What information do your web designers need, in order to build our new company website?

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Introduction

For every website that we build and design, whether it be a simple five-page brochure website, or a really large e-commerce website, say for an online clothing retailer, we are going to need quite a bit of information in order to allow our web developers to start the ball rolling on building your new website.

Now, for a lot of businesses here in Wales, that company might not have had a website built before, or if you are investing in a new website, the last website might have been built a very long time ago, so you might have had a really basic company website built, and you might have only needed say a few lines of text, and wanted something really simple, because the company may have only been starting up in Cardiff?

With this in mind, purchasing a website is not an everyday occurrence, so normally the business owners will not know which information we will need, for example, they might not know which hex codes or CMS to choose?

As our web design business here in Cardiff is all about helping the customer as much as possible, we thought we’d write a rather short article here, explaining some of the information we often need from our customers, in order to start building a new website for that company.

Which CMS is your business going to choose?

Now choosing which CMS (Content Management System) you want to opt for, we always think it is rather like picking which type of car engine you would like fitted, for example different engines will suit different needs, for example you might want a really powerful and large engine, or you might want something much more simple?

This is the same when it comes to purchasing a website, which CMS do you want your company website based on, you might want WordPress,you might want another CMS, a lot of businesses here in Wales, will not know which CMS to opt for, so our web developers and web designers can spend time with you explaining which CMS we would recommend for your company, as different companies will require different CMS.

Has your business created a set of brand guidelines for our web developers to follow?

A lot of businesses these days, will have a set of brand guidelines to follow, that’s to ensure that all of the marketing, whether it be the flyers, the website, or the company’s cars, are all consistent in terms of the marketing.

So, let’s say for example that you run a construction business, you might use same colour on your companies signs, the same colour on the company’s vans, say for example the same colour on the companies machines and the same colour on the company’s business cards, this will make sure that all the colours are consistent, and to do this often why web designers will need hex codes, and this is often part of creating the businesses brand guidelines.

So, one of the first things when a web designer is building a new company website for your business, you will often need a set of “hex codes” to use, so the company logo and also which fonts you wish to use will need to be stated, for example you might use an exact colour of yellow, you might also use say Arial font across your website?

So therefore when you sit down with the agency here in Wales, that’s the web design agency that you have hired, often one of the first questions they will ask over a cup of coffee is, have you created a set of brand guidelines?

As these will help steer the design, they will help the web designer to know exactly which hex codes to use, where the company logo should be placed, and they also tell designer which font to use.

So, for example when you go say a solicitor’s website, often the font is quite different from say the font that is used on a local coffee shop, there were literally thousands of different fonts to choose from, so often it can accelerate the web design process, if you have to hand for your web developers, a set of brand guidelines, which can stipulate which fonts to use, what colour the font should be, company logo, and also the branding company might come up with a set of social media icons as well.

Do you know how many pages, or if have you created a site-map for your web designers?

What can really help the web design process, is if you pass to your website designers what is called a “site map”, that is you have thought about how many pages you want on your new company website, what you want from them pages to be, for example an “about us” page and how many pages your business will need.

If this is not thought about right at the start, then it’s entirely possible to miss out a service or product range that your business offers.
So, let’s say for example that you run a business in Cardiff, the business specialises in security, so you approach a web designer to build a website to advertise and install alarms and also CCTV.

However, halfway through the web design process, you may have realised that you have missed out talking about barriers which are fitted at car parks and that you also install these, therefore is really important to sit down with the web design business, talk about everything your business offers, so this can get translated into a really good web design.

Will you require our copywriters to write the text?

A lot of the businesses we work with, ranging from companies in Llanishen, right through to Cardiff Bay, won’t have the time to write all of the text, we therefore have copywriters who can write the text for you.

Why a lot of businesses often need ongoing support from their web designers

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Introduction

For a lot of start-up businesses, it can sometimes be a bit of a rush to get the business up-and-running, and this often means that there are so many things to think about and it can be a very hectic time.

For example, you might be meeting with various estate agents, to find a suitable office premises, you might be interviewing staff for many different jobs that your company needs filling, you might be purchasing furniture so that you have everything ready the first day at work.

Now, like most businesses, you might have recognised that you need a brand-new website for your business all set-up and ready to go, yet some business owners, make the mistake of hiring a web designer, just purely on the basis of price alone.

That’s to say, you might be on social media see a business that offers say a fixed-price CMS website offer, and you might be like, wow, that looks like a great price.

However, this article has been written, by our web designers, to highlight why it’s important to pick a professional web designer or agency, not just on price alone, but on the basis that you wish to work with them on a long-term basis.

A lot of businesses think, that they should go for the cheapest quote, however we think it’s much more important to pick web design agency where each offers you an affordable price, but also one that you are happy to work with over the long term basis.

One which your happy to pick up the phone and chat to, one which explains everything to you, one which answers their emails in a timely manner.

As this article will illustrate to you, you don’t just need your marketing company to design the website, and then that’s it, instead often you need the web designers for ongoing services such as website hosting, domain name renewal service, writing blog posts say every week, organic SEO and also sometimes CMS training on how to use the website as well for example.

