WEBSITE DESIGN SERVICES
WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A WEBSITE:
Connect with your customers - 24/7
In today’s tough economical climate, it is imperative for your business to be accessible to the widest possible audience, and there is no easier or more reliable way to achieve this than having an online presence.
At the very least, a website is a reliable way for your customers to quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer. Since many consumers now search for information online prior to making a decision that will cost them money, your site may be the only chance you have at making a good impression on a potential buyer.
At the very least, if a potential customer can connect with your services via the internet, the chances are that they’ll choose to contact you over a company next door that doesn’t have one, simply because you’ve made the effort to get a little more information out there to the public.
That said, it’s not enough to simply have a website. A professional looking site will enable your company to stand out from the crowd and be taken seriously in an ever-competitive marketplace. That’s where we come in. Please take a look at our professional web services listed below, or visit our Web Portfolio to see other Website Design projects we have completed.
WEBSITE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION:
First impressions count!
Experts believe that it takes less than a second for a web user to decide if they like your web site, and if they would like to continue browsing or go elsewhere. If your site isn’t complying with the fundamental rules of good Website Design, then your visitors could be destined to take the latter route, which is obviously of no good to your visitors.
We believe in the following web design principals:
> Your site must be instantly engaging.
If it achieves this goal, you will undoubtedly convince many visitors to delve deeper into your content.
> Navigation must be clear, simple and instantly understandable.
When a user visits a site and can’t see how to get to the information they need, they almost instantly decide that there is too much effort involved and click off. This could mean the difference between winning new custom and being discarded in favour of your competition.
> Content must be relevant and interesting to read.
A well written, purposeful and engaging plethora of textual content will almost certainly help visitors to become engrossed in what you have to say, and bring in new users by way of forwarded links.
> Relevance is key.
The design of your website can make the difference between you business swimming or sinking in the online realm. We design websites with your business, and more importantly, your target market in mind. Not only should the design impress, but also be instantly recogniseable as a relevant place for the consumer to find exactly what they’re looking for.
As your Website is the 24⁄7 face for your company, our Design Team will ensure that your Web Site works hard for its living, and provides the kind of service you intended.
ENTERING THE UNKNOWN WORLD OF WEB!
We’re here to help you through it
We appreciate that many businesses may be wary about getting their company online, because of their lack of experience and knowledge of the subject. This is perfectly reasonable, as it’s a complex area, with many intricacies which we frankly wouldn’t bore you with here.
Essentially we’re here to help and educate our clients as well as Design. We will guide you through the process and give you all of the information you need to get your Business Website up and running and bringing in new clients. From hosting and business email, and the various kinds of technologies available to you, through to Search Engine Optimisation and Website Maintenance. All of these elements will eventually come together to give you what we hope will be the Perfect Website Design for your business for now, and years to come. Contact PWD Design today to set up a free initial Web Consultation.
WEBSITE DESIGN - THE TECHNICAL STUFF
Advice is at hand
We try to keep the processes and technologies behind our Website Design packages as simple as possible to understand. There are a number of options available to you, but we’ll do our best to lay these out for you in a way you’ll easily understand, essentially so you have the best opportunity to make an informed decision that will eventually benefit your online business. We’ll also advise you on how we think we could best tackle the project in order to achieve your objectives.
HTML⁄CSS and Flash Website Design - The fundamental differences
HTML Websites are a little limited in both the fonts they can use, and the way in which they can be laid out. This is because they rely solely on the use of an invisible ‘table’ format in the background which limits where you can place your elements. Although great leaps are being made to improve this area of web design (with the introduction of a programming language called CSS), the constraints will always outweigh those associated with alternative web design applications such as Flash.
Unlike an HTML website, Flash gives a designer the ability to create websites without limitations. With Flash, there is no need to worry about compatibility, as all of the major browsers will render your page correctly. With Flash you have the ability to embed any font you wish and have it display in the clients browser regardless of whether they have the font installed on their machine, meaning that everyone gets to view your site as it was intended.
Flash also provides an interactive environment for a more involved visitor experience, with smooth animations, and the easy incorporation of sound and digital video into pages, at high compatibility rates.
