As a web designer your role is to make the website you are asked to design as attractive to potential clients as possible in order that they will stay on the site long enough to consider using the business services or buy their products. The initial impression of the website gives the visitor an insight into the business and its ethos so it is essential that as a web designer you choose the best images on the home page to convey the business in a positive light.
When you are choosing images or photographs to use on the website, be sure to only use images that are copyright free unless you are happy to pay for the right to use them.
Stock image sites often charge a one-off fee for their images whilst other sites charge for each single use or charge you a fixed price to allow you to use the images for a certain time.
Using images that are in the public domain or those that have a creative commons license is a more cost-effective option as these can be used freely.
Alternatively the business can use their own images as this is a good way to give visitors a more personal inside view into the business location and meet the staff however the images used should be of good quality so it is wise to employ a photographer to take the images that are going to be uploaded.
The job of a website programmer is to create the code that makes a website look and function as it should. You have a certain level of responsibility to ensure that when you program websites, you do it in the correct manner. This is not only from a functionality point of view but also from a security perspective as you need to ensure that the code and methods you are using are secure and have been created with security in mind. This is particularly important when it comes to ecommerce sites and on these sites you will be taking personal details such as address, phone numbers and even payment details from a card or Paypal account etc. This data must be handled in the correct way and each website that does this must be complaint with the latest standards.
If the security is breached on a website, personal data may be stolen, the website content may be changed or the website taken down entirely.
To ensure that you are up to date with all of the latest technological advances in programming it is advised that you either attend regular courses or ensure you do your own in depth research.
You may have a new offer coming up and wonder how is the best way to inform your customers of this offer. Ideally you want it to cost as little as possible but get you the most coverage and in turn sales. If your website ranks highly on the search engines for your main phrases, then you may find that new content gets indexed quite quickly and will appear in the search engine results when someone makes a search. But even for the sites that do perform well, it still may not be as quick as you would like or need it to be. Also you are having to rely on people searching for the right thing for your product or service to come up and if it is a new concept you may not get much traffic this way.
Always add new products / offers on to your website, but then you need to direct your customers to this new information and there are a number of ways to do this. To notify existing clients you could do a physical postal mail out or send out an email with links to the new content on the site, but to reach a wider audience, then you could use a pay per click campaign such as Google Adwords. Social Media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter also work really well.
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Can a school website be managed in house?
Every school is obliged to have a website that gives parents and other stakeholders access to school policies, term times and other essential documents relating to the school. Most schools employ a web designer to set up their website initially and to upload the documents that are required but is it essential to pay for a company to manage the site or is it something that can be undertaken in house.
The answer to this is dependant upon the expertise of the school staff and their time constraints. The management of the school website usually falls to the school administrator who has to be able to turn their hand to lots of different tasks in a short time. If they are to take on this role, they will need to be given specific training by the web design company so that they will be able to upload documents, children’s work and school newsletters.
If the task of maintaining the school website falls to a member of the teaching staff, they will need to be given time to do this as it would be seen as an extra responsibility.
Some schools make the decision to pay for support from the web design company so that they know that updates are being carried out without putting pressure on teaching staff although this will come at a cost.
Marketing is an important part of any business model and it is becoming essential for any successful business to have a web presence both in terms of a website and on social media platforms. With the cost of paying a professional web designer out of many small business owners reach some decide to try their hand at designing and setting up their own website.
There are plenty of tutorials online to help the novice designer and so it is a good idea to spend some time before you start watching these and collating ideas. Look at examples of websites that impress you to get a notion of what you want your site to offer and to compare layouts.
When you are ready to begin your design, many sites offer templates to get you started. These can be customised to your business with your brand name and logo. Next your content can be uploaded including photographs and text. Built in SEO tools enable your site to be visible when potential clients search online for your company which is invaluable.
Keeping your website up to date is usually straight forward on these sites and any customer support can be accessed through online chat.
If you own a web design / programming company or are a freelance web design / programmer, then you should understand the importance of content. Content is king when it comes to websites and marketing as not only can it help persuade the reader to enquire or buy etc, but it can also help get you further up the rankings on Google or other search engines.
As a programmer or a designer, you may not really have much interest in writing copy for sites. Sometimes the client will write the copy and provide it to you to upload, but other times they may ask you to do this.
To be able to write the content to go on their website you may need to interview them to find out a bit more about what they offer. Ideally the person that writes the copy should have a good knowledge of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) to ensure that it is written in such a way that it will improve the SEO on their site. If there is no one within the business who has these skills then it may be time to look at outsourcing the copywriting to someone who is experienced in writing SEO friendly content.