Blog - Page 4 of 5 - Web Design Oban, Argyll and Scotland

Spanglefish – a re-appraisal

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We recently received an unusual request from a self catering holiday property owner in North Uist to help them with their Spanglefish website. Those of you who have read our previous rants about the local Enterprise Gateway promoting this proprietary system will know that we are not fans – or at least, we weren’t. We had seen too many design disasters, neglected sites and pages that were best left unpublished for the good of their owners’ businesses.

The Barn website was not the worst Spanglefish site we had seen by a long way. There was a wealth of good content and much of it was sensibly formatted. The overall colour scheme and top banner however were dire, some images were broken, one page had elements that were slightly wider than the overall container and the choice of images for the home page was less than ideal.

We created a new top banner, changed the overall colour scheme (including a custom background colour to blend in with the header graphic) and fixed the formatting errors. We also added two new galleries of wildlife and landscape pictures from images supplied by the client (after cropping and resizing them – a very important issue when the maximum size picture a Spanglefish site will display is relatively small).

The end result is a vastly improved site – and a somewhat less harsh view of Spanglefish from behind this web developer’s keyboard. The admin interface is easy to use, the basic page editor has all the necessary functions (though the editing window is pathetically small) and the source code can be edited. It is also possible to include custom CSS if you know what you are doing.

We still have some criticisms – in particular the current default width of a site at 750 pixels or so does not allow enough screen real estate for modern displays, and the default colour schemes are very limited (with some truly hideous backgrounds – DON’T click on that tartan!) . If you really know what you are doing with CSS both these limitations can be overcome, but messing with the default stylesheet is not for the novice.

And – all of the above only applies if you have upgraded to Spanglefish Gold – if you have the free version you are stuck with the terrible 3-column layout with ads etc. Upgrading is only £24.95 per annum, and does at least give you a chance to turn your site into something that doesn’t look too amateur.

If you have a Spanglefish site that could do with having a professional eye cast over it, or if you need a little help getting to grips with the system, why not give us a call?

DIY Websites

If you really MUST make your own website

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Here’s the easiest, most effective solution:

Get some cheap web hosting that supports WordPress. 123-Reg are probably as good as any – at least, you will be able to move the site elsewhere in future if you want to. (From £2.50 per month).

Now choose a free theme from the hundreds out there and start playing around – or go with the standard but highly customisable TwentyTen or TwentyEleven themes and change them to suit. Check out a few WordPress tutorials on Youtube or download a free manual.

Make sure you back up all files and your database regularly and you will easily be able to move the site later if your current host seems restrictive in any way. I recommend this plugin to back up your database painlessly by e-mail.

I’ve created a short tutorial on the basic basics of WordPress starting from a clean installation with the 2010 theme:

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4EP0lXBeLI’]

It’s not the slickest tutorial, but will give you some idea. One day I will remake this and continue the series . . .

Anyway, WordPress is the easiest industry-standard platform, easy to keep up to date, easy to transfer between hosts and easy to customise to make do whatever you want to to do. The ability to upload new themes which keep design separate from content means you can at some future date get a theme professionally designed if you so desire, move the site to another server, allocate permissions to allow others to update specific sections of the site or install and use plugins to extend the functionality of the site.

Good luck.

DIY Websites, Wordpress

New Site for Craobh Haven Watersports

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We launched a new site for Craobh Haven Watersports today.

This client recently became an RYA approved training centre, and wanted a new website to reflect their growing range of activities and their new status.

Special features include:

Colour coded top level menu with dropdowns – all coded in CSS and HTML so search engine friendly and easily modified or added to
Different top graphic for different sections but tied together with our new interpretation of their logo
Weather widget on the home page
Social media integration with Twitter and Facebook Share buttons
Lightbox photo galleries for the Projects section
Scrolling news ticker on home page

Future development on the site will include a complimentary WordPress section for news, events and sales which the client will be able to keep updated themselves.

Projects

E-commerce – A Vital Decision

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Just how easy / affordable is it to get into selling online? Probably easier and cheaper than you think, but there are pitfalls for the unwary.

