Web Design
We
specialise in designing interactive, easy to use web sites which will
promote your business or organisation in a professional manner. Our web
sites will communicate your ideas and promote your products clearly and
effectively to potential clients. Once your web site is online we will
update it and modify it whenever you want.
I am often asked "What use will a web site be to my business?" The answer is that there are several ways that a web site can help your business:
- It can be used as a potent marketing tool present on the internet for anyone in the world to find, ok I know, you only do business in the UK but... You can direct people to it by word of mouth or by placing your URL* where people will see it. A small advert or business card can direct potential business to look at your web site and all the information it contains (with no pressure or heavy sales pitch) and they can study it at their leisure.
You
can use it to sell your products or services, either as an online shop
selling direct or as a sales catalogue. It can be used to show off properties
or holiday apartments you have for rent or sale. One small ad in a glossy
magazine with your URL* and.... - It can act as a brochure or supplement to a printed brochure for people to find or be directed to. It can show potential clients what you offer and show examples of your work. This might be useful for architects, accountants, legal companies, web design companies or building contractors.
- For less sales orientated organisations such as charities, sports clubs or schools it can be used to keep interested parties up to date with the latest developments, results or forthcoming events. A form on the web site could be used to gather information from members, conduct surveys and ask opinions
- Last but not least "we" expect companies to have a web presence these days and for the relatively small amount that it costs. Why disappoint?
However
and this is important, you need more than just a web presence you need
a good, well designed web presence. It is no longer enough
to get your grandmother who knows a bit of HTML, but nothing much about
web sites, or the guy in the office who can use Frontpage but doesn't
understand design or usability issues and usually ends up copying some
of the bad design, for some reason it's rarely the good design, they see
on the internet. Today you need professionals who understand these issues
to design your web site.
We consider usability to be of paramount importance and take the trouble to make sure that our sites have clear navigation and are easy to use. As far as possible, we try to make our sites accessible to people with disabilities. When designing your site we will consider who your potential clients are and target it at them in order to attract them and keep them visiting your web site.
This paragraph is a bit technical so please skip to the next paragraph if you aren't interested in technical stuff. Our sites are built to web standards using XHTML, CSS and some ECMAScript (JavaScript). In this way we are able to keep file sizes small and save on bandwidth which leads to a faster smoother web site. This is web design for the future not the old stuff from the last century. We aim to make web sites that work on multiple platforms, internet devices and the many different browsers available.
While building your site we will include code and content that will help the search engines' "spiders", "crawlers" and "robots" find and index it. (These are programs which roam the internet searching for web sites and harvesting their content.) Then we will include code that will invite them back to visit on a regular basis. We can also register your web site with different search engines to help improve it's ranking.
It
may be useful for research purposes and to help judge the success of your
site, to use a site log to analyse your visitors. The log will tell you
how many visitors you have had, when they visited the site, which pages
they visited, the brand and version of browser they used and much more,
even their geographical location. Some hosting companies provide this
free as part of the service. However, it might be better to use a specialist
company but this will cost you extra.
Remember: Your web site should be updated regularly based on feed back from the log and / or the public and should include new and updated information, products and prices. (You don't want to see "buy now at 2003 sale prices" in 2004!) You also need to be aware of current trends, relevant to your organisation and reflect them in your site. Making changes encourages repeat visits.
Our web sites are very competitively priced. Please don't hesitate to contact us, via the details below or by the form on the contact page, to ask for an estimate.
* Uniform or Universal Resource Locator in other words a web site address but that would be too easy and anyway don't we love to use acronyms!
