So you’re thinking about setting up or revamping your website? You’ve probably already read lots of puffy blurbs from various design companies. The usual ad-speak talks about great design, “we listen to you”, staff expertise, enthusiasm etc. Of course we offer that, we wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t. So let’s take that as understood and move past the usual guff to some more practical and fundamental issues.
The fundamentals of creating a website:
A domain name
The domain name of the site you’re on now is multimediaaction.com. You can choose a domain name and purchase it on loads of different sites. Some bung on a big markup. If you get your web company to do it for you then they’ll probably mark it up too. Worse, they might even register it in their own name, which means they’re the owner. The best thing to do is to buy the domain yourself. Go here or here and buy one. If you need some inspiration to come up with a good name try this site. Don’t think of a domain name around the kitchen table and then go online to buy it – the name will already be taken. All the obvious names are gone. Think while in front of the computer so you can see immediately if it’s available, and if it is, order it now! It may be gone tomorrow. Remember you’re just buying a name here, don’t get it confused with hosting.
Hosting
Once you have your domain name you’ll need a host. The domain name is just like purchasing shop signage: nice, but meaningless until it’s put in position on your actual shop location. That’s what hosting is: the server where your site “lives”. The domain name and the hosting need to be matched up so that when people type in your domain name they will be able to see the site’s material which is located on your host. Your host will give you a server name, perhaps something like ns1.greathosting.com. You then need to point your domain name at that server. You do that by going into the control panel site given to you when you registered your domain name and point it at the server. There are plenty of hosting companies around. If you don’t want to spend much then CrazyDomains are certainly cheap, but offer no backups and won’t be much help if you have any technical issues. Personally I like NetLogistics even though they’re more expensive. You get what you pay for. A good US-based host is Hostgator. This site is hosted with ServInt. You definitely do not want to pay for hosting through your web design company – you’ll pay more for no good reason. On the other hand, don’t order hosting before deciding what you’re going to use to build your site – hosting plans vary a lot and you may find your hosting plan isn’t a good match for what you have in mind for your site.
Content management system
A content management system (CMS) is simply what software is installed to manage your website’s material. Usually it’s the same as the software used to build the site. An exception to this is where someone might use Dreamweaver or Flash (or even hand-coded html) to make the site. In that case there’s no CMS at all and you need to modify the actual page files or xml files. That’s messy and slow and will only be able to be changed by the designer. Bad!
I use WordPress. It’s robust, reliable, modular, open-source, under active development and there are loads of web designers and techs out there who can help out if you run into problem. Another good choice is Drupal. If you’re confident, technically minded, and have time on your hands you can set up your own site using an off-the-shelf theme. For some that’s the best option, and it can be fun too (at least I think so). There’s nothing magical or weird about websites, building a website is just another skill like knowing how to roof a house or install plumbing. If you’re the type that likes to roof your own house, install plumbing and adjust your car’s engine then plunge in! If you prefer avoiding months of pain, then employ someone to build your site.
Important aspects in your build
Efficiency is the real foundation of a website. It comes out in almost every aspect. First, efficient design. When people land on your site they need to know whether you can give them what they’re looking for. Your message must be clearly and quickly conveyed. Sites that fail to do this usually have a huge bounce rate where visitors just click away.
If the visitor is satisfied they’ve found an appropriate site then they need to navigate efficiently to exactly the information they need. Don’t lead them around and around or put vital information deep in the site. Don’t make your navigation arty, tricky, tiny, hard to read, or needing teenage dexterity to click. Let your customers get what they need as fast as possible.
Make the “call to action” clear. What is it you’re wanting the visitor to do ? Book accomodation, visit somewhere, buy something, ring you ? Then make it easy. And make it better and easier than the competition.
That’s a couple of basic factors regarding site visitors. What about construction ? The number one failing of web design companies is what we call “reinventing the spoon”.
Reinventing the spoon
What’s “reinventing the spoon” ? It’s where web companies will ignore elements, processes or basic components that already exist and have been proven in millions of sites around the world and instead spend time (and your budget) creating them again. You need a spoon; there’s hundreds of good spoons to choose from, but companies insist on trying to design a new one. Web designers with a background in “backend” IT are the main culprits here – they love the challenge of redoing code.
