Fala Aí is a Portuguese language school for foreigners located in Copacabana. It was created in January 2016 and has since helped countless people from all over the world to achieve their goal of learning Portuguese. Their goal is to make the student feel comfortable to learn the language, so they create the best possible atmosphere, with entertainment, interaction and content.
In Early 2020, Fala Aí started a conversation with The Creative Donut about their previous website and how to take their web presence to the next level. Having known the business personally since 2016 we were quickly instructed to undertake a web design and development project for them.
In 2016 we arrived in Brazil to setup our office in Rio de Janeiro. Shortly after we started learning Portuguese in private lessons with Igor from Fala Aí. Fast forward a few months and Fala Aí were looking to incorporate and open it’s first school. In order to help another small business, we offered our services in creating a new logo for the business in exchange for more lessons.
We focused on the core values of Fala Aí – Based in Brazil, Friendly, Flexible and conversation based.
This was a really interesting project due to the nature of the clientele a language school attracts. Generally visitors are searching from overseas for Portuguese language schools based in Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, proximity to the main tourist hubs of Copacabana or the wider Zona Sul neighbourhood are high on the list of importance.
As you can imagine, competition for language schools in a cultural center like Rio is HOT. So we did our research in order to create a design that would stand out.
Much of the competition uses blocks of bright color, long descriptive text and lots of frills/flying widgets etc. To set us apart we designed a solution that was clean and professional yet included some fun design queues. The whole purpose of this site is to convert visitors to contact the team. To this end we have a WhatsApp widget, FAQs section and a design based on conversation.
Another feature we wanted to maximise is the use of testimonials. Word of mouth is hugely important here. People are often sold on language services by meeting a fellow foreigner who is fluent and gives a recommendation – indeed that’s how I met Igor 4 years ago. And to aid in Google ranking growth we built an SEO friendly blog to increase the all-important keyword count.
They say a picture says a thousand words…well in that case a video must say a hundred thousand! A credit to Fala Aí’s network of ex-students, this video was filmed and produced by one of the Fala Aí family. It provides the full sales pitch of the school and student interviews, which is why we chose to place this front and centre in the website journey.
We were all super happy with the resulting website. It functions well for the schools marketing and provides a good resource center in the Blog. We are now focused on improving the schools SEO ranking in a tough race to the top of Google!
We are happy that Fala Aí have also joined our Support Pack where we offer ongoing updates, maintenance, and the occasional electric idea to grow the reach and engagement of your website.
“Recomendo muito o seu trabalho! Eficiência, compromisso, rapidez e atenção aos detalhes! The Creative Donut é muito confiável e ajudou bastante com meu site. Eu realmente estou satisfeita e agradecida por tudo o que entregou!”
Vanessa Gomes
Profesora – Fala Aí