Free Web Design Advice
In this article I will give advice and tips of where to find a low cost website design company and also about the best ways of producing a cool website.
How many people or companies are advertising their services for web design?
The answer is a great deal. They surely can not all be asking for huge sums of money to build and design quality websites. There must be some who offer cheap, affordable websites.
If you think about a company or person who is just starting out, they have not got a very large portfolio of previous work and clients to show, and in this situation are likely in these early days to offer you a competitive rate. Once they become more established they will then no doubt increase their prices.
To find these companies which are just starting out, I would advise looking on auction websites like ebay, looking in Yellow Pages, looking in newspapers such as a paper we have here in the Midlands called bargain pages. Looking on the internet on search engines and asking family and friends is also other avenues to explore.
Once you have found a company you need to think about the content for your website, the colours and also about graphics. Do you want it have flash design? These are all things to think about.
You then need to think about hosting, who will host your website? It may be worth asking the web designer if they can recommend a host.
Then once you have had your site built you need to promote it. Building up a regular and constant stream of backward links is very important as this will result in your website obtaining a higher page rank and more visitors.
Stephen Hill has a number of websites including:
stutter therapy
hair loss problem
natural health treatments
Web Sites Simplified
Web sites are an important tool for marketing and sales. Most companies know they need a web presence, but they're not sure how it should look or what it should say. Unless you're a web developer, the steps and lingo of web sites can be complex and confusing. Discussions about URL registration, hosting, content management, search engine optimization, meta tags, and site maps often cause glassy stares, or "oh yeah, I get that." Right. The pricing can be even more of a mystery. There are many web development companies that want to build a "really cool site" with all the bells and whistles they like. The role a web site plays in your sales process is sometimes overlooked. An effective site communicates or demonstrates your company's unique product/service in a way that resonates with customers and prospects.
Once the site is launched (goes live), what if the web person disappears with your photos or wants to charge you thousands of dollars to make a few changes and updates? Then, when you type in your product or service into Google, your site does not "come up." That's bad web karma. At ckarma, we are passionate about helping clients understand the complex world of interactive marketing so that their web site can be a valuable sales and marketing tool that brings return on investment. Conscious Marketing creates good karma.
Through pictures, messages and audio a web site serves many purposes. It communicates the company's identity and helps products and services to reach customers. A well developed web site can be a critical avenue to:
Validate & give credibility
Generate leads
Promote sales
Perform transactions
Get sales quotes
Inform with news
Communicate promotions
Keep customers informed and enable
orders/account details
Provide resources & education
Hire and attract employees
Give contact info
Provide location and directions
Train and communicate
with employees
An effective site is not only functional; it is easily "found" by prospects and users who do searches from search engines (Google, Overture) and portals (Yahoo, MSN, etc.)
Developing a web site generally follows four phases. We've simplified them into the steps that ckarma follows and used language that's simple to understand, we hope.
1. Discovery - "who, what, where, when and why's"
To ensure that the company's needs are met, we put considerable effort into understanding your business, your industry, objectives and goals.
In the beginning there are a lot of questions. What is the purpose of the web site? Is the URL [www.address.com] the right one? What is the scope of the products/services – international, regional, local? What is your value proposition? How are you different/better than your competition? What email addresses are used with the web site? Are databases required for information that is updated? Should there be a secured area for customers or vendors to log in to? If there is a site currently, what is not working? In the Discovery process, we pull together the valuable information that drives the design and user experience. We meet in a workshop setting and incorporate customer insights, competitive research, market trends and other pertinent information. Profiles that give the Customer a name and personality are created. The primary and secondary users are identified. We then map out the steps customers and prospects follow along their path to finding and buying.
This is the sales cycle.
What existing sales and marketing tools/presentations do you have? Who is your competition and what sites do you want to emulate? It's the critical path to our ability to complete all aspects of a project including: Schedule, Market and competition, Creative and Technical requirements, what the site should say (content understanding), the sections and sub-sections flow (site map development) and the various ways the site needs to perform and provide information (functional design specs.)
Workshop
A half day workshop is conducted with key stakeholders – sales, marketing, chief officers, customer service, operations. We dig deep into the goals, company, customer and technical requirements. This forms the foundation for the content and identity. A recommendations document outlining the customer profiles, marketing strategies and messaging will be created. The site map and how the user(s) will navigate through the pages is discussed. Any charts, graphs, etc. that need to be developed will be roughed out at this meeting. If the site is an existing one being updated, we'll decide what stays and what goes.
Site Map
A flow chart of the site will be developed for review. This will drive the functional design spec and be crucial in the concept process. Information gathered at the workshop will be utilized to create the final site map.
2. Design – the look and the content
Concept Development
Once the Discovery process is complete, the information is compiled and becomes the basis of direction for the Design phase. We "feed" lots of insight and input to the designer so the concepts exceed expectations and capture the company's look and personality. This visual with some initial copy provides the opportunity to see how the site will look and work prior to development. Ease-of-use and "easy on the eyes" are the main focus. The design appeals to users and prospects while reflecting the company's identity.
