You just flick a switch and it’s live, right?

Not quite.

This article explains a little about what happens when we spring into action when a client gives us the go ahead to launch a website…

Keyword whatnots

In all likelihood, we will have done keyword research right at the beginning of the website build, in order to make sure all the page names and content already include the key terms. However, we will now go over to the Google keyword tool and feed in some data, to get a good idea of what search terms are hitting the big time and which are languishing. We also look at competitor data to see if there are any hidden gems that no one knows about that we can use to get some quick wins.

Armed with this information, we will then go through the site with a fine-toothed comb, sprinkling the keywords in all the right places, including: unique titles, meta descriptions, keyword metatags, internal links and footer links. All this encourages Google to rank your site highly for exactly the right searches.

Watermarked images replaced with finals

If there are any stock photos in the site, then we’ll go ahead and make the final purchases, and replace the fuzzy watermarked ones with shiny, sharp versions.

Links checked

We use an automated link checker to double check all the links in the site and ensure none of them are broken – a no-no for any site, old or new.

Cross browser check

We carry out a final cross browser check to make sure nothing squiffy happens to the design if users decide to view it in a browser that we haven’t been using during the development process. As standard we support Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and up, Chrome and Safari.

Submit the new site to the search engines

Not strictly necessary, as the search engines do their own crawls and will find all new sites anyway, but we like to do this in any case. If it gets the site climbing a few days earlier, then that can’t be bad.

Test emails and forms

The vast majority of our websites will come equipped with a contact form, so we make sure we test that that’s working hunkey dorey, as well as any email addresses we’ve set up.

Site registered and verified with Google

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, if you want your website to have any success, you have to keep Google happy. To that end, we register all websites with Google webmaster tools and Google analytics and verify ownership so they can let us know if they think anything’s amiss.

Google site map created and verified

Another small step in the googleification of the site, we create a Google standard sitemap, which lists all the pages in the site, and verify that sitemap with Google.

Non-content pages blocked from indexing

We use a robots.txt form to let Google know that we don’t really want it to index the legal disclaimer pages of the site – otherwise, due to the density of their content, they can bounce up to the top and don’t really look right all the way up there.

Depending on the site, there may be more steps we carry out – but there you have the standard elements of our website launch procedure!

Click here to read full article about website launch procedure and why a website is better than an advert in a newspaper

As you might expect, as web designers, we’re going to be a bit biased when it comes to comparing the value of websites against newspaper adverts. But we’re going to have a go at explaining just why small businesses should focus their marketing budget on the web, rather than on print.

This is especially true when there is a very small budget available.

Your money gets you more ‘inches’

Print advertising is notoriously expensive. In a local paper, a tiny advert could cost you the same as a single page website and a full page advert will get you a whole website.

 In a full page print advert you’re limited to what you can get across. Your company name, what you do, contact details and hopefully a USP or special offer.

However, in a full website you could get far more information across, which builds trust and engages the customer. It can save you time by answering basic questions directly and avoiding people who aren’t really potential customers. You could include information about your company background, more detail about a range of services  and rates, provide several contact options, display testimonials and even offer free advice to show the potential customer you really know your onions.

Your money lasts longer

The main disadvantage of a print ad is its limited lifetime. Most publications are monthly, weekly or even daily. That means that means that time period has passed, that money is lost forever. However, a website is there indefinitely. If it’s designed well, the same website could serve a small business for many years. There is a small ongoing hosting cost, that that is usually going to cost about the same as the rent for a phone line.

Websites are more targeted

Even if you target your publication very closely (and most people don’t), you can’t be sure that the customers are in the market for your product at that time. And if you just use a local newspaper, the vast majority of the readers will have no interest in your product or service. However, a website appears exactly when people search for it – you can’ get much more targeted than that.

If you're thinking of getting a website designed in Leeds, or anywhere across the UK, then give us a call for a chat about your project. We're happy to give free advice and suggestions as well as quotes and proposals.

There are a lot of web designers out there and the majority of them are sole traders, working alone from home offices. If you’re just starting out and finding your feet then the chances are you might not have a web design contract in place. But this is a risky omission.

Why a web designer needs a web design contract

Beginning web designers often shy away from having a web design contract because they don’t want to commit to particular things, because they’re not sure if they’ll be able to deliver. They may never have tried creating this or that feature or function, so they don’t want it in writing that they’re going to put it in.

