Auckland based Web Design Services
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Overview
When it comes to designing a website, you have a few choices to make and a few things to consider.
Firstly you need to decide what you website must do for you, ie., do you want a showcase for you business in general or do you intend selling your products online or are you going to offer your customers additional services on the site to your brick and mortar services. These options are discussed in more detail further down the page. To jump there, click HERE.
Then you need to decide what kind of budget you have to spend on the site design and the upkeep / maintenance and marketing of the site. The more you need the site to do, generally the more it's going to cost. Web design is priced based on the amount of programming hours it will take to design the functionality you require. Sometimes the features you require are common ones, eg. the ability to update the site or add pages yourself. In some of these cases we are able to use "off the shelf" software, dramatically cutting down the design time, which means a saving to you. If however the functionality you require is unique or highly customised, then design time can increase dramatically depending on the complexity of the task. This is also discussed in more detail below HERE. These decisions together will determine the final design.
Web Design Options
Nowadays the brief for each website is very different. Long gone are the days when one sized fitted all. For this reason we can only list the few common options here and any deviations will require a unique quote. You can request a quote further down the page.
Common Web Design Choices
Custom Web Design
We have over 10 years full time web design experience to draw on when designing your website. If you need it done, we can do it for you in house and exactly to your requirements.
All our custom designs are programmed using a combination of HTML, CSS, php, Javascript and Ajax on a MySQL database. Whether you need a unique, interactive booking system or want to automatically send your customers an e-card for their birthday or even just want something as simple as a guest book designed or added to your site, we can do it for you.
All you need to do is tell us what you want / need below and we will contact you to discuss your requirements. We will then supply you with an obligation free proposal for you to consider, and no, it won't break the bank either.
Get a Web Design Quote Now
What to consider when choosing a site design
Most business owners make the mistake of underestimating what they must and will use their website for when they first have their site designed. Initially the site is setup as a "brochure" for the business, to be able to add a web address to their business cards, because "every serious business must have one" and to generate new business. Soon however the new business owner realizes that the website is not generating the pile of new customers, in fact the site is getting almost no traffic at all and those that do visit only visit once. What a waste of money, may as well switch it off and use the money for something else!
The problem is that their site doesn't add value - there is nothing in it for the customer. Let's use a real world example :
You receive a flyer in your mailbox with all the specials at your local supermarket. On the flyer is their website address so you go and take a look. On their website you find exactly the same specials listed again, all beautifully laid out in a book format where you can flip the pages, just like your flyer. Are you going to visit the site again next week when you see their flyer in your mailbox? Of course not, you are sitting with exactly the same info in your hands. You may visit the site again if you don't get a flyer one week so you can check up on the current specials, but that is about it.
Now consider if the supermarket started running website only specials every week or publishing weekly menus with recipes that use the ingredients that are on special that week. Would you visit the site more often? Would you tell your friends about the site? You bet - everybody loves a bargain and everybody hates trying to decide what to eat tonight. The supermarket has now added value to their business / website and given their customers a reason to return. The website will become busier and busier and their business will grow.
Business owners don't always know what their website can potentially do or they want to do something on their site, but don't know if it's even possible. Again let's use a real world example to illustrate this :
Bob has a bright idea that he wants his specials to display on his customer's computer desktop whenever he updates them on his website. Impossible he thinks and abandons the idea. A few months later he visits a friend and what does he see - his competitor's specials being displayed on the friends computer desktop. Now Bob has to scramble and play catch-up to his competitor where if he had known it was possible, it would have been the other way around. All Bob needed to do when he thought of the idea was to give his web developer a call.
We don't want that to happen to you, so let's take a look at some of the common things we can do on a website and when you would use them. They have been listed in no particular order and are only a small snippet of what is possible :
- Photo Gallery - can be used to display your products or show photos from recent events your business organised. It can even be used as an archive of previous jobs, like we have done on our site to showcase our portfolio.
- Blog - A blog can be used as a diary of happenings at your business, to add articles of interest regarding your products. It can even be used to run competitions on your site if you allow your customers to reply to your blog posts.
- Event Calendar - use it to keep your customers informed of not only any forthcoming events you are planning, but you can sometimes even use it as a booking system so your customers can make appointments via the website.
- Advert Manager - traditionally used to display adverts on a website, but you can use it for other things like teasers to encourage your customers to look at other products you have, products they would not otherwise have noticed. You can use it to inform visitors to your site about new products you have just launched.
- Shopping Cart - doesn't always have to sell products online, it can be used as a product showcase too when you have a heap of products that need to be categorised.
- Forum - can be used to add tutorials and articles for your customers to read and discuss if you want. It can be used as an event calendar. It can be used as a help desk where your customers can post problems they are having - you then get to view the problem, correct it and only then add an answer before it is show to everybody. It can be used as a Frequently Asked Questions section on your site. You can use it to start a club (eg. if you sell radio control cars), or as a VIP lounge where you add specials to existing customers only.
- Newsletter - can be used to send customers pre-launch specials or interesting articles or discount vouchers or even a friendly reminder to slow paying customers that they still owe you money.
- Chat Box - can be used to have a quick online text chat to a customer or as a technical support system where you can copy and paste pre typed instructions as well as type on the spot instructions to a customer that is eg. battling to operate our of your products. If you run a take-away for example, it can be used so your customers can place their orders live and you can immediately tell them how long it will take before they can come and collect and how much it will cost.
As you can see there are many creative ways to use your website so that your customers have a better experience at your business than at your competitor, all you need to do is add value.
How to decide what features your website needs
The best way of course is to chat to your customers. They know best what is missing or what would help them the most because they are the ones using your products on a daily basis. They are also able to view your business sobjectively. Huh? In other words the have the ability to view your business "from an outsiders perspective", something you can't do, yet they are after all still your customer so are biased in your favour so will not hold back on valuable info or great ideas.
Another way to decide what your website can do for you and your customers is to look at what your competitors are doing. If all your competitors allow their customers to place bookings online, you better do that too or you are going to lose out.
Even more importantly though is to look at what your competitors are NOT offering on their websites. How about a real world example again :
If you own a guesthouse and all your competitors have an online booking system where their customers can choose the dates they want to stay and which room they want to book, you can take it a step further by providing a menu and letting your customers also choose what they want to eat and when. By doing that you have added value to the customer and made your planning a lot easier too.
Also chat to your web designer, especially the good ones like Flippin Good web design, lol. They work with a variety of businesses so have a broader view than what you or your customers have. They will often spot gaps in the market that you and your customers have missed or see where a feature used on a non-related website will translate well onto your site.
Then obviously, and unfortunately, you need to consider your budget. It is a sad fact that web designs are costed by the hour, so the more intricate and unique the features you need, the more design work - read time - will be required to take the idea live. This may mean that the idea would cost too much to implement. When that happens then the idea would either have to be shelved until the budget allows, or you would have to make another plan. One of them would be to chat to designers like ourselves that collaborate with their customers on certain projects. This significantly lowers the design costs, in exchange for a profit sharing agreement on future sales. Another would be to chat to your designer to see if the idea could be implemented in stages and in that way spread the costs over a period of time.
If you would like to discuss the options for your website, feel free contact us.
If you have an idea you think we would be interested in collaborating with, read more about this option HERE.
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