Site Content
The content of any site is broken down into its component parts as listed below. You have probably been involved with your company for many years. To us your company is new. Our challenge is to understand your business together with its image and design a site to reflect your corporate goals in your style. We cannot do this alone, time will be required working with us to ensure our view of your company is the same as your vision. If you are a relatively new business, we can work with you to create an image to suit your customer base whilst still producing a unique and lasting impression.
Structure and Layout
The structure and layout of your site is a very personal decision, but one which needs to be made early. Inituatiative and clear navigation is the key to success.
Style
There are various established styles of Web site on the Internet. Which style you adopt will depend on your business type, the services you wish to offer on the Internet and any personal preference you may already have.
- Magazine format - This style lends itself to many different sites.
- On-line brochure - Ideal as a starting point. Set up the site and track the number of visitors to establish if a full or more comprehensive site is viable.
- Full e-commerce site - Allow visitors to buy your products on-line
- Homepage style - This style does not project your business in a professional manner, but still has its uses. Charities often adopt this approach as a way of showing donations are spent on the worthy cause.
- Flash Presentations - For eye catching and memorable advertisements.
Graphics
Custom graphics are the images and icons giving your site a unique feel. The first impressions of any visitor are projected through its visual appearance. Time spent on graphics is very well spent. The colour scheme should match your corporate colours where possible. The contrast and impact of colours follow different rules on the web. Colour wheels are available to co-ordinate your site in line with your corporate colour scheme. Sometimes we will need to change your colours slightly to ensure web compatibility. Any changes will be discussed in full before implementation. You should also consider the target audience for your pages. If you are targeting a technology sector, you can be sure the machines used to view your site will be of a high specification. If there is any doubt, or your target audience is unknown, then a more frugal approach to graphics pays dividends.
Text
There are probably in excess of 500,000 font and typefaces currently available. Your choice of font is key to achieving the image you wish to project. The number of different fonts should be kept to a minimum and remain consistent throughout the site. Text within graphics may be displayed in any font desired. However, only a few fonts are common to all machines. The best way of pre-empting how your site will be displayed is with cascading style sheets. This method allows the user's browser to work through a list of fonts until one is found on the machine. Careful selection will ensure Browser and platform compatibility. A common mistake on web sites is a lack of content. Although good graphics and structure will project the image of your company, it is content which will keep a visitor interested and make sure they keep returning to the site. Unique content will also help when requesting listing on search engines. Remember that the main purpose of the World Wide Web is access to information. The downside to this is that all information on the Internet is effectively in the public domain. Plagiarism is rife on the Internet and copyright is difficult and costly to protect. We rely on you to provide any text. This can be in any format (hard copy, diskette, flyers and adverts, faxes, testimonials). We are able to re-word your information into a format for the site; however, your input is invaluable.
List Communities
List communities are not suited to all types of business but can be a valuable marketing tool. Visitors to the site are invited to subscribe to the service where they receive regular updates on your group or business activities and promotions by email. Once initiated, they are very easy to maintain. List communities are available pre-written on the Internet, although increasingly, charges are levied for the service. We can develop a script to fulfil your requirements. The obvious benefit of this is the script can be tailored to your requirements, collecting demographic information etc. All to aid the targeting of your marketing and promotions.
Guest Book
Guest books can be thought of as a running testimonial of your business or group. Guest books are of more use on small 'hobby' type sites. However they provide a valuable way of obtaining feed -back and also collect e-mail addresses to add to your list community.
Contact Forms
Visitors need a method of requesting more information about your site while on-line. A site without an e-mail address is useless but making visible on the page will cause SPAM problems. Currently, over 80% of email traffic is unsolicited. We keep your email address safe by providing a contact form on the site. Vistors fill in a form and the mail is sent without revealing your email address. Contact forms can also prompt users for demographic information, which could be invaluable for your marketing strategy.
Site Statistics
Your site is finished and uploaded into its web space, your presence on the Internet is complete. How do you know how successful it is attracting customers? Your e-mail responses should be some indication, but this is only part of the story. As the Internet is nothing more than a huge network of inter-linked computers, some tools are available to track and interrogate the types of user and their behaviour on your site.
Hit Counters
This is the simplest type of information to record. A 'Hit' counter does just that, it counts the amount of times a page is downloaded into a browser. If a user reloads a page, this is usually included as a hit. For this reason, it is an indication of traffic volume rather than an accurate count.
Visitor Analysis
Statistics can be compiled using JavaScript and server-side processing for each visit a user makes to your site. The amount of data they can collate can be bewildering, but also useful when used in context. Examples of the data collected:
- ISP - The users ISP (who they use to connect to the Internet) can show where in the world your visitor is located.
- Browser type and version.
- Screen resolution and colour depth.
- Page path.
- Entry and Exit pages.
- Traffic volume by day month and even hour.
