Why have a website?

As simple a question as this requires much consideration. The question is not wether you need an online presence or not, it's rather what do you want from a website? what do you want to achieve in the process? because really, a website is nothing more than a marketing tool. No matter how good it looks, or how many functions it does, it still acts as a marketing tool. If used wisely with purpose in mind, it can works wonders.

It is extremely important at this early stage to think of a strategy as of how you're going to incorporate your website in your daily work flow. At its least effectiveness your website should act as an information hub. But at its best, it should automatically take and process orders, send bills, confirm client's action, collect payments, and then have a way to log all actions on a reliable database.

On any level, at some point human interaction is required. To personally communicate with the client, to actually ship orders, answer questions, or solve a problem. This means constant follow-up on your side, maybe a dedicated staff member to check emails and reply to them, and to process orders. Your website must be treated as a normal service outlet, or think of it as another branch for your business. It has to be taken seriously to reap fruit.

The right mind-set

As a website owner and operator you need to get in the right mind-set in order to see good return on your investment. Websites built on the base that " the competition has their own websites so we must have ours" usually fail to generate any revenue, because they are not built with the end result in mind. On the internet no one can build a website to show off, because no matter how smart and creative your web designer is, there will be smarter more creative web designers, trends change, public's mind is constantly altered, emotions shuffled.

The only safe bet is to build a website based on a service. people will come back to your website because they are getting a service in return. It doesn't have to be something big, dynamic, or interactive. As a matter of fact the best service you can start with is the information service. Provide your customers with up to date information relevant to your business, how you do things, your standard procedures, updates on services outages, holidays, special offers, business news, general information about your type of business, and a simple contact form so people can get quick answers.

Now your website has a clear purpose. When you build a website based on purpose, you won't worry about impressing your customers with flashy animations, or useless add-ons. The info-service is the attraction itself. With this mind-set we can carry on to the good stuff. keep on reading, please.

Anatomy of a web page

A common web page layout as seen all over the world wide web is made of 6 main building blocks. The size, shape, or place an the actual page can be different from one web site to the other, but all web pages must have most if not all blocks. Now let's see how it is all put together. Also check out the examples in the fold out sections.

1- Headers: Top part of the page

2- Footers: Bottom part of the page

3- Navigations: Text links and menus

4- Contents: Information, video & audio, PDF documents, downloads, etc...

5- Graphics: Images and styling effects

6- Construct code: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, perl, etc...

The following are examples of each type of page elements

Examples:

Header

The header section is the top part of the page. It holds information related to the website such as the name and logo, banner ads. There are no set rules for what goes in the header section, but it usually acts as an identifier of a website or a particular web page. Header position and contents remain unchanged across the whole website even though it could hold different information on each page. See the examples bellow.

Examples

Footer

The footer is the bottom part of a web page. Usually it contains site links and copyright info, privacy statement, and disclaimers. Some websites prefer a minimalist approach while others opt for a beautiful colorful footer.

Examples

Navigations

Navigation is what gives the web its name. It links all of the pages together. Without this functionality it would have been impossible to move from one page to the other and to the rest of the world wide web.

Navigation simply put, is all the menus, text links and image links. for it to be effective, it has to remain standard across the website. It can be placed in the header section, directly bellow it, to the right or left of a web page, or on both sides. It is a matter of convenience and some common sense. Bellow are examples of navigation menus and links.

Of course there are hundred other ways to make a menu but they all perform the same task.

All other page elements and technologies used, work for this section. No matter how nice looking a website is. Headers, footers, navigations, and graphics all work together to present the contents of a website. It is the main reason websites are built.

Contents could be information in text form, video, audio, flash animation, a shopping cart, discussion board, a photo gallery, or a combination of 2 or more types of contents. Contents can be static or dynamic. It can reside on the same server or pulled from other servers around the world. Contents is what gives a site its value. Content is king, any web designer will tell you this.

Examples of contents stored on same server

Hanna Montana Videos

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Example of contents pulled from another server

TOOTI GAMES

Example of FLASH animation

Example of Google ads

Graphics

Graphics, is every image, icon, or shape used in the design. Long gone are the days of text only websites. Graphic images act as visual aid and to add a touch of art to a rather boring design.

A good web designer must posses or have access to image collections, icon artists, calligraphers, photographers, and artists from different schools to be able to better serve his or her clients. With this in mind, every image used in the design must be acquired legally. This could save you a lot of trouble later on.