But not having a contract means that it’s easy for clients to say that they assumed something would be done, and refuse to pay if it’s not added in. If everything’s in writing you can point out that a particular feature wasn’t specifically included. Of course, in most cases you’ll still ending up doing it to keep the client happy, but when it comes to the crunch at least you have a leg to stand on.

Why a web design client needs a contract

For pretty much the same reason as the web designer, the client benefits from having a written contract. That way, they can prove that an element or feature was included if the web designer is saying the project is complete, but they don’t believe it is.

What should a web design contract look like?

The good news is that the contract doesn’t have to be very complicated. Sure, if you can it’s best to get a professional lawyer to create you something, but people starting out in business rarely have the money to spend on that kind of thing.

One way is to find free template downloads of contracts that are available on the web. But you can simply create a word document with a list of the features that will be included, turn it into a PDF, and email it to the client. This forms a basic agreement.

Is email communication contractually binding?

Remember that email communications can form the basis of a contract or contract amendment, but only if you can prove that both parties have seen and agreed the details. In other words, if you send information to the other party but s/he never replies to that specifically, it is not legally binding. But if they reply to the email and confirm agreement, then it is.

Read about how much different websites cost - using a tortured transport analogy on our main web design site.

Say responsive web design to a room full of designers and you’re liable to get a roomful of groans. So what is responsive web design and why is it such a nightmare?

So, what is responsive web design?

 

Responsive web design means making websites which change according to the device the user is using. For example, a website can detect if it’s being viewed on a mobile device and display a layout which has been designed accordingly.

Responsive web design will avoid the need for scrolling, zooming and resizing by the user.

And why is it such a nightmare?

The reason it’s such a nightmare is that the number of devices and technologies are constantly changing, so it’s almost impossible to create something that works across all platforms. Creating a design that works elegantly across various browsers, screen sizes and resolutions and takes advantage of the latest sexy, slick scripts but doesn’t break on clunky ancient machines can eat up days and weeks.

So, should we be using it or not?

My answer to almost any question like this is – it depends. It depends on the budget, and therefore time available for the project, and how serious it is. In an ideal world you’ll have enough time to make the perfect website that will work across all platforms (until tomorrow, when another one comes out). However, if the client’s budget is too tight, then you have to compromise.

For more advice about basic legal requirements for websites and SEO, check out our resource bank.

We offer managed hosting services with all our websites, because we care about the long term performance of our products and about making a meaningful difference to our clients' businesses.

However, sometimes potential clients look at the budget options that are available online and wonder why we aren't matching those prices. Other times, they want to know if they can use us to make the website, but then move over to cheap hosting to reduce ongoing costs. Some people (heaven forbid) might even suspect that we're simply trying to squeeze as much money out of them as possible. This simply isn't how we do business.

Here's the real reason:

Why we don't complete on price when it comes to hosting

We don't complete on price, because it would mean making huge sacrifices in quality and service, which would result in poor performance and unhappy clients (or going bust - resulting in unhappy us).

A good technological platform with robust backups and redundancy to make sure the website loads quickly and never goes down takes investment, and that costs money. On top of that, we want to make sure our staff are available and have time to deal with each client's query patiently and properly.

We believe that our prices are extremely reasonable when you consider the level of high quality hardware, software and genuine personal service we provide.

Why we won't put our websites on other hosts

In the past we have agreed to make websites and then host them on other servers, but we no longer allow this, because of the headaches that have arisen for both us and our clients.

The problem is that cheap hosts are cheap for a reason. These companies usually sacrifice quality of hardware and software and customer service, in order to drive their prices to the absolute minimum. This means that servers are unreliable and overloaded, meaning the clients' website runs slowly and may frequently dissappear altogether.

It also means that the customer service is impossible to get hold of, unskilled and in such a rush they simply send autoreplies without finding out about the problem properly. This wastes a great deal of time and contributes to high blood pressure and hair loss (not clinically proven).


When this happens, the client comes back to us, and it's our word against their that the poor website performance is all about the host, and nothing to do with our work - which would have worked great if we were hosting it. And because we're soft, we often end up sorting out these problems where the cheap host refuses too.

What do you mean 'to begin with'?

The reasons stated above are why we insist on hosting our websites - not because we're trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of our clients - and to prove it, we DO allow clients to move, but only after we've proven the quality of the website on our hosting and support platforms first.