Site Hosting
Domain Names
Obtaining the ideal URL for your site can be time consuming. As more and more sites populate the Internet domain names are running out! Choose your domain name with care, it needs to be easily remembered and also relate to your business. Domains are institutionalised and care should be given to selecting the correct suffix. Choosing an incorrect or improper domain name can result in rejection from certain search engines
| Domain Name Suffixes | |
|---|---|
| .biz | World wide business use. |
| .co.uk | General UK business use. |
| .com | General business use. Mainly US sites. |
| .info | General information sites. |
| .me.uk | Personal web pages. |
| .org | Worldwide charity and non-profit organisations. |
| .org.uk | UK based charity and non-profit organisations. |
| .tv | General Use. |
| .ac.uk | Restricted to academic institutions. |
| .edu | Restricted to educational establishments. |
| .gov.uk | Restricted to UK government sites. |
| .mil | Restricted to Military use. |
| .net | Restricted to Internet service providers. |
Site Hosting and ISPs
The development and authoring of your web site is only part of the package required. An Internet Service Provider will be required to host your web site and make it available on the Internet. The services offered by different service providers vary greatly. These range from the 'free' variety to leased lines and subscription services. We can advise you on the level of service that you are likely to require. An excellent web site to research ISPs is http://tcom/. Although it is advisable to register with a provider in the UK, it does not need to be local geographically.
Submission to Search Engines
Why bother?
Research has shown that advertising a URL does attract visitors to a site but only accounts for approximately 15% of traffic (Revolution May 2000). The most effective method of increasing traffic is to gain an accurate entry into search engines. Search engines are the Yellow Pages of the Internet. Successful indexing will ensure potential visitors can locate your site easily. Indexing is frustrating, time consuming and tedious but very necessary.
What to Index?
Thought is required before indexing your site with search engines. It is wise to summarise your company or service in 16 words of less. This is the strap line displayed by a search engine when it returns matching results relating to your site. Also, make a list of keywords for the Engines to index. The number of keywords allowed varies enormously between 4 and 25. For this reason, it is important that the list begins with the more pertinent words and continues down in a hierarchical fashion. The web is constantly changing and Engines constantly trawl sites looking for changes. It is normal for an automated Search Engine to spider more than 250,000 pages each day. It is no surprise therefore that it may take up to 8 weeks for your listing to appear (if it appears at all!).
Meta Tags
Meta tags are key to successful indexing. The tags sit in the top part of the web page code, invisible to most visitors. However, the tags dictate to the browser how the page should be displayed, inform search engine spiders how and what to index, etc. They are often overlooked.
Typical Engines
There are many thousands of Search Engines on the World Wide Web. These range from the well known such as Google and Ask Jeeves to the little known ones such as Dogpile. The more engines you submit your site to will enhance the chances of your site being found by a user. It is worth considering which engines you users are likely to use. The good news is that most Search Engines also index each other. If you index your site with a few Search Engines, the information will propagate between them across the Internet. This can take years to become established relying on this method.
Bulk Indexing
A faster but less reliable method of introducing your site to Search Engines is by bulk indexing. The scheme is usually free for the first 50 Engines but for a small fee, 5000 or more submissions can be made. The Search Engine community does not appreciate the use of bulk indexing but understand they are necessary.
Keyword Engines
Keyword engines are completely automated with no human intervention in indexing. Once you submit the URL of the site, a robot or spider will take a copy of your site and store on its own server. During quiet times, your site will be indexed. This type of engine usually relies on Meta tags. As with all machines, they can be incredibly stupid and will index spelling mistakes, incorrect or misleading keywords, etc. The old statement applies 'Garbage in, garbage out'. Users are beginning to understand that the quality of information returned from such Engines is poor and are moving their searches to more comprehensive providers.
Human Edited Engines
Human edited engines are increasingly becoming prominent on the Internet. On submission, the site is still spidered but various forms are also completed for review by human editors. In effect, a small business case is submitted detailing what your site offers. The editors are very strict and will reject applications without reason. Common mistakes include over-selling, poorly written sites, etc.
Site Maintenance
Who should update the site? Once the site is complete and formally handed over it becomes the client's property. You are free to make any changes to the site you consider necessary. We are willing to continue to maintain the site as per your instructions. Access will be required to your service provider to allow changes to be uploaded to your web space. Changes you make to the site while under maintenance by us may result in the loss of changes should we upload new pages. This is easily remedied by notifying us when changes are made.
Scale of Charges
As all web sites are different in character, scope, content, and complexity, it is difficult to offer an accurate estimate of cost. The charges listed below are a guide and are subject to consultation. We advise a meeting should be undertaken to discuss your requirements in detail. This is offered on a complimentary basis with no commitment implied.
Maintenance
Maintenance is charged by time and expenses incurred. Time spent is logged for each session and totalled for invoicing quarterly.
| Level of Service | Approximate Cost |
|---|---|
| Develop and author basic 5-page brochure type web site. Custom graphics Cascading Style Sheets Upload to customers web space Debug and test Submission to 50 search engines |
£ 490.00 |
| Additional Pages | £ 50.00 per 3 pages |
| Scripting and coding | POA - Dependant on time, complexity, language and platform |
| Maintenance £30 per hour. | Charged quarterly on a cumulative basis |
