our clients to want to work with us again! For this reason we only ever provide  a quote once we have built (or been given) a full website schematic.

Of course often the client simply doesn’t know exactly what they want and extracting this information from a busy person with many other priorities can be a tricky process.

I read a good article in Smashing Magazine late last year that reviewed a number of approaches taken by web developers to extract the right info from clients  – well worth a read if you are compiling your own questionnaire. This gave me the inspiration to review the questions we ask our clients – the results of which are below:

1. What business objectives do you have for your new website? 2. How will you measure the success of your website? 3. Who are the target audience for your website? 4. What actions would you like your target audience to take on your site?

5. What other marketing activities will be supporting your website?

6. What information do you want to provide your target audience and in what format?

7. Have you got any plans for attracting your target audience to your site?

8. Who are your main competitors and what are their website addresses?

9. Are there any websites in your field that you like and specifically what do you like about them?

10. Are there any websites in your field that you dislike and specifically what do you dislike about them?

11. What content do you have that can be used on your website?

12. Have you done any keyword research?

13. Do you have any other digital presence?

In future we will add this to The Technology Studio website for any enquirers to fill in. If you would like a copy of our questionnaire contact us at info@thetechnologystudio.co.uk.

As we have previously mentioned (throughout our site) is that we know a bit about commercial property in the UK.  With NovaLoca being one of our websites and having grown from being nothing to the second biggest commercial property search engine in the UK with nearly 100,000 visitors a month in three and a half years.  We have also recently developed the NovaLoca iphone app and have other apps and projects in the pipeline.

We also like using cool new technology and so rather than “Death by Powerpoint” we decided to put a credentials presentation together using something we were recommended (Thanks Nick Merryfield) called Prezi (www.prezi.com).  While it takes significantly longer to put together the content we really like the impact when we use it.  I then noticed we might be able to embed it in our blog and so I thought I would have a go (I am not a techie at all).

See the results of our commercial property technology and website credentials in the Prezi presentation below.

If you would like to chat through any of our client stories and see if we might be able to help drive your commercial property business through technology then please get in touch.

Neil

We love sharing the success stories of our clients who partner with us to create fantastic solutions that are recognized throughout their industry. In the case of travel website GoLearnTo.com, the accolades just keep on coming with no less than four awards and nominations in the past month which include…

Now you’re talking…

The International Association of Language Centres (IALC) have voted GoLearnTo.com agency of the month recognising them as a leading language travel agency with a range of courses where you can learn Spanish in Spain or learn French in France and over 14 more languages worldwide.

 
The public have spoken…

For the 2^nd year running, GoLearnTo.com has been nominated for a British Travel award in the category ‘Best Holiday Experience Provider’ proving that the trend for learning holidays continues to get the public’s vote.

School’s have their say…

Language Travel Magazine readers which include language schools from over 30 countries worldwide have nominated GoLearnTo.com for ‘Best New Agency’. GoLearnTo.com have found a niche with language travel and are inspiring more of us to learn a language by combining languages with a unique range of fun activities such as cookery holidays in Italy, yoga holidays or even surfing and much more.

Guiding the way…

Last but not least, GoLearnTo.com has received a nomination for The Good Web Guide’s Website of the Year Award recognising websites that not only function well but inspire.

This proves once again how an aesthetically pleasing, functionally rich and easy to use website designed and developed by The Technology Studio with maps by Earthware can do for you.

The awards for the travel website GoLearnTo just keep on coming! This time it has been recognised for being one of the UK’s most promising internet companies. ‘First Tuesday’, Europe’s largest professional network for high growth technology companies, shortlisted GoLearnTo down to a final of 8 other entries.

This proves once again how an aesthetically pleasing, functionally rich and easy to use website designed and developed by The Technology Studio with maps by Earthware can do for you.

Only a few weeks after Golearnto.com Wins Daily Mail Website of the Week it has now been awarded yet another honour.

The Independent, one of the UK’s most respected newspapers, has compiled a list of what it considers the 50 best travel websites and included in this prestigious list is www.golearnto.com.

The flexibility of the site is one thing mentioned in the short review, where you can search for “holiday courses according to destination, length, budget and type of trip: choose from sport, language, cooking, creative or well-being breaks.”

A second award for this site is something that The Technology Studio take great pride in. It also proves that when it comes to professional, functional travel websites we are experts in this field.

The Technology Studio’s first travel website, GoLearnTo, has just been awarded ‘Website of the Week’ by the Daily Mail. GoLearnTo provides a range of  learning holidays to suit any location or budget.

The journalist reviewing the site commented that the site provided, “Excellent search options and a reassuring level of detail”. He followed this with, “If you’re looking for a holiday course with a learning element, this website is a time-saving godsend”.

GoLearnTo invested time to work with The Technology Studio to design and plan the website before the final build. This commendation proves that the more time spent planning your website, the better this is reflected in the end result.

The Technology Studio have a strong background in travel websites and as such we are aware of the issues you may face as a travel provider and how these must be addressed in your website. Through careful planning and good project management, your website should also be one which consumers champion.