You need a website but where do you begin?

Author: James Sharp – Glendale Designs

You are probably at a point in either your business or personal live where you come to the conclusion that you have to have a web site. This could be for a number of reasons but you are unsure on how to act on it. One of your first objectives it to resolve a common question: What type of site do I really need? I guess the best way to answer that is “What are your sites goals?”

• To place a brochure on the net that describes the services and products you offer and that lets your customers contact you to close the sale.
• You used to advertise in the local newspapers and magazines and the exposure has diminished.
• You have a variety of products that you would like to advertise on the net and allow your customers to purchase on-line. You will process the orders and ship them to your customers.
• You sell products online and would like to be able to interact with your backend accounting system.
• You run a non-profit organization and would like to receive donations (i.e., Wildlife, rescues etc.)
• You would like to capture prospective leads for your business and have pertinent lead information emailed to you.
• Your hobby and passion for xyz has elevated to a point where you feel you can start a site for people to join, participate and you can hopefully generate some additional income.
• You enjoy writing and taking photos and you sure would like to keep your family and friends up to date on your ventures.

The list could go on and on…

By listening to your ideas, we are able to guide you in the right direction. Some solutions have limitations whereas others can be open-ended and the sky is the limit. Another major factor, however, is budget allocation.

Logo

Unless you are looking to have a family oriented WordPress site for instance, presenting a logo on your site is essential and many times a phone number/email address.  If you don’t have a logo, at this point it shouldn’t worry you. We can help you with Logo Design Packages as well as Business Identity Packages.  If you have worked with a designer before to create your logo, it is best to provide the original design files to your new web company. Logos are generally created in one or more programs within the Adobe Design Suite using: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PhotoShop or Adobe InDesign.  It should not be a problem if your logo was designed in an older version of Adobe.  Presently Adobe is distributing the CS4 suite, which Glendale Designs utilizes.

A website, the purpose & functionality

So let’s go and discuss some of the most popular solutions, this may help you determine what type of site you need.

Types of sites:

Basic brochure website: A brochure site is commonly used to promote a service and or a company, with the primary ‘Call to Action’ to contact you. You might sell to a restricted territory or market, and need to sort through the possible clientele to move forward.  We have also had financial customers that use this type of site as a lead generator as well as acquire prospect information.

Within this category, there are two basic options.

1. You need the site created and maintained by a web development company (copy or content, imagery etc.).
2. You need a site structure created and will maintain the content yourself.

Note: One common factor mentioned above is content. To be On-The-Net is one thing, but you want to be visible.  A main key to this is Fresh New Content added on a regular basis.  Search Engines look for relevant, keyword rich content.

Option 2 can be accomplished in a few different ways:

a)      Having your site designed and implemented into a content management system, such as WordPress. WordPress is an effective, well-architectured personal publishing system that was built on PHP and MySQL, but most of all it is Free.  There are many free Plug-ins available for WordPress, that you can use to add functionality and to enhance your customer’s experience.  Some of these are calendars, photo galleries, YouTube plug-ins and many more.

b)      Another way is for us to create a layout and design and integrate it using Adobe Contribute CS4.  The majority of times our customers prefer that we lock up sensitive areas to prevent major reconstruction, when designing a site to be used with Contribute.  For example, we can lock up your navigation so you can’t change/delete it by mistake or ‘break’ it. If you know how to use Word or even notepad, then Contribute is really easy to learn. Contribute offers a true WYSIWYG interface along with In-browser editing capabilities and much more.

c)       We can also use Joomla as your Content Management System. Joomla has a large variety of plug-ins and functionality that can be incorporated into your site. However, some customers find this CMS a little more difficult to master than the first two options.

An Ecommerce / Shopping Cart Site – The primary focus of a shopping cart site is for you to engage in e-commerce and sell online. We have used many different shopping carts and have found that Miva Merchant is one of the most user-friendly, versatile, web-based economical shopping carts on the market today.  Miva Merchant has many features built in, right out of the box.  If the functionality you are looking for is not there, Glendale Designs has been very successful in coming up with a solution (either through the purchase of a module or custom scripting) to accommodate your needs.

Some of our customers will incorporate a WordPress blog within their site to be able to blog and easily post new content and also to engage their customers in leaving comments and participating in customer / business communication.  This has been a proven winner because you are building brand recognition by providing valuable consumer content and you can also get instant feedback from customers.

Another type of site is a WordPress site – the beauty of a custom designed WordPress (WP) site is that our design team can create the look and feel of your site to your specifications.  You can also purchase an inexpensive theme from a third-party provider (or select a free theme) and we can modify it to your specifications.

WordPress has a ton of plug-ins for added functionality and I’m confident that you will be able to add your own content in no time.

Custom Programming Solution - if you are looking for a custom web solution that doesn’t fit into the standard norms, Glendale Designs can assist you. We can create your custom solution either in ASP.net or PHP.  Give us a call or complete our information form and we will contact you within 24 hours.