The next Realnet website to go live is Classfinder.org.uk, our first .org website. This was previously known as leisurelocate but a new facelift and some innovative features has completely transformed it.

Classfinder.org.uk is an excellent concept with some interesting little features. Firstly the aims of the website are to:

• 1) Allow the public to find fitness classes at local venues and leave feedback.
• 2) Allow fitness instructors to advertise their classes and skills.
• 3) Allow fitness clubs to find fitness instructors at short notice.

There were a number of features which we have implemented for the first time to give the website maximum functionality and solve some basic problems that the site would face.

Firstly, the site needed a way of contacting groups of instructors quickly and at short notice. We decided that the site needed to be able to send out a text messages as well as e-mails; to maximise the chances of finding a successful replacement.

By building an enquiry, the class venue can choose to send a text message to anyone registered within a selected radius that can teach a particular class.

In that same way, attendees can view classes within a certain radius and select which classes they would like to attend. These classes can be set up by the Class venues once logged they are logged in.

Each party can review and leave feedback in their custom user area once logged in, create profiles and browse all the venues on the site.

Our recently finished website jbrockandsons.com got a 600% boost in traffic overnight because a visitor to their website posted a link on a discussion forum.

Graph showing jbrockandsons 600% increase.

Since the huge traffic spike the daily visits seem to be levelling off at a 200% increase on the original.

We’ve recently completed the J. Brock and Sons website, much to the acclaim of forums and farmers across the country. We were initially given the go-ahead in July to create a site for J. Brock and Sons, who were taking the plunge with their first website, despite being a very well renowned family business for decades. Building the whole site from the ground up allowed us to implement a bunch of features that will ensure maximum accessibility and functionality for the potential customer.

Intelligent Search Functionality: Don’t you love having a dynamically updated results list appear under your search query as you type? With such a range of machinery and parts it was essential that we included an intelligent search which also recognises misspelt words in order to provide the simplest process for potential customers.

On-the-fly PDF creation: Knowing your customers and creating features that cater to their needs is a crucial element in creating a successful website. With this site we have implemented our largest on-the-fly PDF creation function. This system is completely scalable and can be used to print off a nice 2 page leaflet on the particular product you are interested in, it can also be used to print of an entire catalogue of stock. We think this is a great feature to have when selling a product such as farm machinery where a lot of customers will be coming on site to browse through stock and will want the most up to date stock list.

Do you fancy speaking to Realnet in person, without a formal one to one meeting?

Richard Tack (Sales Manager) and Kari Sewell (Technical Director) will be at the exhibition to help with any website, search engine optimisation, google adwords or google analytics questions you may have.

Pop down and see us:
IQ Cambridge, Building 7100, Waterbeach, Cambridge, CB5 9PD from 10am – 6pm.

We look forward to meeting you!

Gee Tee has been a faithful customer for Realnet since 2004. They have continued to invest in their website and see ever growing rewards.

For their 2010 season we have completely revamped their site making use of the growing experience we have in building and managing successful e-commerce sites.

But if we rebuild their site what will happen to their page one Google rankings???

Well the site is live and our clever engineers have transferred all the history to the new site and pushed the rankings even higher – in fact to the top two positions on page one.

Early indications are that this season will once again be record breaking for their online business.

And watch out for their Garden Centre killer – The Bulb Shop for smaller quantity buys.  This site went live in August and looks set to be another success story for Gee Tee.

Take a look through their offerings at www.gee-tee.co.uk

And please leave a comment when you have had a browse.

Realnet have just launched another new website  - www.361photography.com.

Kristi and Andy asked us to give them a more dashing site that would also let them better manage uploading and sharing images with their clients.

www.361photography.com features a wide collection of photos that help do justice to their skills.

The new website puts 361 Photography ahead of the rest and helps establish them as one of the leading professional photography companies in the area.

361 Photography is in two Gallery areas –  Showcases and Client.

The Showcase gallery features 6 galleries

• Corporate
• Functions & Events
• Products
• Publicity
• Workshops

A client area offers clients their own private gallery that is accessible via the web.

The development  features CSS3 styling to allow full size images to be displayed and yet maintain aspect ratios of the images, modern features that de-grades gracefully for older browsers that do not support CSS3.

Working in close collaboration with Sharone Freed, Realnet are pleased to announce the launch of gardenfencecambs.co.uk.

Sharone approached Realnet earlier this year, his aim to improve his presence on the web.

One of Sharone’s requirements was to ensure that the site was made fully content manageable. and had high visibility in Google.

Realnet and Sharone chose on an open source CMS framework,  Concrete5 This allows smaller businesses full control over their content whilst allowing Realnet the ability to rapidly move a site from concept to a full implementation without restricting the in depth creativity that has become the Realnet trademark.

Garden Fence Cambs Homepage

The fast pace at which the online pharmaceutical industry moves, coupled with the continuing success of their bespoke-built website has meant that Masters Direct were in need of a website upgrade less than a year after Realnet first published Masters Direct online. With such strong competition in the online pharmacy industry it is important for them not only to keep up but also ensure that user experience is at its optimum level to ensure repeat visits and customer base growth.

We cleaned up the site and gave it a sleeker and more minimalist feel. See below the before and after screeshots:

Before

After

By observing how users were interacting with the site as well as keeping an eye on the competition we not only designed an improved user experience but also upgraded the development behind the site.

Our lead programmer in charge of Masters Direct really went to town on the new site making thing smooth and slick moving from one application to the next. All of the old features have been improved and everything else has been reorganised and reset for a perfect selling environment.

Yes That’s Right…We finally have a new website! We have been so busy over the last few years making everyone else’s site the bees knees that we neglected our own! We have even added a few extra features…if you see anything you like then let us know and we can do something for you too.

The internal debate raged for many days about the colour of the site…then the technical director came up with the solution that we could have both black and white and let people decide what they would prefer. Notice the little switch in the top right of the page. it may be something to do with having two young children that’s got him so used to finding the compromise, but what ever it is, at least everyone is happy.

Suffice to say having 7 people in the office all expressing their views has been quite and eye opener…and has helped us understand the trials and tribulations that many of our clients go through. As we wanted everything to be entirely new and up to date we found ourselves surrounded by a plethora of technology that wasn’t there the first time around and struggled through example after example trying to find the best one for us. We would love to know what you think to our new site…please be gentle though, we haven’t tasted our own medicine before!

If you are looking for a little something to spruce up your site then check out our monthly service recommendations and call us for a consultation on how we can improve your business on the web. Subscribe to the blog and we will send you updates and information on what you can be doing right now yourself.

CPC (Cambridge Pet Crematorium) have been long-standing clients with Realnet. This was the second version of their main public website designed and built by Realnet and we added a whole host of new interactive features. The Website now gives a more well rounded user experience covering everything in a step by step process, from the first point of contact to leaving an online tribute.

One of the key features now incorporated into the site design is the encouragement of a return visit, this was done by creating a series of well thought out journeys throughout the site which catered for people not just during the time they required the service, but also before and after.

One of the main challenges was creating a site that didn’t emphasise ’selling’ or driving people to an end point, as many of our other sites do. This was a good exercise in creating a website that has real feeling and uses strong subliminal messaging and wording to put the point across as opposed to the hard sell.

The Team at CPC were great to work with, the mix of personalities ensured we not only came up with some fantastic ideas during the dynamic meetings but also that that there was a real consideration given to the end user and their feelings.