There are a whole host of dedicated shopping carts out there, some free and open source, some expensive. Some are hosted, some have to be installed on your web server. Which to choose, which way to go?

Firstly, don’t expect impartial advice from a web design company. They will probably have a lot of r&d time and energy invested in one or two particular packages, and will tell you unequivocally that this or that particular package is the only way to go. Be assured, it isn’t!

Secondly, if you have a limited budget and a lot of products, aren’t too critical about the look or branding of your site and don’t want to employ a web design company then have a look at hosted solutions. At the budget end we suggest:

Actinic – from £19.99/month (for up to 100 products)

EMPowershop – from £19.99 / month

If you have a bigger budget then just Google ‘hosted e-commerce’. But – do be aware that although these systems all boast of being incredibly easy to use and unbelievably versatile they will, like any computer programme or application, have their limitations. It will take you quite a while to get familiar with the interface and you will at times be frustrated because the software will not do what you want it to. You may find yourself spending a lot of time on forums asking for help from other users – so check that this feature is available.

If you go to a web design company ask them what software they propose using and check it out. We used osCommerce for some years, but no longer recommend it for the average small business. While it has the advantage of being free it is in our opinion a clunky, camel-designed bloated monstrosity that is hard to customise and keep secure and up to date. Offshoots of this include Zen Cart and OscMax. These are better, but be very sure that the web developer you are using has complete mastery – check their portfolio, ask their clients – and make sure you get a price for the regular security updates that these systems always seem to need.

There are dozens of other less well-known shopping cart systems. Each has its supporters, each will have some merit, but most will also have drawbacks in terms of design and template limitations, ease of use, security and ease of updating. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution and it is worth doing a lot of research before committing yourself to any one system or designer. In particular, you need to know how easy is it to install software updates, and whether there a facility to make complete backups including the database.

One of the popular e-commerce solutions nowadays is to use a plug-in for WordPress. There are several available, some free, some charged for but generally not expensive. Some work better than others, and each has a different range of features. Here are two WordPress sites we have created that use e-commerce plugins:

Sledgehammer Simple – uses the Wp E-commerce plug-in

Paradise Kitchen – uses the WP Simple PayPal Shopping cart

These plug-ins are great if you want to be able to add products yourself and have all the functionality that WordPress gives you.

But do you need a dedicated shopping cart system with its built-in set of features and limitations? If you only have a few products to sell then sometimes it is more satisfying aesthetically to integrate a basic PayPal shopping cart into your existing website. Combine this with a clever piece of software that can deal with downloadable products and you have a very versatile system with a unique look. Have a look at the purchase page from this site we recently created for an author and publisher. We have been able to give the site a unique look and feel yet it has the ability to sell both physical and downloadable products.

Whatever your eventual choice, make it an informed one. The success or failure of your business may depend on it.

E-commerce, Wordpress

Choosing a web design company

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For many companies – particularly small businesses and start-ups – the web is going to be their major and in some cases only marketing tool, so when you choose a web design company you may literally be putting the future of your business in their hands. It is not a decision to be taken lightly, nor is it an area where saving a few pounds should be your primary concern. You really need to take an in depth look at a web design company before you give them your work. It is easy to put up a glossy front, but is there any substance behind it?

The web design business is an amateur’s paradise. Start-up costs are very low, obsolete versions of poor software are given away by magazines and anyone can call themselves a web designer. Furthermore, there is a perception that ‘anyone can do it’ and that it is just a question of learning to use a new programme. The results are out there for all to see – ugly, poorly designed and hard to navigate sites that break in some browsers, that do not get any visitors and that do not show up in Google. Unless you are very certain of their capabilities you are doing your business no favours if you employ an amateur

The other option is to do it yourself. Web design is not your business however. Did you build your own computers? Do you deliver your own mail? No, of course you don’t – so why tie up valuable resources and time designing and publishing your own web site only to be disappointed with the result. Your time is more valuable than that.

