How I Rebuilt the Website for a Toronto Acting School Whose Alumni Appear on Netflix, Prime Video, and Paramount+

If one part of a website is worth obsessing over, it's the hero, the first screen before anyone scrolls. Visitors form an impression within seconds and decide in that window whether to keep exploring.

So the question was simple: in those first few seconds, what's the single most powerful thing I could show someone on Shiki Studios' site?

The answer was the work itself. The new hero leads with a demo reel, the exact thing a student walks away with after the class. Rather than telling a visitor what they'd get, I show them, the precise outcome they're there for, within the first second.

I paired that with social proof placed directly in the hero, a choice that came out of studying how other acting studios present themselves. Many have impressive credentials, well-known actors and major credits, but bury them several scrolls down or on a separate page, where most visitors never see them.

Shiki has a real, recognizable track record, so I led with it, then reinforced and expanded it further down the page.

The next focus was making it as easy as possible to book once someone was interested. For a service business, the window between deciding and committing is narrow, and every extra step costs you people. I integrated Cal.com across every bookable service: coaching, self-tape sessions, demo reel shoots, career consultations, and studio rentals. An interested actor can see live availability, pick a time, and confirm in under a minute, without sending a single email.

For the flagship five-week class, I integrated Stripe directly into the site with two clear paths: a $100 deposit to hold a seat, or full payment upfront. Payment now happens at the point of decision instead of becoming another thing to coordinate over email. The through line was the same throughout: when someone decides they want to work with Shiki Studios, nothing should stand between that decision and the booking.

I set up full Google Analytics tracking so that, for the first time, Kayleigh can see where her traffic comes from, which services get the most attention, how visitors move through the site, and where they convert. Every marketing decision can now be made on real data, which means her ad spend can be directed with far more confidence.

Performance was treated as seriously as design. The site is built on Next.js with a server-side architecture engineered for speed: optimised assets, a compressed hero video served at the right resolution per device, and a build tuned for fast loading on mobile, where most of the school's traffic lands.