Pianos Plus Website Before & After Case Study

Professional web design is too important to leave to a friend of a friend to hack out.

Many companies (even large ones) make the mistake of trying to get their website built as cheaply as they can find. They knew they wanted something online, so they either asked their admin to learn how to build one or had a friend of a friend do it on the side. Most companies got what they paid for. This might have been okay five years ago (“At least I got something online”), but this won't cut it today at all. The stakes are too high and ignoring this fact is just counter productive for any company.

Piano Plus realized this and contacted KO Websites for a proposal. They had an older website that was started by an ex-employee that was never really completed. It had no SEO coding or editing, very little content, and was stale in style. They did have, however, a pretty good idea of what they wanted in a new website and who their market was and how their site should function.

We took their wish list and went through it line-by-line, validating their needs compared to the requested functions. We analyzed the price of functionality against their predicted Return on Investment (ROI). In short, we helped them scale down the project scope in some areas and raise it in others, based purely on ROI predictions and owner usability convenience. Below is what was delivered and the SEO results.

What were the Results? Please play video and hear from the store owner himself!

Not bad for the time, but not producing

• HTML Design
• No navigation
• Slow loading graphics
  
• Audio subject, but no sound
• No Search Engine Optimization
• Outdated content
• Outdated design

Built in 2008 — now seeing over 3 times the previous website's traffic

• Up-to-date web 2.0 CSS HTML design standards
• Refreshed, digitized logo
• Photo clean up and manipulation
• Flash animation to show scope of inventory and maintain interest
• Flash navigation buttons with audio
• We included a dynamic calendar for instructors to post their availability on. Instructors can post their own activities on the calendar themselves, keeping workload and cost down on updates
• We added two KO EZ-CMS modules to two pages (‘About’ and ‘Used’). This is a custom application enabling the company to update specific sections of the website without risk of damaging layout to other parts of the website. No special software needed and is very simple to use
• A Chinese language info page
• Simple contact form with capuche coding to reduce spam
• SEO coding and editing and site submitted to all major search engines
• Two hours of training for web-based modules - calendar and KO EZ-CMS
• Hosting, stat, and e-mail accounts; continued technical support when needed; SEO reports and updates