Acorn Venture Ltd asked us to produce a new website for their Family Holidays product. The brief was to significantly improve their current conversion rate by improving the usability and function of their existing website which was expensive to maintain, inflexible, difficult to amend and hard to navigate. 

We came up with a fresh look for the site along with some different ideas for the search and navigation. Content is all managed in the back end, Images are resized, and the data structure can deal with a variety of holiday types.

The end result which launched on Monday 5th September 2011 is a much cleaner and more flexible system that can be maintained without constant calls to the developers for help.

The sales system created for Acorn allows users to make an instant quote, save it, return, pay a deposit, return and pay a final balance through Sage Pay.

Technologies Employed:

• Joomla! 1.6
• AJAX
• CSS3
• PHP
• MySql
• Facebook API
• Google Maps API
• Sagepay API

Explore approached us with a challenge - build a brand new site for their new funky Edge brand to include a brand new template, Advanced AJAX searching, integration with Internal Systems and with 3rd party suppliers... All the content needed to be loaded and the booking / enquiry systems tested.

Target Deadline - 3 weeks.

Target Deadline - Achieved.

We released the site before Christmas 2011, and it was launched officially just after new year 2012.

We love the new site, the clean, funky look and the ease of use...

 

Technologies Employed:

• Joomla! CMS core
• PHP
• MySQL
• SOLR Indexing (providing faceted search)
• AJAX search
• PrinceXML PDF generation for trip notes
• Geo Location for providing relevant content
• Load balanced Apache servers
• Social Media Integration
• Google Map integration
• Advanced custom image management
• Advanced Caching
• Bespoke Online Booking system
• Outbound API for feeding holiday information to travel agents
• Linux (Development / Production Servers)
• ANT (Build Scripts)
• SVN (Version Control)

 

Charles Faye required a new website to update their image, and which had much better functionality than other 'dissappointing' UK estate agents websites. They needed this website to be flexible, but easy to update, and as their properties were all listed on their computer system, it needed to interface with their system in order for the properties to be updated on a daily basis.

Mr Zen recommended a Joomla component used in the USA as a base for the functionality on the site, then set about building a custom interface for this component with the "Expert Agent" system used by the head office.

This resulted in a very reasonable solution cost wise, whilst providing the 'Wow' factor in terms of functionality and integrating with their existing systems seamlessly.

Technologies Employed:

• Joomla!
• Expert Agent XML Interface
• AJAX
• CSS3
• PHP
• MySql
• Google Maps API

If you are interested in a quote for your Estate Agency, please contact Matt - info@mrzen.com

Explore Worldwide had a requirement to rebuild their website which was built on an old CMS system and didn't provide them with any opportunities for future growth or modernisation. We have worked with Explore for a number of years, so we were delighted to take on the mammoth task of moving their current system over to a more open framework for future development.

With an extremely tight timescale, and with limited budget we created a highly bespoke solution for managing the content on the website whilst bringing the content of their Trip Notes, which were once stored as Desktop Publishing Files into a database, which has significantly reduced the amount of work involved in the creation and maintenance of these files. The system generates these using a PDF creation tool meaning the latest information is always available to the end user in whichever format they prefer.

SEO is key in the highly competitive Adventure Travel Market, so we developed highly optimisable landing pages for all of the tours, and an optimised framework for the static pages, which has meant a significant uplift in traffic from non-branded seo terms and the long tail with as little effort required from staff as possible. In addition, the use of related articles (based on keyword) around the site brings the content into the products and vice-versa, improving both customer experience and SEO potential.

We also manage the hosting of Explore's website, using multiple dedicated servers, and load balancers, the site is able to cope with the significant amounts of traffic placed on them. Unplanned down time has been negligable with redundancy built into the system and effective techniques for managing the roll out of code employed.

The website delivers industry leading conversion rates, and online bookings representing revenue in the multi-millions of pounds.

Technologies Employed:

• Joomla! CMS core
• PHP
• MySQL
• SOLR Indexing (providing faceted search)
• PrinceXML PDF generation for trip notes
• Geo Location for providing relevant content
• Multi Domain, Multi Language content
• Load balanced Apache servers
• Social Media Integration
• Content + API integration (for news feeds)
• Agent Community functionality
• Google Map integraion
• Advanced custom image management
• Advanced Caching
• Bespoke Online Booking system
• Outbound API for feeding holiday information to travel agents
• Linux (Development / Production Servers)
• ANT (Build Scripts)
• SVN (Version Control)

We are very excited to announce the launch of the Dragoman website www.dragoman.com

Dragoman offered us a fantastic opportunity to show what we could do in terms of design and development with this site designed to reflect the adventurous and friendly nature of their overland adventure tours.

This was a challenging build, with some important time-saving requirements at the back end and the opportunity to show off the social media possibilities of our CMS system.

Featuring:

• Full community functionality with user Photo galleries, Videos, Groups, Twitter integration, Facebook Connect, integrated short listing and booking process
• Advanced faceted search running from SOLR indexing system
• Trip reviews
• Integrated with multiple backend systems
• Webservices provided for both sides of the integration
• Full HD videos / You Tube integrations
• Full online booking
• Merchant services integration
• Internationalisation with multi currency and the possibility of a multi lingual site serving different content to different locales
• SEO built in, with Meta Tags, Titles and Headings all fully controllable from the CMS
• Easy management of tour information with editing of tour information from the front end
• Integration with third party supplier information via an XML feed
• Image management with no resizing or optimising required
• Cross selling, upselling and merchandising
• Ability to target registered users with targetted emails based on their online behaviour
• Huge location database producing a large number of  targetted landing pages

We are very proud of this website - please take a look!

Discover a travel portal with a difference at addictedtotravel.com. A dynamic online meeting place for enthusiasts of experiential, adventurous and responsible travel. A website providing a service for people with a passion for travel who explore the most amazing places on planet earth. With easy navigation, comprehensive destination guides, colourful maps, and rapidly growing user-generated content, addictedtotravel.com enables independently-minded travellers to communicate and transact directly with travel specialists and quality product providers through our bespoke enquiry system.

A wealth of travel knowledge, local expertise and first-hand traveller experiences can be shared by contributing feedback, blogging, rating and reviewing products, forum interaction, chatting or posting images of the world’s most remarkable places. Our intuitive search engine enables pinpoint browsing from a growing choice of destinations, great places to visit, local attractions, trips and tours, great places to stay and a range of inspiring activities – all promoted directly by (and booked directly with) local travel specialists and product owners.

Working with our partner Tremor UK, we developed a new site for APCOA.A PCOA is the UK's leading provider of tailored parking solutions with an established presence in Europe.

They are a full service parking management company, managing 1.3 million parking spaces, across 18 countries and approximately 4,300 employees. No matter what type of parking solution you are looking for, they can offer innovative, reliable and secure parking services, supported by highly trained personnel and unique technology.

Parking management is a specialist challenge and APCOA understands the unique demands associated with it. They therefore provide our customers with suitable customised solutions.

Technologies Employed:

• Joomla ! CMS
• PHP
• MySql
• Google Maps API
• K2
• Template development
• Javascript
• AJAX