So for example, getting a website built might just be the start, you may have a really well-designed website, say built in PHP, it’s a WordPress site, your really happy with the work the web developers have done, your over the moon.

But, you might not want to hire say one business to manage the seo, one to manage the businesses social media, such as Facebook, another to write the blog posts, and a separate hosting company, and a separate domain name company, so why not think about hiring Top Space, here in Wales, as we can offer all of these services under one roof.

Professional Website Designer

First things first, we think it’s really important not just to pick any old web design company, but to pick a professional website designer, which designs high-quality websites, which will really take the time to understand your business, and to produce a really good CMS website of your company.

Far too many businesses, offer cheap quotes, and so many companies hire the wrong agency or business, then end up your website this very hard to edit, SEO cannot easily be applied, and it may suffer from a lot of glitches because the CMS might not have updates. For example, the site might be a bespoke site, built by PHP developers, but it might be a poorly designed CMS, it might have a dashboard that’s very hard to use, so even adding something simple, like a 500 word article, that you’ve just been busy writing over a coffee, well, it might be so difficult to add the post, a meta title, meta description and the article, well you give up! And this is what can happen when you hire the wrong web developers, every change you make to the site, no matter how simple it sounds, well becomes difficult.

So, then you might even resort to emailing the web developers for help, which will obviously cost more, so our best advice is hire a respected web designer, or agency, and pick a CMS which best suits your company, for example WordPress might be best suited to what your business needs?

For example, it might be a bespoke website, built in a CMS that is unique to that web design agency, yet what happens if that web designer, or the business was to go bankrupt? Can you receive support for the website?

This is why it’s worth carefully thinking about which company you opt for, to pick a company that offers you really good value.

Hosting and Domain Names

At a minimum, you often have to deal with your website designers on an ongoing basis in order to renew your domain names and hosting, you might do this with a separate company, but a lot of companies often go with the company that either the web designers recommend, or the website hosting and domain name renewal service that they offer. This means, lets say you hire a Cardiff web developer, they build the site, sometimes the domain name, the hosting is included in the price of design sometimes for say a year, yet after a year, often you have to pay each month, or year, yet some web designers, they charge for domain name and hosting right from the start, so this is something worth asking about, as costs do vary depending on which design agency you hire to build your website.

Edits

We would say it is very likely that you are going to need edits in the future for your companies website, this might be something as basic as changing the businesses phone number and the address or it could be something much more complicated, for example, it could be a lot of work, for example that the business is going to change the products or services that it offers, therefore the evergreen content marketing might need to be rewritten completely, which is obviously going to take up a lot of time.

Therefore, whichever company that you do end up hiring here in Cardiff, for example, you may hire a company that is based in the heart of Cardiff Bay near the docks, or perhaps you hire a freelancer which is based in say Llanishen within Cardiff Wales, you should make sure that you have a good working relationship with that person or web design agency, so that you can work with them if edits are needed in the future to your company’s website.

SEO

What a lot of companies quickly recognises is, that they need their business to invest in SEO, therefore rather than hire a separate SEO agency sometimes the web designers will also offer SEO as a service, however as a business here in Cardiff, or whenever your business is based, you should only invest in top quality white hat SEO.

Content Marketing

You may wish to hire a digital marketing agency that’s located here in Cardiff, which also offers content marketing and SEO, this written work often needs to be written on a regular basis, and this can sometimes be very time-consuming, this is why a lot of businesses, ranging from plumbers right through to large law firms, use their marketing agency to write this work for them.

NAP

Your name of your business, it’s address or its phone number (NAP) may need updating, sometimes this means that the web developer will need to rewrite the footer text, the header and also the contact us page, therefore you might need a PHP web developer to do this, in the future.

Plug-in updates

Some CMS, that’s content management systems for those that do not know what this means, will need updating, for example let’s say that you have a rather quality WordPress website built by a website design company, often you will still need the help of your agency, that’s to keep the plugins regularly updated, for example the WordPress plugins will often need updating on a regular basis, you may wish to hire an agency or lets say a local freelancer which can do this for you. Its important to keep your businesses CMS plugins up to date, for example lets say you run a law firm, your based in Wales, you might not employ anyone in the company who updates the website, its therefore important to hire a web developer or agency which makes sure your company website is updated, that the plugins, for example the WordPress plugins, that these are kept updated.

Back-up the website

You might wish to hire a company that not just designs your new website, but will also makes regular back-ups and sends them to you, you should therefore enquire whether your web designers, offer this service to back-up your website up on a regular basis for you, or not?

 

WordPress Training

Your business may require WordPress training, or other CMS training, you should therefore enquire whether your web design company that you hired, in Cardiff, offers the service not?

Affordable amendments to the website

You might get a really cheap quote to design the new website, let’s say to design a WordPress website, but how much does the agency charge per hour, to make web design amendments in the future?

