Your firm’s Web site should reflect, and focus on, the company’s business and the way you do business. A well designed site can be a company’s most effective, adaptable, and least expensive form of communicating with clients and potential clients.

Graphic Identity

Commonly referred to as Brands or Logos, this gives your firm a visual identity.

It should do many things. A well designed brand portrays something about your firm and the way it does business, as well as what it does or provides. Distinctiveness and simplicity are also desirable qualities, you want a viewer to instantly know who and what your brand represents, or at least want to look closer.

Think about the most desirable qualities in your industry and how you would communicate visually that your firm provides them, and you have a good start on a branding initiative.

View Graphic Identity Examples

When your company decides to create a presence on the web, or establish or refresh your firm’s graphic identity, you are embarking on a marketing campaign of the first water. Your Web site, your company’s first impression, can be viewed from anywhere in the world! Each time you write a letter, drop a business card or sell a product, your graphic identity says a lot about who you are.

Take a second or two and consider this.

Okay. We are talking about something that could potentially increase your bottom line exponentially. This is not a technology project. It is not about the bells, whistles, or horns available in the various tools for production of web pages and graphics. It is about making a good, positive, and compelling first impression when you have a potential customer’s attention.

It is about moving them to purchase your product or use your services.

approach

Our approach to your project is results focused. We work with you to get a clear understanding of your company’s product or service. Then, and only then, we present you with a tailored plan to implement a campaign on the Internet. In order to accomplish our task in the most expeditious manner possible we have developed a basic road map to guide the development of your site.

the roadmap (click to view)

When we get together to plan your company’s branding initiative, or presence on the Internet, we come to the table with knowledge and expertise to get your company’s brand defined and accessible to your potential customer. What we do not bring with us is a preconceived notion of what your message and purpose are. You know your business better than we could ever hope to. After all, it is your business. You have made it what it is.
Building your company’s brand is deserving of the same care and attention to detail that you have given to building your business.
We are there to help you make more of it. The best resource to help us do that is you.

You need to decide who on your staff can contribute useful input to the planning of your branding and Web presence and get their participation. You might draw from your sales, management, marketing department, or even production, the important thing is that, whomever you choose, they know your company’s products and services. If they have a genuine enthusiasm for the product, so much the better. Their input will help to streamline the site creation process.

the process

Building your company’s brand is deserving of the same care and attention to detail that you have given to building your business. There are Web design firms that promise you a four page starter site in three business days. We will not make that promise. We do not do “[INSERT BUSINESS NAME HERE]“ sites.

The process of planning your company’s branding and Internet presence is critical to staying within your budget constraints. Summarizing the process, it consists of four basic steps.

the steps (click to view)

plan to promote

Another, often neglected, portion of the planning process rests with you. You need to plan to have your Brand, Web page address and a general company e-mail address included on anything that leaves your offices. This includes, letterhead, product labeling, invoices, and business cards, as well as any print advertising you put out.

Once the planning is complete, we move to the next phase, content generation. This is all about what you have to say and the best way to say it.

Content development is by far the most critical and labor intensive portion of the site development process. In the planning process we began outlining the content of your site. We determined who your intended audience is, the basic purpose of your site, and what you want to communicate to that audience in order to accomplish that purpose.

Content, and the presentation of that content, is the thing that gains your potential client’s attention and, hopefully, accomplishes your purpose. When we set about building content for your site we bring information from the discovery process, flesh out the basic ideas, and put them into action.

use what works

You have successfully marketed your product. We want to use and build on this success. Any marketing material that you have developed is a prime candidate for adaptation and inclusion in your Web presence.

Your product is likely to have features that are similar to other products on the market, more importantly, your product has features that are unique and add value to your product compared to your competition. These unique features are important points to promote in your company’s site. Give your customer a reason to visit your site and incentive to come back and visit again. Your content should follow these guidelines.

putting things in order

The amount and type of content will be divided into logical sections to fit our concept outline. Once content has been composed, checked, and approved we move to the next phase. Designing the pages themselves. Click on the design link to the left or below to learn how we approach this phase.

When we approach the design of your site we do it from a results oriented standpoint. There is a temptation on the part of many web designers to sell their clients the cutting edge effects and the flashy headers and menus. There is only one problem with this approach, it doesn’t work all that well.

The pages have ceased to be about your content and your purpose, and have become design focused.

focal fundamentals

When we design your site’s appearance, we work with the information that we have gathered in the planning and content development stages. By this time we know what you want to accomplish and create a site design with your goals in mind.

We design the site in a way that draws the viewer’s attention to the all important content. We have some simple design rules that we use.

Rules that we use (click to view)

When we have your site design and content put together in a way that optimizes its effectiveness, the next step is to place it on the Internet. We recommend that you place your company’s site with a reputable, established, hosting firm. These companies already have the hardware, software and technical expertise in place to host your site. Additionally, there are a large number of these firms competing for your business. This keeps your costs down.

Some hosting firms are better than others and mistakes can be costly. We have done the leg work for you on this point. By using a variety of resources, up to and including placing sites with a variety of hosting firms, we have found some great ones. Those that we use provide an exceptional service at a very reasonable cost. Depending on your company’s requirements, the cost will usually be less than $300.00 per year for a full service package.

Once you have your site out on the Internet you need to give people a reason to come to it. Often. Maintaining your site is one of the most critical parts of its exhibition. Depending on anticipated, and desired, traffic to your site you may want to apply updates on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis.

This does not necessarily mean that you will have to hire new staff or create a new department at your company. Many of these functions can be automated using common readily available “back end” software.
deciding what will work

How and what you maintain on your site is something entirely dependent on the structure and purpose of your site. If your site is an e-commerce site the demands are very different than those posed by an informational site. We will do our best to advise you on what sort of maintenance you will have to do to keep your site fresh and attractive.

There is a set of always and every time maintenance tasks that will fall to someone on your staff or ours to monitor. Yes, monitor, because, for the most part these tasks will be automated. You just have to make sure that they actually were performed as scheduled. We have provided a list of these tasks.

Regular Maintenance Tasks

monitor outcomes

Keeping tabs on the activity on your site is a lot like monitoring your sales figures or cost of doing business. You watch the figures. Unlike these necessary parts of owning a business, you do not have to compile the figures. It is done for you.

One of the great features available to you for this purpose is the statistical logging software that is part of the hosting plans that we use. These programs constantly, and without complaint, monitor traffic on your site and place the information into easily understood graphs and tables for your perusal.