Our Services include:
- Develop & Design New Web Sites
- Taking-over & managing
existing Web Sites
- Logo's & Graphic Design
- Animations
- Database Driven Sites (MySQL, .ASP)
- Shopping Cart Enabled Sites
- Keyword & Copy Research & Development
- Targeted Entry Pages
- Ongoing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Online Database Hosting
The Process...
The development of a website is in several phases:
- Initial Wireframe Diagram
- Purchase of a Domain Name
- Purchase Web Space (Hosting)
- Development of the Website Content (Wording, Keyword &
phrasess
- Development of the Visual style (Logos, Pictures,
illustrations)
- Upload to the Web Server
- Promotion of your Web Site
Initial Wireframe Diagram
This is the first step where we decide together the structure
of the site and organisation of information on a page-by-page
basis. This gives us the best starting point to think about and
plan how we organise the way in which information is presented
to your site visitors. My initial stab at your wireframe is
enclosed so we have a basis to give you a budgetary cost for
producing your site. It’s important to note that most people’s
typical view of a website is one where a visitor arrives at your
site’s home page the explore further from there. In reality
however on a site which is well optimised and well indexed by
the search engines (Google for example) , the visitor can arrive
at any page on your site, and if we do our work right, they will
arrive at your site at a page which has the most relevance to
what they actually searched for.
Domain Name Purchase
Your domain name is your “address” on the internet. Buying a
domain name is a little like buying a company name. If you are
very lucky, the domain name that you want has not already been
purchased by someone else. But in most cases, chances are your
“ideal” name is probably already taken. The simpler and more
memorable the domain name, the more likelihood it is already
taken! Ideally you should choose a short domain name that either
reflects you organisation’s name, or what you actually do, or
provide as a service.
When you buy a domain name, you generally buy it for 1, 2, 3,
5 or 10 years. You can actually buy a domain name and do nothing
with it. Many speculators bought up big domain names just to own
them and sell them at hugely inflated prices to some
corporations that really wanted that name.
Domain name priced are priced based on their popularity,
novelty etc, a little like a custom number plate. Its worth
remembering that the last part of your email address will also
be the domain name, and it can be frustrating if you are giving
your email address to someone over the phone and its either
long, easily misspelled or mistyped.
Purchase Web Space (Hosting)
The next step is to purchase web space. This is basically
renting space on a Web Server. We an provide a variety of
hosting options depending on the size and complexity of your
site.
A Web Server is a powerful computer that is permanently
connected by a very high speed connection to the internet, and
in most cases has several web sites on it. It listens for
anybody on the internet requesting your domain name, and when it
sees that, it responds by sending them the requested pages from
your web site, or collecting email addressed to your domain.
This space on a Web Server is known as “Hosting”. Hosting is
purchased on a yearly basis and starts from about £100+VAT per
year upwards, depending on how many email accounts you want and
what sort of features you need from the hosting, such as
database driven pages, online selling, etc.
Development of the Website Content
(Words, Keywords, Key
Phrases)
This is that part of the development process where we need to
work closely with you. It goes without saying that no-one knows
your business and your clients better than you, so we depend on
you to develop the initial content for the website.
We’re happy
to do it for you but that would be more expensive as we’d have
to do extensive interviews with you and research your market to
develop an understanding of your business and the write the
content. You don’t have to worry too much about the style of the
text you produce, we’ll go through it and “webbify” it for you.
To help you with the process we’ve developed some “cheat-sheets”
to help you with your text development. These sheets will guide
you through the process.
Static Versus Dynamic Pages
Static web pages are
basically web pages that do not change. These pages are much
like a Word document, they are fixed, and don’t change unless
they get edited by somebody, normally a web designer. Static
pages can be simple or complex, with text, photos, illustrations
or even animations or video.
Dynamic Pages are just that, they
contain programming code to change the content and appearance of
the page based upon pulling data from a database. You could
almost think of them as being like a mail merge document with
content which changes.
Development of the Visual style
This is
the part where we take a look at the content and decide what the
best way visually is to present the information on your site.
This is all about typefaces, pictures, logos, images, video,
animations, drawings etc.
Upload to Your Web
Server
Once we’re all happy with the content and the design we
will then upload the entire site we have developed to your Web
Server for hosting. At that point it will be live on the
internet.
Promotion of Your Web Site
Once you have a domain and
a website and email addresses you can now be assured you have
established your presence on the internet and the World Wide
Web. But this is not the end the work; it’s just the beginning
if you want to maximize your investment in starting a web site.
A whole book could be dedicated to the subject of maximizing the
potential of your website.
A somewhat simple analogy to where
you are today would be to compare your site to the sign above a
shop doorway, in that it’s the only ones who see it are those
who know where to go or who happen to be walking past. To get
traffic or “hits” on your site you need to make it easy to find.
It’s important to put your website and email address in all your
company literature, advertising, Yellow Pages entries and
business cards. Always ask new customer inquirers how they found
you.
The real power of the web is the way it can present almost
anyone, anywhere in the world with access to a computer with a
way of getting to your site by simply typing in a few key search
words or phrases which suggest what they're looking for.
This is
where the Search Engines come onto the scene. There are
literally thousands of them. Most of them will list your site
for free, however more and more these days are starting to
charge to review your site for inclusion. Notice I use the term
“review your site for inclusion”. The amazing thing is that if
you read the small print in the agreement when you submit your
site for a ‘paid listing’ they often give no guarantee that your
site will get listed, only that they will review and consider it
for inclusion! The other thing to bear in mind is that even
though there are thousands of search engines and directories,
it’s the old 80:20 rule.. in fact it’s probably more like 99% of
the traffic comes from just 1% of the search engines.
So which
are the important search engines to get listed on? It largely
depends on who your target audience is. For example getting
listed on AOL is going to give you hits from more of the home
users, whereas getting listed on Google and Altavista will get
you more business traffic.
To get listed on
the search engines you must “submit” your site to them for
inclusion. This is a service we can provide for you on an
ongoing basis. It is critical however to make sure your site is
ready and waiting and that its structure and keywords are fully
thought through and ready.
Once your site is submitted to the
search engines, they will either have a human editor visit your
site, to review it and decide whether and in what category to
list you. Or, more often, your site will be ‘spidered’ by a
robotic piece of software that automatically examines your site,
its keywords etc. and it will then make decisions based on rules
and logic as to whether and how to list your site.
There is no
guarantee as to when your site will get reviewed or spidered,
unless you pay for it. If you don’t pay, it can take from a few
weeks to several months for the reviewers or spiders to get to
your Page 4 of 4 site.
If you to a paid-for or “express”
submission the search engines and directories will then
guarantee to review your site within a fixed timeframe,
generally less than a week. Apart from the paid listings, we
should re-submit your site to all the ‘free’ search engines
regularly, about every 3 months, not more often otherwise they
may block you.
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