Breaking Barriers
Breaking Barriers are a local business in Reading, Berkshire who provide dance, drama, acro, singing and glee club classes for children.
They operate in a number of schools and venues across Reading.
Their goal is to inspire confidence through performing arts.
Why did Breaking Barriers require a website refresh?
The original website was far too complicated to use and parts of it not working at all.
The CMS (Content Management System) that allows you to add, edit and delete content was a constant battle that they could no longer perserver with.
This meant that the last news / blog article was from years ago and there were classes on the websites that they no longer offered.
Outdated content like this is not a good look for any business.
The business owners knew they needed a website refresh and were keen to use our web design and web development skills.
Simplifying The Booking Process
The ultimate goal for Breaking Barriers was to simplify the booking process.
All bookings are taken through a third party provider and this is something they didn’t want to change.
We reduced the number of steps and friction on the purchasing journey saving users time and saving Breaking Barriers from queries related to booking.
Original process – 7 steps
- Go onto website
- Find a class
- Click for further details
- External site opened up displaying all classes they offer
- Find the same class AGAIN that was on the website
- Click to book
- Book
New process – 4 steps
- Go onto website
- Find a class
- Click to book
- Book
Web design and web development that will futureproof the business
When refreshing a website, it’s the perfect time to get a wish list together to ensure the website is fit for purpose today and also for the future.
There were a number of “must have” features. These were:
- Class listings – these had to have a filter so that visitors could search by class type and venue, e.g. Street Dance class in Beansheaf Community Centre.
- Teacher profiles – websites are all about building trust. Seeing photos of the teachers, reading about their qualifications builds a lot of trust with parents.
- News / Events – the ability to promote upcoming events and praise children for performances is essential, showing that the business is active and cares about their children.
- Google reviews – again coming back to trust, there’s nothing like strong independent reviews to convert a parent into a paying customer.
- Simple to use – adding, editing and deleting content must all be easy to do and handled directly by the client.
Independent Google reviews build trust with website visitors
Teacher profiles build trust with parents and help with SEO
Filterable class listings help parents find classes quickly
The website has to be simple to use for the client
After the experience with their previous website, the new website had to be simple to use.
So how do you simplify things?
Understand why the current website is complicated
The previous website used a generic solution and here’s the problem with generic solutions.
They contains LOTS of options, more then you will ever need.
Solutions like these are not inherently bad. It’s how they are set up.
What we tend to find is that agencies who use these tools have invested a lot of time into learning about them.
If the agency continues to maintain the website on the businesses behalf, then everything is smooth.
However, lots of businesses want to take control of their own websites.
With the day-to-day running of a business, it’s no small feat to get up to speed with one of these generic tools.
Our solution
Our solution is flexible content blocks, think of them like digital LEGO.
Regardless of how you use them, the website always looks professional.
You can add, edit and delete content simply. The only skills required are to be able to use a keyboard and mouse.
By giving Breaking Barriers everything they need and nothing that they don’t, they are empowered to create content for their website.
Simplifying Websites By Automating Content
An important part of simplifying websites is to automate content where it makes sense.
For instance, Breaking Barriers offer classes at a number of different venues.
Each of those venues has a page and the class listings for these pages are generated automatically.
Class listings for venues are generateed automatically
The website has to be simple to use for the customer
People rarely land on websites by accident.
Generally a visitor to the Breaking Barriers website will have strong purchasing intention.
They will most likely be a parent who wants to book a class for their child.
Give a visitor what they want quickly
The Breaking Barriers website immediately presents visitors with a strong ‘Search Classes’ CTA (Call To Action) above the fold.
Above the fold simply means the content that is displayed before a user scrolls or swipes down on the website.
This takes them to a table of all classes that can be filtered by class type or venue.
For instance the venue may be of more importance to a busy parent, who wants a class close to home.
On the flip-side, a child may be desperate to do a particular type of class, e.g. Glee Club, and the venue is then of less importance.
We make it extremely easy for both types of visitor to find what is best for them and then offer a simple booking process.
Websites are all about building trust
For visitors who have not heard of Breaking Barriers before and have come through a “cold” search, e.g. a google search, the website needs to work harder to build trust, and does this quickly in the following ways:
- Displays the overall five star Google rating of the busiess as well as the individual reviews.
- Has imagery of children participating in classes and performances.
- Has detailed profiles of the teachers including photos and qualifications.
- Makes it easy to contact the business via a form, telephone and email address.
- Has contact details for the business including address, telephone number, email address and social media channels.
- FAQ section answering the most common questions that a parent will have.
- Lists venues which include class details, maps and directions to the venue.
All of these things build trust which is absolutely essential to convert a visitor into a paying customer.
Consistent and optimised user experience regardless of device
Mobile / responsive website
The likelihood is that most traffic to the website will be from visitors browsing their websites on their mobile phones.
We don’t know for sure at the moment as Google Analytics / Google Search console, both free tools that can surface this information, have never been installed on the site until now.
However Breaking Barriers don’t need to worry about how people access their website.
We ensure through clever website design and a mobile first approach that regardless of which device a visitor uses to access the website, they will get a consistent and optimised experience making the journey from visitor to paying customer simple.
SEO and ongoing relationship
After the launch of the website, there is then the process of getting the business found online.
This is something we can take care of but for this project, Breaking Barriers wanted full control over their SEO strategy.
We therefore give them the ability to:
- Add unlimited pages and posts – fresh content is exactly what Google and LLMs like ChatGPT love.
- Utilise heading hierachies to structure content properly for SEO.
- Easily add meta data, titles and descriptions, so that they are optimised for search engines.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console
We also installed Google Analytics and Google Search Console for them.
This gives concrete data for a wealth of information such as visitor numbers, most popular pages and something very important for content creation.
The power of Google Search Console
Creating content is a chore, but it reeps benefits when it comes to being found online.
Google Search Console tells you exactly the terms that people are using to try and find your business and how succesful you are for each of those terms.
Armed with this information, Breaking Barriers can be confident that the content they are creating has a captive audience.
New content is then created, tracked, seen to be successful and then the process can be repeated again.
It also lets Breaking Barriers know that they are attracting the right kind of traffic.
Remember quality of traffic for any business in Reading, Berkshire is much more important than quantity, but with this method Breaking Barriers can have both, allowing them to thrive online.
Ongoing maintenance
Like all Content Management Systems, WordPress requires updates.
This maintains both the security and functionality of the website.
We give Breaking Barriers the peace of mind that their website is secure and working and take a daily backup of their website.