Web Design and Marketing Services (Part One)

• When to call in the professionals?
• Does your business need our services? That’s a question I’m likely to answer “Yes” to, since I work for a professional web solutions company. So, by all means assume I’m biased for now but please judge the content of this post on merit!
• In my defence, I’m relatively new to the internet and e-commerce sector, my background being more in face to face (or call-centre to telephone) customer service. I’ve worked as a recruitment consultant, a sales support manager and (I hesitate to admit) an insurance claims assessor. When I examine a website, or evaluate a service, I look for practicality and value for money. I’ve a pretty good understanding of what a business customer is looking for from a service or solution provider.
• So, with my credentials in the open, I return to the question above. When do you need the help of professionals with your corporate website?
• Firstly, it has to be said that it depends greatly on the level of expertise available within your own company. Many businesses handle their own website design, hosting and maintenance in-house. If you have the resources and expertise to achieve the desired result that’s fine. Obviously, having a full time staff member dedicated to your web presence creates a significant “running cost” but if the nature of the website requires full time development and supervision, in-house might well be the way to go.
• Perhaps less wise is tacking responsibility for a website onto other job responsibilities. I’m aware of websites which are updated sporadically, and frequently contain inaccurate or out of date information because of the fluctuation in workload of the person responsible for website maintenance. Websites which are out of date, or contain “under development” pages for considerable lengths of time are every bit as damaging to a corporate identity as a shop window left boarded up for months after the shop has opened for business. Rather than showcasing your company, such a site can really put people off – and that affects the “bottom line” in real terms.
• If your website suffers from sporadic up-grade syndrome then seeking the services of a web solutions company might be the way forward – if you care about your web presence. The web solutions company is being paid by you to ensure your site gets the attention it deserves and improvements will follow rapidly.
• On a smaller scale, it is of course possible for computer literate, but relatively inexperienced, business staff to create their own website. For any business the prospect of paying for something you think you can probably manage yourself does not, on the face of it, make a great deal of sense. However, if that were truly the case web solution companies would only get business from clients too lazy to make the effort and a professional site would look no different at all from thousands of “DIY” websites. We’d be unable to convince anyone of the benefits of our services – and that’s definitely not the case.
• Website design is a profession. People working in the field have to be creative; constantly seeking new looks, styles and fresh ways of doing things. They’re craftsman of a sort, having refined many aspects of what they do over time. They have the benefit of experience and that is always worth investing in because it takes years to replicate in-house (and if you’re counting on your website to generate revenue you probably don’t have the time for trial and error). Website designers know what works. They can match the requirements of your site to solutions which generate the desired results. Critically, a good company can also ensure that your website appears prominently in search engine enquiries. That’s trickier to do alone.
• Putting a website “out there” in no way guarantees people can find it!
• So what it comes down to, finally, is a single question: “How important is my web presence to my business?” If you intend to sell your goods and services by e-commerce, or expect a significant proportion of initial enquiries to come via your website then I think the answer is obvious. That being the case, surely it makes sense to bring as much expertise as possible to bear on what is a crucial foundation of your hoped-for success?
• To learn more about the services available to businesses from us, view our website at http://www.cnx-solutions.com/ or contact us by telephone on 01326 375556.

Spiraclimb on Squidoo

Squidoo is an excellent site for creating your own content about anything and everything! In this case we have created a page dedicated to the Spiraclimb climbing plant support.

Case Study - Sub marine Services

• This specialist company, based at the A&P Docks in Falmouth, UK, have a proud history of providing a very technical service in the field of marine maintenance. The home page of the company website is sleek and visually impressive with high promonence given to the numerous accreditations Sub Marine Services has achieved.
• To the left of the home page is a stylish nav bar detailing the specific areas of expertise and operations offered by the company. As well as a considerable base of technical expertise, Sub Marine services has built up an impressive array of specialist marine plant, including crane barges, enabling them to meet the challenges of any project large or small. The website provides details of these specialist pieces of plant to enable the reader to judge the company's capability to tackle whatever job they have in mind.
• The company, as its name suggests, is able to tackle just about any "below the waterline" job connected to marine maintenance and underwater repair. This includes conducting underwater surveys, propeller polishing and hull cleaning to name but a few. Information on each of these services is easy to find on the website with comprehensive details of the services along with photographs of staff and the company's equipment in action.
• The website conveys with style a company confident in its expertise and its future prospects. The site boasts a tradition of service provision, quality and a high degree of flexibility; essential in a field where no two jobs are exactly the same.
• In addition to its ship husbandry capabilities, Sub Marine Services has built up considerable expertise in the field of marine civil engineering with dredging, pile driving, cable and pipe laying and land reclamation projects to their name.
• This is a Cornish success story; a specialist company that is a leader in its field.
• To learn more, visit their website at ”www.submarineservices.com”

Top Tips for Website Design

1. NAVIGATION: How easy is it to navigate your website? As a business, it is important to you that potential customers can access the information they need. Links to key aspects of your site need to be clear and easy to find. If a potential client has to jump through too many hoops to get where they want they will probably give up! After all, they’re probably using the internet because, like most of the human race, they can’t stand automated telephone answering programmes! Take pity and make life easy for them.
2. CLUTTER-FREE WEBSITES: We’d recommend avoiding the temptation to “overdo” things. It might be that you have a lot of things you want to tell your customers. Information overload can be a huge turn-off, however, and trying to hit visitors with too much info can have the opposite effect. Similarly, whilst you want your site to appear visually interesting overdoing the graphics and animations can just distract from the business of providing the client with what they visited the site for.
3. IMAGES: Are a must for any business website. Potential clients like to see the human faces behind your business – so feature your staff looking friendly & helpful (perhaps not using photos of the office fancy dress party!). Also, images of your product are key when attracting buyers. Just one little thing though, better not to use images at all then use poor-quality images or images which don’t present the desired impression of your business.
4. ATMOSPHERE: The look of your website needs to convey something about the style and feel of your business. A site which relates to a health spa, for instance, is going to fall rather flat if it adopts a metallic, minimalist style. That might be great for a construction company, or even an architect, but a health spa really should feel warm, soothing and welcoming. Colours, texture of background, choice of border and artwork all help to make an impression about the experience of doing business with your company.
5. CONTACT US: I put this in recognising that I risk sounding patronising but, honestly, the number of websites where it’s almost impossible to find contact details is quite shocking. I’ve even had problems on sites where the WHOLE POINT of the site is to elicit contact from readers! So, basic though the point is, ensure that if someone visits your website they can contact you. This should be easy to find and you should provide the FULL RANGE of contact details. Email, post, fax and telephone. Personally, I wouldn’t even consider buying from a site where I couldn’t find contact details. If those details are well hidden, I ask myself “why?” and head off somewhere else.
6. SEARCH: On a site with plenty of content, the ability to search the website for a specific piece of information is useful. We all know that supermarkets occasionally move the shelves around so we have to visit every aisle to do our shopping. Such skulduggery does not go down well with internet users! What will “sell” your website, your product and your business is the ease with which the user can get the info they want. If they want to read a history of your company, they will. But some might want to cut to the chase and find out how much a red sofa will cost them!