Web designs to fit your company |
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Recommend Hosting Companies: We use the following companies, they are reliable and have no problems with down time. Check them out!
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| 1. Development
Planning the site begins with the answer to a very important question -- What is the sites purpose? It may provide a service, market your products, assist current customers, or all three. It is important to have an objective in mind BEFORE you begin. During the Planning phase we will determine the size of the site and any special features that may be needed such as forms, auto e-mail responders etc. We will also determine the use of FLASH pages (similar to small movies or commercials), Microsoft FrontPage Themes and/or features, video and RSS feeds. Will you need a shopping cart? If so what kind of cart will fit your needs? Do you plan on maintaining the products, do you want to offer discounts, coupons and customer registration? These are all things we will discuss in this phase of planning. We can give you advice on which cart is best for your business. The next step will be the design. The color scheme will be chosen as well as logo design. Of course, no need to reinvent the wheel, if you have a current logo, we can certainly use it. Don't have one, we'll be happy to create one for you. Placement of navigational tools will be decided as well as the buttons, bullets, headers and lines. We can customize your site or you can pick from pre-made themes and templates. A sample page will be developed to give you a feel for how your site will look. Now for the content. While you put the words together, we will create any animated images you may need as well as begin work on any FLASH pages. The content can come in the form of Word Documents, Text Files, PowerPoint Presentations, and even just plain e-mails. The more you type, the less we have to! |
| 2. Hosting
Although we do not host sites on our own equipment, we can recommend reliable hosting services. By reliability we mean that they are available 24/7, they do maintenance only in the late evening, and they rarely if ever are down. We also look for companies that have multiple features, for example, blogs, guest books, CGI scripts, have site traffic statistics, email including webmail and have ecommerce options, all for a reasonable amount of money.
This is the time you will need to decide if you wish to purchase your own Domain name, i.e. www.yourcompany.com. Although not required, it is a very good idea. If you don't have it, someone else will and you may unknowingly send customers to them. We can research what is the best name for you and arrange the purchase of the name, however, have no fear, it WILL be owned by you. Find out if your name is available HERE. Do you need a shopping cart? This can be a complicated decision. Here are some helpful tips. |
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Maintenance
Your site is up and running. Looks great, but we are not done yet. Visitors need to be able to find your site. Although you may advertise you web address, the best way to attract new visitors is through search engines. You will need to submit your site to as many as possible. We can provide this service for you as well as keeping a watchful eye on your rankings within the engines. You will need to provide us with a title, description and keywords for your site. We can help. Once is never enough, give your customers a reason to come back. To do this, you need to update regularly providing something "new" to look at. Changes do not have to be major, new products, new services, or maybe monthly helpful hints are all it takes to keep viewers coming back. You will also need to verify that all your links to other sites are working properly. Websites come and go and you do not want to direct your customers to incorrect website addresses. Newsletters are a great way to keep customers aware of new products, features and a great incentive to get them to return to your site. We can generate email newsletters, send them out for you, and have the unsubscribe at the bottom to keep things above board. You can choose from a simple mostly text version, to a colorful HTML version.
Have your site generate some dough! Using Google AdSense you can place ads relevant to your topic on your site and when visitors click on them, it earns you $$. Just sit back and let the money roll in! Need to show your customers/clients your schedule. Use Google's Calendar feature. Update online, watch your updates appear on your website . . . like magic! And finally, to see the success of you site, we need to "track" how many visitors come to your site and what pages are most popular. We can also provide you with information on what search engines brought them there. Google Analytics are a great way to keep track of how your site is doing . . . who is looking at it, for how long and how they got there. And best of all, it's free! We'll teach you how to use it! Time to get started! |
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