Website Design
Website design is not just about filling a page with pretty pictures and fancy animated graphics, it is about getting your message across to visitors and giving them an enjoyable experience while they learn about the services or products you are promoting. Presenting easy to read information is vital if you want to keep those visitors interested.
If your information is buried away under pop up banners and annoying 'fly in' screens, visitors are simply going to leave and go elsewhere. There are many software packages out there which are capable of creating stunning websites but the stumbling block comes when an inexperienced novice gets involved. All software takes time to learn and while the claims that anyone can have a website up and running in 30 minutes is true, the quality and usefulness of such a website would leave a lot to be desired.
When we design a website we start with a consultation period where we spend time learning what services and products you offer as well as helping you decide what features you want to have available on your website and what style you want your website to reflect. We then take those suggestions and create a few sample layout pages for your approval.
Once we have arrived at a mutually satisfactory design, we then create your website using a co-ordinated colour scheme and create your pages so that they contain appropriate information and graphics. This approach ensures that your website meets your specifications and also contains search engine friendly content designed to ensure a high ranking position.
There are many companies out their offering services to make your website:-
The list of what these companies promise to promote your business on the internet is endless but beware, many of the promises are not achievable and the resulting services are very often 'watered down' or not delivered at all. If you read the small print, most (if not all) state that they offer no guarantee that they will achieve what they are promising. They usually say that they cannot guarantee search engine position as the indexing is beyond their control. We have a number of clients who were told they had to pay large sums of money in order to keep them at the top of the search engines. Nobody can guarantee a top position in the search engines but we can prove that we can get you high up without paying large sums of money to SEO companies.
Many modern websites are created using one of the numerous content management systems (CMS) available. This approach is fine until you wish to add a feature to your website which isn't covered by your chosen management software. Even if it is covered, you will have to dedicate even more of your valuable time learning how to integrate a 'plug in' into your website. If you don't know what a 'plug in' is then designing your own website is not for you.
The phrase which should ring alarm bells is 'start for free' because there are going to be many hidden extra costs before your website is up and running yet you are the one who will be doing all of the work. Building your own website may appear to save you money but the time you spend learning to be a web designer would be far better spent thinking about your core business and how you can increase your profits while leaving the design of your website to an experienced website designer.
Don't let your ability limit the quality of your website. With an experienced designer on board, you can concentrate on what you want your website to look like and contain without the constant battle of wondering how to achieve what you require. Many people limit the usefulness of their websites by not having the features they should have. We write all our own code so there is no limit to features we could add to your website in order to improve your visitor's experience, promote more sales and increase your profits.
There is of course a fine balance between adding features to make a website more usable and adding features which just get in the way.
Many people have been tempted into registering with one of the companies offering free websites only to discover the old adage that you get nothing for nothing is absolutely true.
Your 'free website' will only be a very basic website containing one or two pages. If you want a contact form, an image gallery or if you want to sell things on your website, they have you hooked and you have to start paying extra and costs quickly start to mount up. The website you build yourself can end up costing you more than having your own bespoke website built. Even worse are the companies offering easy payment terms where you pay a monthly rental fee. These fees are recurring and as you are renting your website you never actually own it. Worst of all, after paying out all that money, you still have to design the whole website yourself within the constraints of what they will actually permit you to do.
Don't believe the hype, building websites is a complicated business and anyone who tells you otherwise has never built a website.
