Margaret Giles School of Dancing

The Brief

Give this Kent-based dance school, which offers ISTD-approved classes in Ballet, Tap, Modern Theatre and Street Jazz, a compelling online presence. The website should provide information to existing students and their parents, as well as attracting new students. Showcase the students work, particularly the professional pictures take during their bi-annual show.

The Strategy

It was important for this site to grab the casual visitor, so a visually appealing design was essential.However, it also needed to be colour-neutral as a re-branding exercise for the school was planned for later in 2011. Once complete, the site would need to be easily updated to apply the new branding.

To attract new visitors, the site needs strong Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) facilities. After consultation, Liz also agreed that a Facebook page would be a useful means of advertising the school to the parents of young children, as well as promoting the new Street Jazz classes to teenagers.

The site also needed some additional features:

• Easily-updated class timetable
• Embedded maps for the three dance venues
• Testimonials
• News section

The Result

Working closely with the school principal, Liz Moriarty, Four Lakes identified a number of WordPress themes (designs) that met the specification. Liz was particularly taken with one, so that was chosen as the starting point for the site’s design. Four Lakes then adapted the design to Liz’s requirements, ensuring that she was happy with the look and feel of the finished site.

At that point Four Lakes tackled the rest of the project:-

• Creating and integrating the new Margaret Giles School of Dancing Facebook page
• Setting up a Google Calendar for class times
• Carrying out initial SEO tasks for the site
• Integrating Google Maps for the venue pages
• Training Liz and the other school teacher, Annie Farrant-Davis,  to ensure they are able to manage day-to-day tasks

The website was created on time and to budget, and the Margaret Giles School of Dancing are delighted with their new website.