Website Design Services and Portfolio
Volumes have been written about what constitutes a good website. And after 5 years of years of constructing, remodeling, and managing websites we have settled upon a few key technologies that will satisfy most website projects.
We provide three general kinds of websites along with a suggested free Do-It-Yourself resource as well:
- Static "Billboard" websites to provision a domain name with a catchy graphic, a short sales pitch, and a method of contact.
- Dynamic "Content Management" websites that build communities through distributive authoring, communication facilities, and information gathering tools.
- Full scale "Ecommerce" websites that are created by a partner who can actually do this.
Do It Yourself Basic Website (This site is an example)
For a very feature rich and well implemented Do-It-Yourself website, we suggest you visit office.live.com. Not only can you get a decent looking website for free, you also get free domain name registration for perpetuity. And you thought Mr. Gates was keeping all of that money to himself. This is a great deal! Example Sites
Basic Static Website Designs
A Billboard website is simply a piece of online real estate with a map, contact information, a photo or illustration, and a short sales pitch about your product or service. It provides the equivalent of a Yellow Page listing.
The key elements of this type of site are appearance, load times, and navigation If you fail to deliver on either of these three elements your visitors may leave. Additionally, your site must be accessible to a wide variety of browsers and devices, with the mobile user becoming an increasingly important audience.
Search engine optimization is also a fundamentally important aspect of site design since failing to deliver on this will ensure your website is totally obscure. And since this is such an area of design specilization, you may find it best to supplement good site design priciples with search word advertising.
Example Sites 509s.com
coppelltownhomes.com
editests.com
jrrosedevelopment.com
rossavebrownstones.com
vistaridgetownhomes.com
Advanced Content Management Systems
A Content Management System, or CMS, is a technology used to create an online communty. It provides a rich interactive experience for site visitors, allows permissions based management, gathers data, and manages large volumes of articles.
This type of site has a lot of moving parts and connects to a backend database that houses all of the information stored in the website. Commercial versions of this sort of technology can be very expensive, costing thousands of dollars to implement. Open source versions are available, but don't try to do this on your own without a clear understanding of the time commitment required.
Example Sites
E-Commerce Websites
This is a very complex type of website requiring databases, inventory management, shopping carts, accounting integration, customer service features, and many other components. It requires expertise beyond our capability. However, we have an excellent partner that can do this. Please contact us if you have an interest in doing e-commerce.
Remember that in order to do a front end (public) website, you need to have a backend (distribution process) in place first. This sounds elementary but is a common strategic error. And if you are only selling a few items, we suggest eBay's Pro-Store or something similar.
Example Sites
Look Here!