We are having a brochure website built- what are some of the more important design elements that should be included?

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Introduction

You’ve decided that your website needs a mark-over, to look more modern, to reflect what your company here in Cardiff has expanded into.
And you know from running a business for quite a while, or looking to set-up a new company, that you do get what you pay for. Meaning, that often for a lot of businesses, the main way that they advertise the business is online, so their website is critical to the success in many ways to the business.

So, they don’t just want a cheap, bosh, its done type website, no quality is needed. When talking about quality, its important to remember this, when it comes to really good web design, there are so many factors to consider, its not just about what the main picture on the homepage looks like, every single detail needs to be considered, needs to be carefully thought out, that’s why we say whichever web design agency you hire, whether they are in Cardiff, or another city, just make sure you invest in quality, as your website is often one of your most important ways to market your business.

So, our best advice is this, only invest in quality, don’t pick an agency just because of some special offer, cheap deal or the fact they can put the site together in record time, instead invest in quality, a quality site, built by experienced web developers.

So, there are a million and one things to consider when getting a new website designed, but to provide some food for thought, we thought we would mention a few things that we think are important, but do remember there are many more to consider as well…

Fast

So, let’s say your into running, you love nothing more than finishing work, and going for a good jog, its just well, your current daps, well there looking a bit tired, so on the way home from work, your looking to get a pair of trainers, yet one website, well, its so bloated, its so over designed, that its slow, so what happens?

Well, you’re likely to leave for a company website that better designed, that’s fast, where the web designers have thought not just about a fancy design, but also making it fast, so that the customer finds it easier to purchase items, so the point we are trying to make is, whichever web developers you hire, don’t just go off the website looking good, is it fast? Is it easy to buy items? Is the mobile version of the site well-designed?

Are there are coding issues at all? Such as the PHP code working is such a way where the drop-down menu, doesn’t stay down? If so, this needs to be fixed.

Contact forms

Does the website have enough contact forms coded into the company’s website, so for example, let’s say you’re a lawyer, why have just one contact form on the “contact us” page, why not have say your WordPress website designers, to code a contact form on every single main service page, this is so, for example, let’s say you’re a property lawyer, when they click on the page to do with “property disputes” there’s a contact form, so when the customer writes a message, this is sent directly to the right lawyer? Instead of all the messages going through the same contact us page.

Easy to use

Is the company website easy to use? So, for example, lets say you sell coffee online, is it easy to change the order, remove items from the basket? Is it easy to pay? What’s the mobile version of the site like, is it easy to use?

Has your web design agency created brand guidelines?

Does your web developer, or your chosen web design agency, here in Wales, do they know which hex codes to use? Do they have a company logo to add to the site? Do they know which font to use? Sometimes “brand guidelines” need to be created, so that, the web designers know how to design the site, and so all of the businesses marketing is consistent, for example, the same logo and font is used on company letters, as it is the company’s website.

Mobile ready and a responsive design?

Will the website design be responsive? Will you have a mobile version of the site built?

A CMS that is easy to use, or that the web designers can offer training?

So let’s say that you run a business that sells wood-burning stoves, yet the stoves that you stock, those companies that make the stoves, they regularly have new products, so you want a CMS, that you can add blog posts too, so, what you have to ask is, is the CMS easy to use? Is it easy to add blog posts too?

Offers as much useful advice as possible

Is the website useful for your customers, or are left with unanswered questions, if your company website doesn’t answer frequently asked questions, then the bounce rate is likely to be high.

Easy to update?

Is the companies website easy to update?

Are the plugins easy to update?

Are the plugins easy to update?

Can you change the NAP information yourself?

Is it easy to change the NAP information, for example your companies phone number is the footer of the website, if your company phone number changes?

At your web design company- how does the web design process work?

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You may well be an established business here in Cardiff, one of Cardiff’s longest standing businesses, and you’ve decided that your company website, well its looking a bit tired, dated, it needs altering, and of course, we are web designers that offer complete redesigns.

Alternatively you may well be a brand new company, you’ve set Cardiff as your destination to set-up your company, you want to create a brand new WordPress site, you want us to create brand-guidelines, you want us to write the content marketing, design a company logo, come up with a colour scheme, keep the WordPress site updated, in terms of WordPress updates, plugin updates, you also want us to manage your businesses SEO, that’s improve the local seo, as well as the organic, and we can do all of this for your company, all for a rather modest fee.

 

 

Yet, we know having a new company website, or redesigning an old one, well, it can mean that businesses owners can have a million and one questions, so, with this in mind, we grabbed our senior website designers, said stick the kettle on, and we put our heads together to write this, a rather long blog post, which addresses some of the more frequently asked questions, that our web design company in Cardiff frequently gets asked.

 

What if I haven’t a clue how I would like my website to look?

Now it doesn’t matter if you are starting a removal business, or you run a large insurance business, most company owners or the marketing team, may not know if they want a slider, what a site map is, what hex codes to use, who is writing the content marketing, who’s designing the logo, how the main menu should work- we could go on, but we will pause for breath at this point.

What some businesses do, here in Cardiff Wales is let us come up with design suggestions, that’s to say our web developers, once we know which CMS option you want, such as a WordPress site, we can start to come up with design ideas, of how you may want the site to look, in terms of colour schemes, logos, main menu design, homepage design, about us page design, how the footer and header can look, how the mobile version of the WordPress site can look, so in a nutshell, our web designers can offer you loads, and loads of food for thought.

That way you can sit back, grab a coffee, and simply have a look at what our design team here in Cardiff have come up with, then we can start building the WordPress site, once you approve one of our designs.

 

We need a web design business that basically manage everything, are you able to do this?

 

Yes, often businesses that hire us are either super busy with revamping the rest of their marketing, or they are a new business, and they are just getting started, so often management is busy hiring staff, finding a businesses premises, choosing the interior décor, and also purchasing core items of machinery or vehicles, so the point we are trying to make is this, our web designers, can take-care of the whole WordPress web design process for you.

We can then check in with you, to approve say the hex codes, the menu design, and what key pages look like, say the homepage for example, then our super-talented web designers, and WordPress web developers can build your new site.

 

I want to pick from a few options, can you offer us this?

So let’s say for example that your setting up a new restaurant, it’s a new restaurant, your opening it in Cardiff Bay, you’ve invested a lot into the restaurant, now you want an impressive website to match the location, and what your restaurant has to offer, so you’ve come to us, what you can do is let our web designers come up with a few ideas, we can narrow down what you like, then we can start building the site.

 

How do I know which colours we should be using, and what are “hex codes”?

Let’s say that your setting up a large construction company here in Wales, you know you want as the main colour, a yellow, but you don’t know which shade of yellow, our web designers can suggest many different hex codes, so that we can find the perfect colour shade for your company website.

 

Why does your business so strongly promote WordPress websites?

We think that if you hire the right web designers, like Top Space, then we can build truly great and impressive websites for your company, some of the best websites we have built, in terms of our customers being really happy with the work, have been when we have used WordPress as the CMS.

 

Have you got highly experienced web designers and web developers that work for you?

Most definitely, we have some super talented web designers, there so good at what they do, they will produce top-quality, websites, plus they are also experienced web developers, so often they can come up with recommendations for you, so for example, if you haven’t a clue what the “site-map” should be, our web developers have often built websites for other companies in the same industry, so we can start to pick out pages, and features that you may want, such as an AMP version of the site, for example.

 

Why should we pick you as our Cardiff web design business of choice?

 

Cardiff, like most U.K cities are crammed to the rafters with web designers, from one-man-bands, through to agencies employing a lot of staff, many companies hire us, just due to the quality of the work.

We simply design ace-websites, even if we do say so ourselves. Plus, we have copywriters, logo designers, WordPress web designers, PHP experts, CSS, HTML and JavaScript web developers, so simply put, we can build any site.

 

Can your web design business create brand guidelines?

Yes, if your company hasn’t got a set of brand-guidelines, that’s to say, which hex codes to use, a logo, and also font type, then we can help your company, here in Wales, to create a set of brand guidelines.

What size businesses do you work for?

We work with large businesses here in South Wales, as well as smaller companies, we offer very competitive rates on web design, whether that be WordPress websites, or to have our web developers build a totally bespoke company website, using PHP.

Who writes all of the text, we simply haven’t got the time?

This is a really common question, and if you’re setting up a new company, let’s say you’re starting a new coffee shop, you most likely haven’t got the time, to sit-down and write over 2000 words, so why not let our web design company in Cardiff, do this work for you?

One of the most frequently asked questions, that our web design company gets asked is how does your web design process work?

That’s the say often a business will want a website designed quickly, therefore they would like to know timescales for how long it will take us to build say a word press website.

For example, a business might be setting up in Cardiff Bay, and let’s say that the business is a restaurant, they want their website to be live by the time the restaurant opens, so they want to know the web design process.

We explain typical timescales for how long it takes us to build a website, and how our clients can help our business to build the website more quickly.

 

We meet with our clients

first things first, we normally meet with our clients. Sometimes on a low value web design contract, we sometimes do not need to meet the clients, because sometimes a client will explain clearly over the phone how they would like their WordPress website to look.

For example, the business owner might know exactly which colours they want to use, they may have already written the content marketing, and they may have a very clear idea of how they would like to each page, such as the homepage to look.

Then our web developers can begin building the website sometimes they need to use PHP, JavaScript and HTML coding in order to build the website.

For some other businesses, we need to be meet the business in order to gain a much better understanding of how they would like the website to look

 

We gain an understanding of your business

It’s also not just a case of understanding how want the website to look, but if you want our business to also write the evergreen content marketing, then we will also need to understand your business, and for this often need to meet with the business owners.

For example, we will need to know a bit about the company, the company’s history and also most importantly want to know which services you wish to promote the most.

For example, a scaffolding company might contact us for a website, and it might not be immediately obvious that the business wants to concentrate primarily on commercial and industrial scaffolding contracts, therefore we will need to meet with the business owners in order to understand that this is where they wants to gain more work, in terms of industrial and commercial scaffolding and therefore the website should make this clear.

 

We recommend which content management system would best suit your businesses requirements

We will then need to meet with the business owners in order to explain the different types of CMS.

You may not know what CMS means, it simply means content management system, we will need to know which content management system your business requires.

For example, does your business require a WordPress CMS or let’s say you may wish to opt for a Joomla! CMS.

We work with the marketing department in order to understand your brand guidelines

We then will need to gain a copy of your brand guidelines, normally the marketing department within your business will have a copy of the brand guidelines.

The brand guidelines will stipulate which hex codes to use, how the logo should look and which font to use as well.

We will give this to the web developer so that when they are writing the HTML, PHP or JavaScript so that they use the right hex codes, fault and also company logos.

 

We start to build wireframes

Our web designers will then start to build wireframes.

We start to show you draft copies of the website

Our web designers can then start to send you draft copies of the website, for example they may begin by building the homepage, once this is built then may send you a draft copy for your approval.

Content marketing

Our business can also write the content marketing for your business; that’s to say one of our copywriters can write the evergreen content marketing for your company. This can sometimes speed up the web design process.

However, some businesses here in Cardiff, would like to write the content marketing themselves, if this is the case; then we always ask if this can be written before we start to build the website, so that our web designers can immediately add this to your website.

We gain your feedback

Once we have started to build the main pages, that is the homepage, about us page and the various different service pages, our web designers will ask for your approval, that’s to see if you are happy with the design, then our web developers will finish building your new company website.

We offer training

Our web design agency also offers WordPress training, so if your business requires WordPress training then we can help

We offer WordPress training

We offer WordPress training in Cardiff

We also can maintain your website

We can also offer to maintain your website, for example we can update your website, we can update your plug-ins and we can also offer hosting.

This service is an optional extra.

We also offer SEO

Our business can also offer SEO

If you would like to get a quote for web design then why not give us a ring?

We work for a wide range of different businesses, this can range from a restaurant in Cardiff Bay, right through to a solicitors practice in the centre of Cardiff.

We mostly build high-quality WordPress websites, however we can offer many different types of websites as well, for example we can build Joomla! websites