Apex Leadership Institute London
WEB DEVELOPMENT
Apex Leadership Institute London (ALIL) is an organisation founded in 2023 with the vision to raise leaders who are physically and spiritually relevant to their local and national communities.
They seek to raise entrepreneurs, coaches, mentors, business administrators and more through offering globally recognised OTHM accredited qualifications by one of the best awarding bodies in the UK.
The Need
There was no previous version of the site to refer to, therefore a new brand identity and content needed to be created from scratch prior to site development.
Target Demographics
• Lifelong learners (young and old adults, men, women) seeking help to develop their innate leadership skills
• Entrepreneurs and those seeking to start businesses
• Pursuants of education in the HE sector
• Workers – creating employees for society
Client Requirements
• Implement a payment system with e-commerce functionalities, accepting both UK an International payments.
• Work with designers in translating a Figma prototype into a CMS with well structured code, modifying the website from layout to function.
• Design needs to be flexible with future expansion plans to offer more qualifications and levels (e.g. Level 8 Doctorate). Courses will be offered for Online study initially with future potential to offer Face-to-Face learning.
• Ensure responsiveness and compatibility of the site across various devices and browsers.
• Perform website testing and debugging to ensure smooth functionality.
• A learner registration form flow leading to online course payment.
• An entry point to the learning portal via a Learning Management System.
• Add a blog and footer links to social platforms
The Challenges
The project began with a team including a copywriter, 2 designers and 3 initial developers from Oct 2023. The project experienced many delays in launching for Jan 2024.
The charity was having finance issues and needed a way to generate consistent income. Funds generated from the learners’ tuition fees will be used to fund and continue their mission. As there wasn’t a previous version of the site, these factors impacted heavily on the need for a fast delivery and short completion deadline for the website. I joined the project as a Web Developer in mid March 2024 and took lead of the website development for launch end of April 2024. The build overall took 6 weeks – which was contingent on time taken in receiving feedback between cross-functional teams, content writer and designers’ availability and CEO input to work on and complete remaining tasks and templates.
Web Development
Addressing the client requirements, I implemented the following solutions:
• Installed WooCommerce with Stripe and other payment methods and an additional subscription plugin for instalment payment options.
• Created and linked forms to a CRM, and implemented a chat box widget. Research indicates live chat/chat bots are more likely to increase conversions over contact forms. Integrating the website to a CRM enables administrators one central hub to manage emails, forms and leads.
• Using WordPress Elementor, I optimised for mobile and tablet viewing and accessibility best practices. It is also a CMS that is compatible with many modern browsers. I also checked additional configurations including SSL and PHP version compatibility.
• Just before launch, I conducted tests for credit card and stripe payments and reported any errors to the relevant vendors. There was a checkout error with the order completion page not showing. After troubleshooting, the error was found to be coming from the parent theme, which required an update.
When I joined the project, the website had a few custom templates created by earlier developers built on an active original (parent) theme. Due to this, I manually installed a child theme via FTP to enable custom modifications to enhance design and functionality without altering the parent theme. Due to this action I was then able to update the parent theme update without overwriting custom modifications and resolve the checkout error.
• I worked closely with designers, ensuring the pages and the purchasing process provided a consistent theme with concise copy for the courses, demonstrating their value to learners.
Custom Features
Course Price drop down
Coded in a tabbed pricing box feature using JavaScript, revealing prices depending on which course option is selected from a dropdown.
Conditional Enrolment Form
Added conditional logic functions to the course registration form. The user selects their desired course to study on the dropdown and next selects a Study Route. When all required form fields have been completed and the submit button clicked, the form is submitted to the administrator email and subsequently; the page automatically directs the user to the specific course payment page they selected, which is also further filtered by the Study Route selection to determine the specific course payment page that displays.
The Result
With the combined efforts of the ALIL team, they have a site that:
• Looks professional with eye-pleasing icons and graphics
• Conveys modern minimal branding and typography
• Loads fast with simple navigation, enabling potential leads to find a course, obtain relevant and searchable information quickly
• Displays clear pricing and payment options
• Guides users from information to registration to course purchase, with easy form submissions managed via a CRM
• With the site just launched at the time of writing; as a result of the team’s efforts we hope to see conversions increase quickly as site awareness grows
Credits
CEO: Dr Chuma Osuchukwu
SEO and Content Writer: Diamaka Aniagolu
Web Designers: Maria Caleap | Diana Vlad
Lead Developer: Sam Ma
Web Developers: Alexey Turin | Shivangini Patel
Tools
CMS: WordPress Elementor
CRM: Modern Software Systems
Software: Figma, Illustrator, VS Code