If, after this has been proven a client still feels they wish to move away, then they can - at their own risk...

If you're thinking of getting a website designed in Leeds, or anywhere across the UK, then give us a call for a chat about your project. We're happy to give free advice and suggestions as well as quotes and proposals.

Or if you need help with your computer - anything from fixing a broken laptop to maintaining a snappy response, then check out our associates, who offer great IT Support Services, from their base in Guildford.

Here are our top five tips for web designers who are just starting out:

Keep it Simple

It can be tempting to put something in just because you can, not because it's right. This tends to lead to animated gifs, flash banners, scrolling marquee tags, loads of different fonts and basically a horrible mess that is a confusing turn off for visitors. Try to avoid including anything that doesn't have a clear purpose, and keep the design clean and simple.

Check the website on a range of browsers

Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and  Chrome all interpret code is slightly different ways and it's worth checking your design on each of them to make sure nothing breaks. These days lots of people use mobiles to view websites as well, so check its not impossible on a smaller screen.

Focus on the visitor

Your starting point should be what the visitor wants, not what you want to tell them. This means being careful about using jargon or any terms or concepts they might not understand, and thinking about their objectives and how they might move around your site.

Make sure the structure and navigation is clear and consistent

The main navigation should be identical on every page, and ideally every page should be able to be reached from the main navigation. If there are a lot of pages, then use dropdowns. The exception is if you have large resource banks or ecommerce stores with hundreds of pages, but in this case consistency and clarity is even more important.

Don't have autoplaying music

This is one of the biggest turn-offs for visitors, who might be browsing at work, or at the very least might be playing their own music, which yours will conflict with.

For more advice about good and bad web design and SEO, check out our resource bank.

If you're looking to hire a web designer - click here.

What are Cascading Style Sheets or CSS?

A cascading style sheet is a document which is part of any modern website. As a normal user, you won’t see it directly as you browse the website, but you will definitely see its effects.

The style sheet gives design direction to the website elements, telling it what colours, fonts and sizes to use, where to put various elements, and hundreds of other visual elements.

By using a style sheet to contain this information it means we don’t have to specify these things on each of the individual pages – which would lead to a lot of repeated code and a nightmare if we ever wanted to change – say – the background colour.

By swapping out one style sheet for another, you can completely change the look of a website so as to make it unrecognisable.

There are various ‘standard’ tags you can use in style sheets which will work in any website at all, but if you find that too limiting you can also make up your own brand new ‘classes’ and ‘ids’ which you can apply willy-nilly wherever you like.

Because you may have elements nested within each other, they may end up with multiple styles applying to the same item – for example, a paragraph of text. This is where the ‘cascading’ bit comes in. CSS sheets have priority and the closer to the element, or alternatively, the lower down the sheet, the high priority it will be.

Cascading Style Sheets will make even the most basic website easier to work with and more elegant and at the top end of the scale they can be used to make smart, responsive websites that do all kinds of clever things.

If you want to learn more about cascading style sheets and have a more detailed and at the same time straightforward explanation of exactly the role they play and why they’re so awesome go and read the full article on cascading style sheets.

If you’ve found this article useful you might want to check out our resource bank, which includes articles about why you shouldn’to utsource your web design to India, whether you should put music on yoursite (No! A thousand times no!), all about web hosting – and, you’ve guessed it – much more.

Choice of colour is very important in web design and will strongly effect how your website comes across, including everything from how professional it looks to the kind of personality the visitors project onto your company.

Please note that this is a shorter version of the full article on colour in web design, which you can read here.

Human beings are designed to have strong emotional responses to colour, this helps us identify things that are safe and dangerous, as well as a range of other more subtle aspects. The problem is that different colours have different representations and associations in different countries, for example white means pure in the West, but death in China. See a list of common colours and associations here.
If you use too many colours, then the website will come across as busy and tiring to look at, so it's a good idea to stick to a small range of colours that match your brand and the impression you want to give.

Contrast is an important factor. If contrast is too strong than it will give a garish impression, however, if contrast is not strong enough then it will make it difficult to read and will affect accessibility.

Colour can also be used very effectively in calls to action. You can make buttons leap out from the page and draw the eye, encouraging clicking and further desired behaviour from your visitor.

You can read loads more articles about good and bad web design in our web design and SEO resource bank.

Or, if you're looking for web design in and around Leeds, find out more about our web design services.