I have the skills and tools to make your website work for your business. I use technologies that can turn a website into more than just brochure-ware. If your website needs to build an on-line community or show interactive Google maps, that’s the kind of work that’s right up my street. So before you hand over your hard earned cash to a web design company, ask them if they can come up with the goods to turn an expense into an investment.
Web Development Approach
My general approach is to provide initial consultations for free. Then set out a list of goals with a client covering deliverables and time-lines. I use a great graphic designer to present a series of site mockups and if we’re close to the mark with one of those mockups, we start fine-tuning it to arrive at exactly what you need in terms of the look for your site.
Our Tools
I like to use cost-effective tools that empower our clients. To this end, I use open-source content management systems like Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. These are free content management systems that allow you to make changes to your website content with relative ease. This means you don’t need to call me every time you want to add news articles and special offers to your site. This site for example was developed using WordPress
Search Engine Optimisation
Commonly known as SEO. This is the black art of ensuring your website is listed as high as possible in the results returned by various Search Engines.
Click here for wikipedia’s definition of SEO
Why is SEO a ‘black art’? Because it’s far from a science. There are so many factors that influence your site’s search engine ranking that it’s virtually impossible to guarantee a steady and high ranking position. A combination of relevant, fresh and interesting content with appropriate headings will help you achieve good rankings. After that, technical details relating to how crawlable and well linked your site is start to have an impact. I can put in place the key elements that will ensure your website is search engine friendly and endeavour to get as high a ranking as possible, but you must understand there are no guarantees in this process.
Building A Website
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How much will my website cost me?
A. Depends on the size and complexity of the site.
Q. If all I want is a few web pages that tell the world about my business.
A. I can design a look and feel, get a few web pages up and host them for about $4,000
Q. But what about getting the site listed in search engines? Will people find me using Google?
A. We’ll put in the smarts behind your pages to give them a good chance of being listed. It’s called Search Engine Optimization. The rest is up to you…
Q. What do you mean “the rest is up to me”?
A. Once you have a working web-site, keeping its’ content fresh and relevant and ensuring it gets high search engine rankings is an on-going job.
Q. Can I update my site with new content or do I have to pay for any changes?
A. I use a CMS to build your site. After a bit of training (3 hours) you can add new articles and pages if you need. You can call me if it all gets too much like hard work.
Q. How long will it take to create a new website?
A. To design and create a website where you provide the textual content, it can take 2-3 weeks. For an online store with order forms, product catalogs and payment gateways to your bank, it can take a bit longer.