Service Central has a new website!
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The way that people use the internet has dramatically changed forever. No longer are people restricted to accessing the internet via a personal computer or laptop - the consumers of today are more than likely to be picking up their smartphone or tablet to browse the internet. Expectations have also changed about the speed at which content is delivered - users these days expect lightning-fast load times, while simultaneously demanding more high-quality content. To keep up with this dramatically changing internet landscape, Service Central has released our most technically advanced website ever.
How Service Central’s new website meets these challenges
Responsive Design
“Responsive Design” refers to a web design strategy whereby a page’s layout adapts to the size and orientation of a visitor’s device. At its simplest, the strategy allows automatic resizing of text, images and other page content in order to present the site in the most accessible format for a particular device. More advanced implementations of responsive design allow “stacking” of columns as devices get smaller, and even the showing and hiding of different pages elements depending on whether the page is being viewing with a desktop, tablet or smartphone.
Responsive design has played a large part in the new homepages for all of the services that can be found through Service Central. For example, check out:
- http://www.servicecentral.com.au/painting/
- http://www.servicecentral.com.au/plumbing/
- http://www.servicecentral.com.au/electricians/
- http://www.servicecentral.com.au/handymen/
- http://www.servicecentral.com.au/building/
Fast Loading
There are lots of strategies used by our IT team to deliver page content to end users as fast as possible. Without getting too technical (hopefully), we make use of Content Delivery Networks, asset compression, page and database caching, image optimisation, and advanced static content servers to get our data to the browser quickly.
You might also notice that many of our pages now use “on-demand” image loading - that is, images won’t be loaded until the user scrolls down the page and they come into view. This technique improves the initial page load experience, as well as saving us from delivering data that’s never used.
Relevant Content
We’ve also reconsidered the content to show users when they arrive at our website. You’ll now be presented with information that is relevant to the page you’re on. For example, if you go to our Painting homepage you will find information about finding the best painters for your job, lists of Service Central’s top-rated painters, and information about recent painting work that our painters have done. In addition, we’ve added convenient links to our Painting Pricing Guides, our Get Painting Quotes service, and even some of our better painting jokes!
The end result
Service Central’s goal in creating this technically sophisticated website is to provide consumers with the best experience possible when browsing the internet for information about trades and services. We hope that you agree that the end result is a high value and useful website.
To view Service Central’s new website head to http://www.servicecentral.com.au/
But wait there’s more!
We’re currently about three quarters of the way through converting our whole website to this new design. Our website has over 4 million unique pages so it does take us awhile to get through to all of them.Over the upcoming months we will be bringing you brand new Business Profile Pages, Jobs Board and Job Details Pages. Plus, the Eaco Business Management system is now being used by more and more businesses to manage their quotes, jobs and projects. Keep an eye out for the upcoming upgrades to the Eaco System at http://eaco.me/
About Service Central
Service Central is a leading online marketplace for services. Service Central specialises in finding local tradespeople such as painters, plumbers, electricians and builders for consumers. Based in Australia, Service Central was launched in 2005, and has since matched over 300,000 consumer job requests with local pre-qualified tradespeople.
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