What’s on the menu
We have found that it’s easier for clients to visualize their website in terms of the components that are going to make up the website. To help things along we’ve listed a number of ingredients that are available through us.
To Blog or not to blog
The term “blog” has probably become as ubiquitous as Coca Cola and it’s easy to see why – everyone and their dog is blogging in some form or another. Whether it’s a family blog allowing the grandparents to keep in touch from the other side of the world, a photoblog documenting your Himalayas trek or a platform from which to broadcast your views on trainspotting, anyone can do it and we can have you up and running in no time.
Our platform of choice is WordPress, an application that is used by 12% of the world’s 1,000,000 biggest websites.
E-commerce/shop
This is probably the most requested feature we get and it’s clear why – the internet allows you to sell to a global audience! In the past people have shied away from running an online store – it was expensive, the software was cumbersome, there was a lot of doubt regarding the safety of credit card data and setting up a credit card gateway was simply ridiculous. Luckily things have moved on a bit and all these points are now addressed.
We can offer many different solutions from a small store integrated into your corporate site through to a fully-fledged store with all the bells and whistles such as our own InnitTV.
Galleries and portfolios
If you need to display a number of images (or videos) online, a gallery is a great way to go. It’s ideal for anyone who will regularly add to the portfolio so designers, architects, galleries, cameramen, photographers etc. all benefit from this great feature.
Our preferred method is to display thumbnails, each of which will overlay the full-scale image when clicked. There are other methods too and our Galleries and portfolios page should adequately demonstrate these.
Build a community
There are many different ways to enable your users to partake in your web presence as well as interacting with other users. The most straightforward one is comments, whereby visitors to your site can leave a comment on one of your posts – other visitors can likewise leave a comment or comment on other comments and so starting a conversation.
Another great way to build a community on your site is to host a forum (or web forum). A forum consists of pre-defined categories such as science fiction, comedy, drama etc. Visitors to your site can then start a topic under one of those headings, for example “Why “Alien” wasn’t scary”. Once other visitors reply to this topic a thread is started which other visitors can read and take part in.
Newsletters
An electronic newsletter is a regularly distributed publication which is delivered via e-mail. Some newsletters are created as money-making ventures and are sold to subscribers – HARO (Help A Reporter Out) for example, was acquired by Vocus for a reported $20-million. Now we’re not saying that you’ll sell your newsletter for a fortune but it’s worth considering.
Beyond this approach, a newsletter is a fantastic marketing medium, allowing you to market directly to an interested audience who have chosen to be included (generally newsletters are opt-in, otherwise it wouldn’t be much different from spam). Current research suggests that email marketing is among the most cost-effective marketing tactics out there – Forbes Media’s Ad Effectiveness Survey of 2009 showed that newsletter marketing is considered to be the second most effective tool for generating customers (first is Search Engine Optimization).
Bear in mind, that we can publish a newsletter for you without you having a website.
Search engine optimisation
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines. In general, the higher up the page, and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
We are by no means SEO experts but we are aware of the tools available to help with SEO and are able to implement these tools. In addition to this, the primary packages we work with (such as WordPress and Drupal) are automatically very search engine friendly.
Forms
Forms are an incredibly useful means to get your visitors to submit information in a structured manner – this means less hassle for the visitor and less hassle for you. Of course forms have to be carefully thought out if you’re going to get the most out of them but once they’re in place it’s remarkable to see how easily it guides visitors. Take our “requirements” form for example – we could simply have put up an e-mail form and let the user figure it out for themselves or, as the form does, guide them through the key questions we need answered in order to make an informed decision. You may even want to consider simply hosting a form with us, as opposed to a whole website.
Get social
If you’ve never heard of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc then you’ve got some catching up to do. We’re not going to comment on the virtues (or lack thereof) of these networks but the fact is that they’re popping up in the most unimaginable places and if you want one of those places to be your website, we’ve got you covered. You can integrate your tweets, Facebook updates etc and they’ll automatically show up on your website. Integrate, Facebook “like” buttons, Twitter “follow me” buttons and just about any other social button you can think of.
We’re big fans of Google and have heavily integrated their offerings into our business including GMail, Google Docs, Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. Of course we can do the same for you and your business.
If you know what you’re after please head over to our questionnaire where we’ll take some details that will allow us to put together a detailed proposal and estimate for you -