At eZ weblogic, we hold more than 5,000,000 images, Icons, backgrounds in addition to what we have to custom design or photograph for each project, with this in mind we still have to buy more photos and artworks with almost every project. Each website must have its own fresh set of graphics.

One thing must be clear when using graphics, is the fact that image files can slow your website considerably, so every image has to be optimized for the web.

Construct code

The construct code is nothing more than a text file instructing your web browser to put every element, image, and text in its pre-defined position. It is referred to as HTML or
[ Hyper Text Markup Language ] It depends on your browser to draw each element and place it where it should. It is more like guiding a blind man by telling him how many steps he should walk before turning right or left.

This explains why the same page will look slightly different on different browsers and different platforms. While almost all web browsers abide by the rules, Internet Explorer's developer Microsoft has chosen not to follow the rules, or at least not fully support them. This puts extra steps on the designer and in some cases it requires sperate pages for Explorer on its own. Many website designers either stopped supporting Internet Explorer altogether, or charge for the extra work

Other languages used to add functionality and manipulate data are [ PHP, Perl, ASP, JavaScript, Ajax ] These languages are used to add many useful functions such as fetching information from a database, take orders, send invoices, shopping carts, photo albums, etc...

CSS or cascading style sheet. While it is not a coding language, it plays a major role in any modern website design. At eZ weblogic all of our websites are based on CSS to make sure future compatibility. The initial design phase is somehow harder than using old table layouts but once it's complete the website becomes more in control, and pages are search engine friendly. CSS optimized web pages download much faster so your customers won't have to wait long to see what you want them to see.

Web 2.0 Standards

The buzz word nowadays is web 2.0 So what's web 2.0 anyway? There are many ideas about web 2.0 pronounced, two point oh or the second generation of the world wide web. Honestly, there is no one clear definition to the term. The standard is nothing more than a set of guidelines declared by the 3WC organization to help build better websites from a user's point of view.

In short it means building lively websites, fresh colors, wide pages with a lot of white space, concentrate on social marketing, easy navigations. The internet has matured so is the design and purpose of a website. Razor sharp cut lines, and corporate colors is obsolete. It is of no use to build a website to self inflate your corporate ego. No one really cares if you were a big company with 500 staff under your command. People want interactive websites which look easy on the eyes.

Statements such us " We are the giant of this product" and " We made such and such millions of dollars last year" has lost its value. According to web 2.0 standards, the user's experience on your website is the key.

What type of web site is best?

The best website, in terms of design, functionality, ease of use, and reliability is the website that can achieve your goals. If it can't, there is no point in walking this path. This is not a diplomatic answer by all means, because it is not. When we sit with a client to build a website, we always start with this question " Sir, what do you want your website to do? " but here is the tricky part. Many well established business leaders have no clear idea as of what a website should do.
So what's wrong with that? absolutely nothing's wrong with it. They are businessmen and women ,not web designers, they are not online marketers. And here where web solution providers come in handy. There is no one size fits all solution unless it is a hobbyist's website.

It is our job to fully understand your type of business and from there we can develop a strategy to incorporate an online solution to it. The website itself comes last.

Our solution development goes through 7 different phases to realize a website.

1- Asses Options available for this business model.

2- Asses the in house expertise of the establishment.

3- Asses the daily workflow or how the business works.

4- Find out any on going marketing efforts that we can build on.

5- Establish an understanding of future plans.

6- Explain to client all options available for his business type, including our best recommendations

7- Develop a mock-up website to test staff interaction with it.

8- Based on our finding we develop the final website.

It is a lot more than a simple answer. Unless we know exactly what we have on our hands, there is no way we can answer this question. It is the personality of the business that guides us to the best website. It all depends on the culture of the establishment.

Marketing based websites

A website is a powerful marketing tool. for it to work, it has to be built around marketing guidelines. if you can't use it as a marketing tool, you won't be able to use it for anything else. Believe it or not, No one is interested in your business, it hurts but it is the truth. if your website holds no real value to them, they will just surf away and soon forget about you.

Your website could even work against you if you failed to acknowledge the fact. It is not the number of visits a website gets but the number of visitors it retains and ultimately buy either directly online, or go all the way to your shop.

There are many strategies used to achieve this, unfortunately not all web developers know it or use it. OK, we'll give you a hint. Give free stuff, this is a good marketing strategy. another hint. Don't give free stuff, you will end up with non buyers getting all your freebies. Both are good hints at the right hand. To discuss your next project please don't hesitate to contact us. it is absolutely free.