Wikipedia says: "The World Wide Web (commonly abbreviated as 'the Web') is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet."
Whilst this is an extremely accurate description it's not what 'the web' means to most of its users, and it's certainly not what it means to those of us that need a website for our businesses.
Fortunately we can make 'the web' mean pretty much whatever you want it to mean; an electronic business card, a marketing tool, a database driven online catalogue, a corporate extranet or simply another channel for you to sell, market and develop your business.
'The web' is simply another medium through which all of this can be achieved. All you need to know is what you want to do with it, and we will do what it takes to achieve that - without breaking the bank in the process.
Commerce is not just about selling. It's mostly about selling, but when it comes to selling online there's a little bit more to it.
We've all used online shops of one shape or size at one time or another. Well to 'do' e-commerce you really need to apply those experiences to your own on-line shop.
Think about your products; how to display them, how to find them, how to promote them? Think about your customers; what do they like, where do they come from and what do they want from your website?
Then of course there is the bit the customer doesn't see, where you, the store manager, can manage products, set prices and promotions, and fulfill orders.
We are here to handle the technical side of getting your online shop live, and will help wherever possible to grow your business online once things are up and running.
The Internet world loves acronyms, and here is another! A CMS, or 'Content Management System', helps to give control of your website back to you. It will let you add items to your news page, add links to other sites or change the appearance of your home page.
These things can be done by the person who maintains your website, but not everyone has the budget to do that. This is where a CMS can help.
What you need is something that looks like Word and will let you simply edit the contents of a page of your website. Take a quick preview to make sure it looks OK, then save it so that everyone else can see the updated page. Maybe even add or remove the odd picture here and there. This is exactly what CMS can do for you, once we've given it our treatment of course.
We can add this facility to your existing website in most cases and certainly make it an integral part of a new or re-designed site that we build from scratch. Either way it's a very powerful way to take back some control of your own website!
So simple, and yet not so simple. Having a great look is one thing but there is also a great layout, getting your point across visually, beautiful graphics, top quality printing and spending the marketing budget effectively and wisely.
Design is not just a great logo, although we can do that too. It's about communicating your message to your potential customer as effectively as possible. Depending on what you are 'designing', from business cards to an on-line shop, there is a lot to consider.
We have done them all, brochures and vans, exhibition stands and catalogues, and then extended that design and maintained the message onto the company website. It makes for powerful and effective marketing, and also good-value marketing as 'one-design' suits all... well nearly anyway!
Blogging, in a nutshell, is a great way to publish news, opinions or pretty much anything on your website.
The catch is that it is not quite as simple as it sounds to achieve. There is some great software out there to put a blog on your website, but because blogs by definition allow you to add and edit the content of your own website, it has to be pretty clever software to make sure that process doesn't go wrong.
We know blogs, we use them ourselves, and have installed and maintain them for other clients.
Once the software has been modified to suit the needs and look of your website, you'll need to get the hang of using it... something else we can help you with. Once it's all installed and you've mastered the art of being your own editor, the sky's the limit!