Content Development
Once the content sections are determined, raw content and required sections will be provided by you. Ckarma writes headlines and body text with prospects and customers in mind. The common thread comes from your company's value proposition and messaging guidelines from the workshop. Ideas and phrases for the meta tags (key words that will enable your site to be found in searches) are presented.
3. Development – the construction
Site Development
Now, let the building begin. All photos and image assets need to be gathered and provided in the correct sizes. Where needed, images will be searched for and purchased or a photo shoot will be conducted. Graphs and charts are created. HTML code (building the pages) and programming navigation is developed. For Search Engine Optimization, the right "key words" that customers and prospects will use to search for the company/products/services are programmed. Databases and site features like a site search are configured. Internal testing is conducted with programmers and designers. Based on our findings a punch list of corrections will be created.
Content Optimized for Web
Final content will be scrutinized to make sure the right words (meta tags) are used so that the site "comes up" on Google, etc. Editing will take place and all copy will be optimized for the web. This step is crucial in helping search engines recognize the site and the important messages/content that prospects use to search.
4. Deployment – test and launch
Beta Testing
Finally, it is time to deploy the work and "go live." Development has stopped, content is finished and the components are ready. More quality assurance is performed, all documentation is completed and reviewed, a pre-flight check is done and the site is launched. Site traffic and measurements are confirmed. We take all the steps to ensure that everything is delivered on time and within budget. When content updates, news and revisions are needed, ckarma ensures that changes are timely and economical. Plans to monitor site traffic and report results are put into place. When the site launches, we help you "get the word out" with marketing ideas to leverage the new site with customers and prospects.
There you have it. We hope you are enlightened and have learned some valuable tips about the ways a web site can effectively promote your company, give you credibility and connect with customers.
Does your company need better karma?
Karma : for every action that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first.
Take action today.
Marketing strategy and plans
Web site development & messaging
Customer research – focus groups, phone surveys
Implementation & execution – sales tools, campaigns
cKarma, Inc.
Cindy Kerr, Principal
3424 W. 33rd Ave. Denver, CO 80211 720-635-7675 cindykerr@ckarma.com www.ckarma.com
Fast Web Design For The Skint Webmaster.
About two years ago, I had a go at commercial web site design. I put a medium-sized ad in a London classified ad paper. Nothing fancy: "Web designer seeks work ..." etc. This was expensive, about £500 for a month's run.
Got a few replies. Lesson number one: advertise where clients of the calibre you want will see it. The clients I got thought £300 was a lot for a web site. They didn't want to pay web hosting. They wanted a lot of bang for their buck. 'Mission creep' was a term I grew to know and loathe.
This set me thinking: how could I give these people all they could ever want, but not spend a lot of time and money? Lately, I realised how.
So how can you get a full featured site up in a day? Easy (ish!).
Mambo Content Management System http://www.mamboserver.com
I wish I'd found this software a couple of years ago. It's freeware. The default set-up allows people without web design skills to update the site. It has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) option. This adds HTMLArea code to text input form fields. Each HTML code input box becomes a mini HTML editor.
If you can use Microsoft Word, you can add formatted HTML code to the site.
To get it running you need to know how to install MySQL databases, or have PHPMyAdmin as part of your web-hosting package.
You can add articles, edit them, send emails to members, and be contacted by users.
The only criticisms I have of this software are:
1. The admin interface is confusing. It's all there, just finding and using it is the problem!
2. You need to search around template sites to find ones suited to your site purpose. I wanted simple, clean, business ones. Most of those available seem to have a fat graphic which covers half the screen. There are more restrained ones out there.
These are minor gripes, compared to the relief of finding what is essentially a web site in a box. It can be installed in an hour, once you get familiar with it.
To add ecommerce to your site:
Oscommerce Shopping Cart http://www.oscommerce.com
Again, this is a full-featured, freeware software. You can add lots of freeware 'plug-ins' to it, to get a professional shopping cart.
Therein lies the danger. Some of these plug-ins require altering or overwriting the default cart files. When you try to upgrade the cart version later, you may 'break' it, by overwriting a plug-in, thus creating errors.
The trick here is to only install plug-ins that add files (rather than overwrite them) or that require minor alterations to existing files.
What I do is download all the versions of the plug-in type I need e.g. a WYSIWYG editor. I then choose the one which has the least files, or which creates a new directory for its files. If it requires that important files be overwritten, or is complex, I chuck it.
Mambo and Oscommerce. Don't try to integrate them! Hyperlink from one to the other. I've tried integrations of other softwares, like PhpBB and PhpNuke. Fine, when it works, but when you upgrade one or the other, arrgh!
*Keep databases separate*. If one goes skew-whiff, then at least the other will still work. Same goes for adding chat rooms and the like. If they're all running off the one database, and that database becomes corrupted ...
It may offend your sense of tidiness for your visitors to have to sign up twice at your site, but you'll thank me for this sage advice later. Remember KISS is the basic rule of computing (Keep It Simple, Stupid!).
About the author: T. O' Donnell is an ecommerce consultant and curmudgeon living in London, UK. His latest project is an ebook on conservatories, available at http://www.tigertom.com/conservatories-uk/index.shtml. T. O' Donnell freeware may be downloaded at http://www.ttfreeware.com.