You might find it it’s rather expensive per hour to hire web developers for the web design changes that your company needs, therefore you may have wish to pick another web design business here in Wales, therefore you should ask what the amendment rate is per hour, or the hourly rate for the web designers?

Update the CMS

You should enquire who will update the CMS? For example if you have a WordPress CMS, you will often require regular updates, and you should enquire whether the web design business offers this service?

 

CMS training

Glitches

If a glitch occurs, you should enquire how much it will cost to fix the problem?

 

Good business relationship

Therefore the basis of this whole article is all about whether you think you can have a good working relationship with the web designers, therefore it’s not just about getting a website designed, it’s about finding a company that your business wants to work with on a long-term basis.

Affordable fees

You should find web designers which offer affordable fees.

How our business can help

Whether you run a car dealership, you are a plumber, you run a law firm here in the city of Cardiff, we have web developers and web designers which can build brilliant website for your business.

 

 

 

 

Which elements do you think are important to include when designing a website’s footer?

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Introduction

If you hire a really good web developer, then every single part of the site should be well-designed.

Time should therefore be spent coding and designing the site, so that your company has a well-designed website. Alternatively, you may well be reading this, as you’re thinking about tasking your PHP web developer, to redesign the footer, and use split testing to see if the design alteration, to the PHP, results in lower bounce rate?

Whatever the reason for wanting to redesign the footer, we have sat down with our web developers, and we asked them, which elements do we as web design company believe are crucial when designing a footer?

Now, don’t get us wrong, we can’t speak for all businesses, what one company has in a footer is likely to be different from another, every business is different, and we think the website should reflect your company’s unique personality, yet with that said, we can make some generalisations, as to what we think you may wish to include in your footer.

So whether you run a gin bar in Cardiff, a hairdressing saloon, or perhaps you sell used cars, and your thinking of having your web designers, redesign elements of your website, whether it be a WordPress site, Joomla or another type of CMS, this is the article for you.

What is a websites footer?

So, let’s say your looking for a local business, which sells organic coffee in Cardiff, yet is also a coffee shop, so you can get your coffee fix for the day, and sample the goods, before you purchase a massive sack of coffee, okay, so at the bottom of the website, normally where the companies address, phone number and let’s say social media icons are, lets say the companies Instagram account, or Facebook icon, or Twitter button is, well, this is the footer, its sometimes a different colour, so the web developers may say code site, so across the whole website, the footer is say black, so then all the social media icons, NAP information, is added to the footer.

How with some WordPress websites, it can be east to edit the footer?

Here at our agency, we simply think, that the WordPress sites that we build, we think are brilliant, not just because they look brilliant, but because, they have a Dashboard, which is called the WordPress Dashboard, now, this Dashboard, with the sites that we build, have the functionality so that the footer text can be changed, now you might be saying, well, why’s that even important… well, we will explain.

Let’s say you run a company, your business is in Cardiff Bay, yet, you decide to change units, so instead of being at one rented unit, in Cardiff Bay, you move around the corner, as such the address changes, so does the phone number, now, with some websites, built by some web designers, well, they do not allow for edits to be made easily, in matter of fact, with some websites, unless you have coding knowledge, its not possible, because they may not have a Dashboard, or admin area, instead a web developer is needed to make any wording changes.

However, with WordPress, things are so different, without any coding knowledge, so for example, you don’t need to understand PHP, you can simply log-in to WordPress, open the WordPress Dashboard, click Widgets, or another tab, then it can sometimes be as simple, as editing the address, and phone number in the editor.

NAP information

So what does NAP mean? And why is NAP important to have on your companies website?

Well, NAP simply means, name of the company, the companies address, and company phone number, its crucial to have, as if you talk to any good seo agency that’s worth their salt, well, they will tell you that NAP is important to improve your company’s local SEO.

So, when you do sit down with the web developers, or let’s say the person at the web design business that is managing the build of your new website, make sure, that you talk about where your companies NAP information is going to go, can it be indexed? And, also, if you do change say phone number, or address, can this be easily updated in the Dashboard?

If so, can the web designers offer training?

Cardiff or more than one location?

So, lets say you run a business that has multiple locations, for example, you own various bars and restaurants throughout Cardiff, so you need a web design business, that can design a website, but you may want to put the locations in the footer.

Why do this? Well, often the footer is used right across the entire website, so the design of the footer is consistent, now, when you talk to various seo companies, they will tell you, that its important to lower the bounce rate, now, when someone’s looking to book a restaurant, they may want to know quickly, where the restaurants address is, how far is it from them, they might be thinking, right?

Well, therefore, you can hire your web developers to add the restaurants address into the footer, so that, the address is easily found, so this is helping your customers, by clearly stating where your restaurants and bars, across Cardiff are, this might just be one way, that your digital marketing agency uses to lower the bounce rate on your site.

May want to include recent blog posts?

Let’s say you hire a marketing agency here in Wales, and lets say you sell mountain bikes, you may have invested a lot in content marketing, reviewing new bikes, electric bikes and also mountain bikes, so one way to help promote your most recent blog posts, is to hire a web designer, which can add a blog post feed, into the footer.