StudyFirst Academy
A bilingual exam preparation and education consulting platform
A multilingual platform for international exams and studying abroad — eight exam sections, country guides, a comparison tool, a blog and an application flow. In Turkish and English.
- S2
- Multilingual platform
- Laravel
- Industry
- Education and exam preparation
- Scale tier
- S2 — Growth
- Languages
- Turkish · English
- Duration
- —
- Team
- —
Problem
StudyFirst's service doesn't fit in one sentence: IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, GMAT, GRE and three European language exams, plus university selection, visas, accommodation and insurance. Students had to be able to find the answer for their situation without leaving the site.
On top of that, the audience is bilingual — students in Türkiye and abroad. Every page had to exist in two languages, and a consent management system compliant with KVKK requirements was also needed. This is no longer a promotional site, but a multi-section platform.
Approach
The project was planned at tier S2 — Growth, because the requirements themselves demanded it: dozens of pages, two languages, legal consent management and a continuous flow of content. A ready-made promotional template would quickly have been too limiting.
The content was turned into structure: a page for each exam (eight exams), a guide for each country, and two helper tools — a comparison page that puts exams side by side and a "which exam is right for me?" guide. Students answer their question before they have asked it.
Navigation was built as a mega-menu: exam cards with a flag, maximum score and a short description appear right in the menu. Visitors don't get lost between sections.
The two languages are separated at the route level (/tr and /en) — each language lives at its own address, so search engines can recognize each version as a separate page. For KVKK, a cookie consent panel and legal texts (disclosure notice, privacy and cookie policies) were included in the first release.
The application flow is available on every page: a persistent "Free consultation" button and a link to a free trial lesson. The blog was built as a long-term channel that brings in traffic from search.
What we built
2
Languages
Turkish and English versions on separate routes.
8
Exam sections
IELTS, TOEFL, SAT/ACT, GMAT, GRE, DELF, TestDaF, DELE.
2
Decision tools
Exam comparison and the "which exam is right for me?" guide.
Why the S2 tier was chosen
This project started directly at tier S2 — because the scale was set by the requirements themselves: two languages, dozens of pages, legal consent management and continuous content. In that case, starting with a simple setup isn't saving, it's a deferred cost. Even so, the S3 layers (multi-region setup, on-call) were not switched on — traffic doesn't require them yet.
Built
- ■Bilingual structure (/tr and /en)
- ■Eight exam sections — IELTS, TOEFL, SAT/ACT, GMAT, GRE, DELF, TestDaF, DELE
- ■Exam comparison tool
- ■"Which exam is right for me?" guide
- ■Country guides
- ■Blog and content management
- ■KVKK: cookie consent panel and legal texts
- ■Application and free trial lesson flow
- ■Light/dark mode
Deliberately not built
- —Multi-region deployment
- —24/7 on-call rotation
- —Student personal portal
Kept ready
- ○Route structure for adding a third language
- ○Templates for new exam/country pages
- ○Setup for a payment integration
Technology
Backend
Laravel · PHP
Frontend
Blade templates · Vite · Tailwind CSS
Infrastructure
nginx · Ubuntu VPS
Architecture decisions
Language at the route level
The Turkish and English versions live at separate addresses under /tr and /en. This matters both for users sharing links and for search engines indexing each language as an independent page.
A separate page for each exam
Each of the eight exams stands at its own address. A student searching for "IELTS preparation" lands directly on the right page — no digging through a general page.
Tools that help with decisions
The comparison page puts exams side by side by duration, maximum score and accepting countries; the guide suggests an exam based on the student's goal. These two tools reduce repeat questions to the consultant.
KVKK in the first release
The cookie consent panel and legal texts weren't postponed. Legal requirements are among the things that can't be bolted on later — they must be in place the day data collection starts.
Making depth visible with a mega-menu
On a site with dozens of pages, the biggest risk is content staying hidden. Exam cards with scores and descriptions are shown right in the menu, so the depth is clear from the first click.
Screens
Next project
Dr. Zamin HəşimovNext step
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