This not only wastes time and money, it can lead to much bigger problems down the track. In a month or year when you need some changes made you’re now locked into that piece of custom code. What happens if that developer has left the company, or the company is too busy that month – or even gone out of business ?
We use proven technology and popular open source systems. That means that the site can be easily modified either by us, or by one of the thousands of other developers working with these systems. It also means they are constantly updated and secured.
Instead of reinventing spoons we concentrate on elements that benefit from custom design and usually that’s things like ergonomic site design, branding, photography, good text, video and virtual tours.
We’re efficient. We cover the full spectrum of what’s needed to make an impact and make sure your site is superior to the online competition.
Efficiency means we can do things cheaper and more quickly.
Our work has ranged across major corporate projects liaising with management and IT staff; to small business sites, portfolios, media sites and simple one-pagers.
- Video – we edit existing footage or come to you and shoot new material
- Audio – we record on-site, over the phone, or cab record an entire event with multiple high-quality mics and supply edited and enhanced recordings on CD as wav or MP3. We also write and supply original royalty-free production music
- Galleries – we can shoot onsite, edit existing and create lightbox galleries
- Slideshows – with (or without) narration, captions and music
- Panoramas – from simple 360-degree images to full “virtual tours” with embedded text, audio, video and movement controls
- Third-party ad campaigns – Adwords or display ads with tracking
- Google Analytics – embedded in the site and accessible by you at any time
- Google maps – standard maps, or we can customise with extra data and links
- Simple or very advanced e-commerce including SSL security certificates and large product catalogs including stock levels, discount coupons, tax and shipping calculations
- Feedback and contact forms
- Advanced anti-spam code
- Advanced search engine optimisation
- Calendar of events
- Full booking forms with PayPal integration
- Countdown timers
- User comments
- Polls, surveys and questionaires
- Testimonials
- Password-protected areas
- Large file “drop boxes”
- Ftp setups
- Random image galleries
- Advanced Twitter integration including monitoring keywords
- Automatic Tweets on new content posting
- Social media bookmarking
- Flickr integration
- Facebook comments integration
- Generating and monitoring RSS feeds
- Automatic feed monitoring and post generation
- Email newsletters with automatic subscribe/unsubscribe functionality; creation of html email newsletters and database management (10,000+ email addresses)
- Domain management and hosting
We’d better stop there, but suffice to say this list doesn’t cover everything we do !
The number one problem with websites
The number one complaint we hear from people about their old website is how hard it is to update. Often it’s so confusing and tedious that they simply dont update it at all. And when they feel that they absolutely must update it, they usually have to go back to their original web company to do it, and then get gouged with some outrageous cost. But isn’t that the final insult ? The site is so complex you have to ask the web company to update it, and then they charge you a premium ! In reality the web company should be severely embarrassed at creating something so unwieldy and inefficient.
We can build your site so that you can literally email your site and the contents of that email will automatically and instantly appear online. Our sites are easy to update, easy to tweak, and easy to “makeover” with a fresh look six months or a year down the track. We can also supply tutorials on video. These tutorials cover *exactly* how to do specific things on your site. Do you anticipate wanting to change around pictures and text, replace a product, rename a nav item ? We’ll create specific video tutorials to cover the functions you need.
“Involving the customer”
Almost every website company likes to talk about “involving the customer” – working closely, getting feedback, swapping ideas. All very nice of course, and we like doing that too. But the reality is often very different. We find most people are busy. Far too busy to get too involved in the little details of their website. Sometimes this is the reason they’ve put off redeveloping their site for so long: they just can’t spare the time to oversee the development. ( We’ve even seen some web companies using the idea of “client involvement” as an excuse for not making any worthwhile decisions themselves: instead of the web company coming up with ideas they try to get the client to decide every tiny detail.)
Busy ?
We understand that you’re probably incredibly busy. We’ve got enough nous and initiative to get your development happening without running back every five minutes asking dozens of questions. We can also rework, rewrite and compose website text ourselves. We can create the graphics, come on site and take the pictures and video. At the most extreme level all we really need from you is a rough “feel” for what you want your site to be like and we can take it from there.
Here’s a few sites we’ve built:
