Oasis Environments Limited (Epoxy Resin Solutions)
Website: www.oasis-environments.co.uk
About the Client
Oasis Environments Limited is a Bristol based installer of epoxy resin flooring, wall coatings and external resin bonded surfacing. Oasis are also specialist asbestos surveyors and removers.
We were approached by the client to redesign two existing company websites and provide search engine optimisation to help increase business levels.
Specification
The company has two pre-existing websites that were to be optimised. As the websites had originally been designed in-house using Frontpage, there were many issues such as cross-browser compatibility issues and a non-uniform layout that required correction.
The branding of the website had to be maintained such as the colour schemes, fonts and general layout as this already matched that of existing company logos, leaflets and letterheads.
One of the new features the client requested was a new section for case studies so they could illustrate current and previous contracts and show examples of their work. It was very important that the case studies section contained an image gallery so that customers could visualise the quality of work carried out.
The client also wanted the implementation of a dynamic menu bar that allowed for future expansion.
Upon completion of the website alterations, we were invited to commence an SEO campaign to improve search engine positioning.
Design Elements
Due to the existing design, it was decided the best way to proceed would be to recreate the website from scratch and use the existing website layout as a template. Whilst the current website appeared correctly in Internet Explorer, there was no cross-browser support and the website suffered from compatibility issues when viewed in other web browsers such as Firefox and Safari. The HTML code was also unnecessarily bloated with many defunct tags so a complete overhaul was required.
The new layout allowed us to move from a table based design to a completely tableless layout by implementing an external CSS file and enabled us to completely clear the redundant code and clean up the general design.
The website development consists of the following elements:
- CSS based design
- Web standards compliant
- Cross browser support
- XHTML 1.0
- CSS 2.1
- PHP (used for contact form)
- Javascript (used for contact form and image gallery)
We then implemented a new expandable menu bar. Due to the focus on SEO, we decided to opt purely for a CSS based menu instead of Flash or Javascript to enable search engines to crawl the menu links. The new menu is not only optimised for search engines but also ready for future expansion with minimal effort required. We then added the new case studies section and by utilising Javascript, introduced a gallery to display images of current and previous jobs. Upon completion, cross browser support was tested using Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Netscape.
After the website was completed, we then discussed our intended search engine optimisation plans, obtained the client's desired key phrases and have been optimising the website on an ongoing monthly basis.