Website Diversity
All websites, whatever they may be selling, need to attract visitors and convert them into contacts. Beyond that, each website promotes or offers specific products and / or services. They may be little more than brochure websites, or they may have an online catalogue, or quotation and ordering facilities, or even on line purchasing.
Modern websites are all data driven. That is, the content of every page is held in a database somewhere on a web server and a program is used to extract that information and send it to the visitor's computer to be rendered on their screen.
Even the simplest websites need to be data driven, if only to provide easy to use online content management facilities.
We have gained a wide experience in the development of many different types of website for a wide range of applications. Coming from an IT application software background, we are also able to draw on a wealth of experience of different types of business. This is particularly applicable when interpreting a customer's requirement and suggesting the best website solution for them.
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We view each website as a programmable entity, every aspect of which can be tailored to the customer's precise requirements. We do not use any standard packages, templates, such for online shopping, because they place unacceptable constraints on the operation of a website operation and conflict with its intrinsic graphic design. We adopt the same approach regardless of the level of sophistication of the website, from simple brochure websites through to full eCommerce websites with large product databases and online purchasing.
Attracting Visitors
The Internet has turned the promotion of products and services on its head. Most people now search the Internet for what they want, even if they still make their purchases by other means.
The first step is to be seen on the Internet. Google has largely determined how this can be achieved, which is by having relevant and up to date website content.
Existing websites are a gold mine of good content. As this information is computer readable, we are able to exact it extract automatically and reuse it, if only to provide ideas, for the initial content for any type of website.
Our customers keep their website content up to date through the use of easy to use content management facilities, which are integral to all of our websites. We are also able to automate the updating of some aspects, including the page titles and the keywords and descriptions which appear in Meta tags within the header of each page.
Google Adwords, which are the advertisements that appear as sponsored links down the right hand side of the Google search results, are another excellent means of attracting visitors.
The advertiser only pays Google when someone clicks on their advertisement and the advertiser has complete control over the amount paid per click, the daily expenditure and when the advertisements are shown.
The process of identifying the best keywords and advertisements and optimising them to get the best return for the lowest cost per click involves is very involved.
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We have automated this entire process, from the initial keyword selections through to their continuous improvement and optimisation. This enables us to provide a low cost and efficient service to our customers for the control and management of their campaigns.
You Have Visitors
The visitor should have already been introduced to the website by the details displayed in the search results or on the advertisement, depending on the route that they took.
Either way, the visitor arrives on the website at what is known as a landing page. The main purpose of this page is to confirm the suitability of the website offerings to the visitor's needs. This page also directs the visitor to the most appropriate page, or pages, of relevance within the website.
These landing pages do not need to be part of the main website structure, because they are merely separate doorways which depend on the particular interests of the visitor. Our customers are able to add, delete and change these landing pages via the built-in content management facilties to suit their changing requirements.
The website is organised in a logical manner and is provided with straightforward navigation facilities. Most websites achieve this objective. Those that fail often do so because they attempt to convey too much information.
We work closely with our customers to ensure that their website content, its presentation and its navigation captures and retains the visitor's interest.
Converting Visitors Into Contacts
Having captured the visitor's interest, the next stage is to convert them into a contact.
This conversion can take many forms, but invariably the visitor has to be given something in return for their contact details. This might be an informative PDF document, a regular news letter, a catalogue, a prize, etc.
The objective in all cases is to get the visitor's name, telephone number and email address.
Even online shopping websites cannot ignore these opportunities, because the number of visitors who are likely to provide their contact details is about ten times those who make online purchases.
Following Up Those Contacts
When a website visitor submits their contact details, these are normally forwarded as emails to the website owner. This is by far the simplest approach and the emails can be read with Outlook or Outlook Express.
For those companies that can afford it, the contact forms can be linked directly to a back office computer system. This enables the follow ups to be handled by the back office staff via a more purpose built customer relations management software package.
We provide our customers with an email based solution that the benefits of these more purpose built package coupled with the relevant features of Outlook or Outlook Express.
Called the Customer Relations Companion, this Internet based service provides online, on demand customer relations management facilities.
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The emails are routed via our own mail server to the website owner's dedicated copy of the Customer Relations Companion, where they are handled within the context of an action related to the website visitor. From there on, a one to one relationship can be developed with the website visitor as a potential customer.
The Customer Relations Companion also provides normal email communications, but again email is handled in the context of an action for a particular customer, rather than via common in and out boxes.
Technology
We always employ the latest proven mainstream technology, which for the most part means using Microsoft, Adobe and Macromedia products.
Although alternatives can be purchased for less, any notional saving is more than offset by the many benefits that accrue from the universally used and standard products supplied by these companies.
All of our websites are predominantly HTML based with JavaScript used for user interaction and Cascading Style Sheets for styling. We also use Flash for the more complex animation.
The server side of the websites is Microsoft .Net based with Microsoft C# as the main programming language. The larger amounts of data are held in Microsoft SQL databases and the platform for all of the websites is Microsoft Server 2003.