So, Flash sounds great! However, as ever, there are a couple of ‘Buts’. Firstly, Flash movies require a separate plug-in (Flash Player) in order to run in most browsers. It’s estimated that only 1% of computers in the world do not have this plug-in, however there’s always a small chance that one of your visitors may not be able to view the site, which is obviously of no use to you.
Also, a Flash website does not allow for use of the ‘back’ and ‘forward’ navigation buttons in your web browser. This is because your site resides within just one html file, and therefore all navigation must reside within the actual pages.
The most important factor of all however is that typical Search Engines (e.g. Google) use a process called ‘Indexing’ to read the content of an html site and use this content in order to ‘rank’ the site in it’s searches. This is basically the process that ultimately determines where you site will appear when someone enters search criteria that relates to your area of business, and leads directly into the complex Search Engine Optimisation arena. Because a Flash file is essentially an image, search engines are, on the whole, unable to read the textual content (although great leaps are being made by the likes of Google who now say they CAN read Flash files and links).
This is not a complete disaster however. An ‘invisible’ HTML site built into the background of your Flash Website means that your site can benefit from both good Search Engine Readability, and the freedom to create a visual, design rich experience in Flash. This also has the benefit that the very few people who are unable to read a Flash website because they don’t have the plug-in will also be able to view the HTML version of the site instead.
This makes the small effort of an invisible html mirror site highly recommendable. Although this will inevitably become a slightly more expensive option, the benefits will make the extra work and outlay very worthwhile for your business and it’s online potential.
THE OPTIONS:
So, there are a couple of options to consider, listed below more concisely:
Full Flash Website
The Positives:
• Freedom of design and layout
• No font compatibility issues - site is rendered as intended
• Interesting⁄smooth animations, greater interactivity
• Slightly slower loading times (depending on content)
• Fluid incorporation of sound and video.
Negatives:
• Resides all inside one html file (www.your-domain.co.uk)
• Browser ‘Back‘ and ‘Forward’ buttons will not function
• Flash Plug-in required to view the site
• Search Engines have trouble reading the text content and hence indexing and ranking will inevitably be affected.
HTML Website
The Positives:
• Fully readable, indexable and rankable by the major search engines
• Quicker loading times
• Flash elements can be added (eg animated banners, self-scrolling imagery)
The Negatives:
• Less flexibility in design and layout
• Restriction on the fonts which can be used (for compatibility with user machines).
Front-end Flash Website with ‘Invisible’ HTML mirror Website
The Positives:
• Freedom of design and layout
• No font compatibility issues - site is rendered as intended
• Fully readable, indexable and rankable by the major search engines (due to background html mirror site).
• Users without Flash Plug-in will see the HTML version
• Interesting⁄smooth animations, greater interactivity
• Slightly slower loading times (depending on content)
• Fluid incorporation of sound and video.
The Negatives:
• Browser ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ buttons will not function
• Slightly increased costs.
Contact us today to find out how we can help your business thrive online.
WEBSITE MANAGEMENT
You may already have a website that you’re interested in freshening up, or perhaps you're happy with the design and just need the burden of the updates taken off your hands. Maybe you have a Blog or News section that you would need regular updating, or a portfolio website that you occasionally add a new project to. Let us take these things off your hands so you deal with the more important parts of running your day-to-day business.
FLASH WEB BANNERS AND GRAPHICS
We can create customised Web Banners and Graphics for all of your business needs. This could be an animated Flash Banner advertisement, or small static Ad’s that sell your company on third party websites, to visuals and graphics for all of your online profiles such as Facebook Profile Logo’s, Twitter Profiles and Backgrounds and so on. If this is something you think you may require as part of your Website Design Package, please let us know and we’ll be gladly incorporate this into the price.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)
We offer a basic level Search Engine Optimisation package (for a competitively priced one-off fee) that will re-galvanise your existing website and get it moving up through the Google rankings. As well as the services we perform, such as Keyword Analysis and Content Management, this package is stuffed with useful information, advice and guidance on how you can continue to take your website from strength to strength by following a few simple rules. This service will undoubtedly teach you all you need to know about this complex and and generally costly exercise.
This package can also be bolted on to you new website design project, so please let us know if this is something you’re interested in and we’ll run you through what’s involved and most importantly, what it’ll cost you.
Please take a look at our Search Engine Optimisation section for more information.
