Travel

Girls’ Guide To Paris is a comprehensive travel website for women who wish to visit Paris, filled with hundreds of articles about things to do, places to stay, popular restaurants and entertainment, fashion trends and shopping. It includes an online database of reviews, price details and availability. The site was begun nearly a decade ago using a proprietary web authoring and publishing system. QuikSite (through it’s affiliated company Lookit Design) created the initial web design for the proprietary platform.

The initial site roll-out was not interactive, and had limitations in the number of pages that could be displayed, and making updates to the content was time-consuming for the customer. Within a year, Girls’ Guide To Paris outgrew the proprietary system. Girls’ Guide To Paris needed a highly scalable publishing platform that could be extended with software plugins.

The Solution: In 2009 QuikSite migrated the site to WordPress, an Open Source Platform. QuikSite redesigned the Girls’ Guide To Paris travel website and added new functionality through many WordPress Plugins. Over the next two years, the Girls’ Guide To Paris site grew to several thousand pages of rich content — with over 50 writers and editors, several photographers and graphic designers.

Girls’ Guide To Paris needed a special structured database solution for cataloging hotels, restaurants, shops, and sightseeing tours. This content was available based on one’s membership level. Club Memberships were sold through the website, and also through an affiliate program.

The Solution: QuikSite created a Custom Application to manage the content and sale and administration of Club Membership programs. This custom system was integrated with WordPress.

Girls’ Guide To Paris needed to reach more viewers in a very specific target demographic.

The Solution: QuikSite created an integrated Internet Marketing campaign to find new viewers using Google, Bing, Yahoo, as well as Social Media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. This was also supported by a robust Email Marketing solution using Mail Chimp to send regular E-Newsletters to subscribers. The site traffic increased to nearly 250,000 views per month.

With more site visitors, Girls’ Guide To Paris wanted to sell advertising space on the site, as well as products and publications geared to women travelling to Paris.

The Solution: QuikSite installed Ad Management software on the Girls’ Guide To Paris site that integrated with WordPress and also connected to ad placement systems used in the advertising industry. QuikSite also installed and customized the leading web store software for WordPress, WooCommerce, including various modules to automate customer sales, service, and account management. QuikSite integrated the WooCommerce system with Merchant Account and payment systems, including PayPal and Authorize.Net. QuikSite also upgraded the site to handle financial transactions securely using SSL Certificates and other products using Quik.Domains, and added a system for maintaining an updated Privacy Policy, a requirement for all shopping sites. A mobile version of the site was developed to improve Google ranking and make the site available to a wider audience, especially for travelers on the go.

To support financial transactions and protect the privacy of its customers, Girls’ Guide To Paris needed a secure hosting environment both in the United States and for International Customers.

The Solution: QuikSite provided managed hosting using the largest global provider of Cloud Web Services. This included dedicated Linux web server hosting, database management, data backup and safekeeping of archives. Security measures included managing multiple firewalls, daily server software updates, intrusion detection systems, and automated site monitoring. Performance optimization and testing ensured the site was able to load quickly on multiple devices in various countries around the world.

 

NOTE: Due to a change in business considerations, QuikSite is not currently providing hosting services. Therefore links to the live site have been disabled.