Choosing a Website Design Company What to look for when choosing a web design company When you start asking around, you’ll find that the offerings to build a website for your business are many and varied, from those that want to supply a quick “template” design to others that offer a fully customized website with all the bells and whistles. So, what are the real considerations? Are web design companies that offer cheap template designs a worse choice over those that offer the full customized Monty, or is something in-between right for you? You’ll find that there are other more important consi ..read more

What to do after your Website is launched The website is up, so what now? The work’s not done after your website has launched. That however is where many businesses stop with their online or website strategy and it’s usually the reason that, despite that stunning design, the website is not performing. Having a website without effective SEO is a little like arranging a party and forgetting to invite the guests. “Guests” or your website visitors in this case, must to be invited. How else would they know about your website? It’s unlikely that they’ll flock to you in great numbers (or at all) if ..read more

Considerations before you get a website for your business What you should know before you get a website for your business Investing in a website for business a smart move and in some cases it’s essential. A website could open a vast array of online possibilities; you could be expanding to an online store, arranging your appointments, gaining online traction for advertising or simply use your website to gain awareness. Before you dive in, here are a few useful things that you should tick off about website design for business. Purpose and the desired outcomes I’m big on knowing exactly what yo ..read more

Completing the user journey for your website In many businesses, January is a time for reflection and planning. With 2022 on our doorstep, that time is just around the corner. My bet is that a large part of that planning will involve how the business is marketed and a part of that is the business website. Websites have changed drastically over the years, not just in their appearance, but also in what they offer in engagement and functionality. The “user experience” of the business website has a large impact on the chance of getting that call or contact from a good potential client. In your p ..read more

Craft CMS or WordPress for web development As web designers and web developers we’ve all likely been in a position where we are asked to take over an existing website. In most cases taking on the site includes taking on the core CMS as well. Standard systems like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla are usually easy to take on, as are the hosted CMS platforms like Squarespace or Wix. The disadvantage is that your team has to be familiar with these systems to work efficiently, although I find that if you’re familiar with the general concepts, adapting between these systems is not difficult. Recently t ..read more

Why your web design company should also do your SEO Websites are the foundation of any business. They serve as a digital storefront for products and services. Every time someone visits your website, they judge your company based on how professional it looks and how easy it is to navigate. A good website design should be both attractive and functional. It should also be optimized for search engines so that it can rank higher in search results and bring more traffic to your site. Should businesses focus on the look of their website Having a poorly laid out website can cost you customers. This ..read more

How much should a website cost (Updated - 2024) The typical answer would be “it depends”, but I want to be quite detailed in this article. It pays to be prepared when you shop around. Know that you’re not being charged too much. Also make sure that your expectations and objectives are in line with those of your website provider. “It depends” however, is an accurate answer. Pricing a website is far less about the number of pages and its functionality than it is about the website design, business objectives and the availability of information. Let me break it down. Before your Web Design Compa ..read more

The best way to build your own website I’ve seen only a few cases where people have built their own websites with good results. What they all had in common was that the owner spent a significant amount of thought and time to get things just right and, unless they had prior experience in web design and web development, they learned a great deal along the way.   Self Hosted or Online Platforms There are excellent platforms available that make the process of building a website easier, platforms like Wix or Squarespace and WordPress Online have become significantly more affordable than they ..read more

Ask a few SEO companies what they actually do and you’ll probably get as many different answers. Lets look at the purpose of SEO first: The purpose of Search Engine Optimisation is to improve the page ranking in search engine listings of a website and so increase the exposure and expand the correct target audience. Notice that my definition includes the word “correct” whereas many other definitions don’t. SEO professionals achieve that in a variety of ways, the most important ones I will cover here. Websites that make it to page 1 get significantly more expose and those that make it to spot 1 ..read more

SEO for businesses that export products can be complex. For example, should you have different websites for different countries or the same site with language choice? If cultural differences demand a multi-faceted approach to your marketing then so should your websites and SEO. Here are some tips: Decide on one website domain or one for each country. If there are significant cultural and language differences then the answer is probably to have websites in each country. One way to do this is to have a “Country Coded Top Level Domain” (ccTLD) for each country e.g. example.co.nz for New Zealand a ..read more