A study-abroad consultancy, designed and built end to end
Students arrive with questions long before they speak to anyone. We designed and built the site that answers them, then puts the appointment in a counsellor’s diary.
Context
SafeNet advises students on studying abroad: destinations, applications, visas, scholarships, guarantor services, accommodation and the part nobody warns you about, arriving in a country where you know no one. We designed and built their entire website, from the first structure and the first screen design through to the live site and the system the team runs it with.
The problem
A student choosing a consultancy is choosing who to trust with the next five years of their life, and they make most of that decision on the website before anyone picks up a phone. That put three things in front of us. The site had to answer a lot of specific questions, nine destinations and eight services deep, not gesture at them from a homepage. The content behind those answers changes constantly, and every change needed a developer, so changes waited. And the audience reads in English and in Burmese, which on most sites means one version is real and the other is a translation that is always a few weeks behind.
What we did
We started with the structure rather than the visuals: what a student asks, in what order, and which page should answer it. That gave us a destination guide that works the same way for all nine countries, a service page that works the same way for all eight services, and a set of company pages doing the job of reassurance. Then we designed and built it. Booking became the main action rather than a form, so visitors see when counsellors are actually free and put a time in the diary themselves. Both languages were built as the real site rather than one site plus a translation, with the language in the address so either version can be shared, bookmarked and found in search, and Burmese numerals used where Burmese numerals belong, which is invisible when right and glaring when wrong. Accommodation was the one part SafeNet could not write themselves, because the rooms belong to other companies, so we integrated those providers' APIs and consolidated them into a single catalogue the student searches once. Behind all of it we built a content system shaped around this site rather than a generic one, so the team ships changes without us.
What we built
The full site, designed and built: close to thirty pages in each language, the booking flow, and the content system behind them.
Design, not just implementation
Site structure, page design and the look of the brand on the web, all of it ours. We designed one destination guide and one service page properly, then made every other one work the same way, so a student who reads about the UK already knows how to read about Canada.
Nine destination guides
The UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Ireland, New Zealand and Malaysia, each covering why study there, what the universities expect, what the degree costs in time and money, and what the visa allows you to do afterwards.
Eight service pages, the whole journey
Education counselling, university applications, visas, scholarships, the guarantor service, accommodation, pre-departure guidance and arrival and settlement. The journey a student is actually on, not the three services that are easiest to sell.
Consultations booked, not requested
Visitors see counsellor availability and book a time, so first contact is an appointment rather than a message waiting for someone to notice it.
Accommodation pulled from several providers, searched as one
Student housing does not live in one place, so we integrated the accommodation providers' APIs and consolidated them. Each arrives with its own shape, its own fields and its own idea of what a price means. We normalise them into a single catalogue with consistent country, city and weekly price, so a student searches once and sees thousands of rooms across eight countries rather than being sent off to three other websites.
One more provider is a new adapter, not a new search
Each provider sits behind a common interface, so adding the next one means mapping its fields rather than rebuilding the search. The page a student uses does not change when the supply behind it does.
The company pages that carry the trust
About, testimonials with student stories, a news and blog section, an office tour, contact, privacy and terms. Choosing a consultancy is a trust decision made largely on the website, so these pages got the same design attention as the ones that sell.
Two languages, neither an afterthought
Full content in English and Burmese, each with its own address, so either version can be shared and found in search like any other page.
A content system built around this site
Every page, destination, service, testimonial, partner, promotion and blog post is edited by SafeNet directly, along with the navigation, site settings and the promotional banner. Both languages are edited side by side, so a change ships in English and Burmese together rather than one waiting on the other.
Enquiries tracked, not just received
Every enquiry arrives in the admin as a record with a status and space for internal notes, so the team can see what has been followed up and what is still waiting, the thing an inbox cannot tell you.
Visitor analytics in the same place
A dashboard inside the admin shows page views and visitor sessions, so the team can see which destinations and services are drawing interest without opening a separate tool. It records only visitors who have consented, and stores the consent itself rather than assuming it.
Results
SafeNet has a website that does the first half of the consultancy’s job. A student can find the country they are considering, read what it actually involves, see who else has been through it, and book a counsellor, in the language they read in, without anyone at SafeNet touching a keyboard. Enquiries that still arrive as messages arrive as tracked records rather than unread mail. The team publishes its own changes the day they are decided and sees what the site is doing from the same screen.
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