So – you have decided to use a professsional website design company. There are thousands, so how do you choose? Here are some questions to ask:

How long have they been around? Businesses that have been around for ten years or more will have seen a lot of changes in the way the web works and have obviously adapted successfully. New businesses may not still be around when you need some changes made to your site. Your site could vanish, and you could lose control of your domain.

Have a look at their portfolio. Look for at least twenty websites, preferably more – if they only have a handful then they are either new starts or just playing at it. Do you like the sites? Do they work? Try some Google queries – do the sites show up for sensible search terms? Are the sites easy to use? Good navigation is essential – do you always know exactly where you are on the site, can you find the information you want?

Does the company seem interested in your business? When you ask them for a quotation do they give you a generic flat-rate quote or try to sell you things you don’t want, or do they talk with you at length to find out more about your business, how it works and what you hope to get from the website? Do they baffle you with jargon or explain things in easy to understand terms?

Check the small print. Are there extra set-up fees? If there are staged payments, what do you get at every stage? What sort of hosting do they offer? Will your site be able to expand with the business? How will it be updated? Are there any ongoing charges? Most importantly, make sure that you will own the copyright to all the material on the site including design and layout. We sugggest that you ask your web designer for a copy of all the files once the site is live and paid for.

What sort of support can you expect? We hear stories of ‘unavailable’ web design companies all the time. Make sure you have a phone number, not just an email address – and make sure it is not a premium rate number. Ask them what the turnaround time for an email reply is, and how long it will take to make a simple text change to the site. Remember, in many cases the same company will be looking after your business email account – you need to be sure they are there when you need them.

Lastly but not least, for genuine testimonials. The best recommendation any business can have is a testimonial from a happy customer. Have a look on their website – are there any testimonials? If not, why not? You can also ask the company if they are happy to provide references, and if you are still not sure you might even want to contact one or two of their existing clients and ask them if they would recommend the company.

Which web designer

Anatomy of a project – Oban and Lorn Online

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Directory sites have become the bane of the web, clogging up Google searches and giving little in return. Millions of these abominations have been set up by people with a ‘brilliant idea’ who have just discovered the web. Usually the plan is that people will be so entranced by their genius that they will queue up to pay for entries or advertising on the site. Friends with businesses a get a few free entries, the site fails to perform in search engines and no-one else is interested. It gathers cyberdust.

For a directory site to be any use it has to be inclusive, not exclusive. If I want to look up, for example, bed and breakfast establishments in Oban, I want to be able to look through a complete list, not just those who have paid to be listed. I want some sensible information and if it interests me then I want to be able to click straight through to the establishment’s website.

But, I hear you say, who would set up such a directory? What is their motivation if not to sell paid entries?

Well, there is a business model – although I have to say it is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Firstly, spend dozens or hundreds of hours setting up the site. Research it so as many relevant businesses as possible are included. Code it all carefully by hand, optimise it and wait a few years for it to rise to the top of Google for lots of relevant search terms. Keep it up to date and make it easy for new businesses to contact you to add their listing – but keep editorial control, no automated submissions. Then try and sell some advertising.

A new look for Oban and Lorn Online So why would people advertise if they can have a free listing? Well, because with dozens of your competitors sharing a page or section of the directory – and with that page attracting lots of potential customers – it is in your interest to make your business stand out. Now make the advertisements so cheap it is almost a no-brainer and perhaps – just perhaps – you will start to make a tiny amount of money from the site.

We set up such a site – Oban and Lorn Online – in October 2000. Over the years it has made us a steady trickle of money – a few hundred a year at best – but it has also brought in some new web design business as well, so for us it has been worth it.

However, at the age of 11 years and counting the site was looking dated to say the least, so it has now had a complete update.

A total of around 60 hours has been spent creating a new look, converting the old HTML-only layout to a new CSS-powered model, integrating the site with social media, transferring the data manually to the new format, checking all entires for validity and adding lots of new sites. We hope you will like the result – a shiny new fully inclusive Oban business directory listing over 400 businesses that will continue to perform superbly in Google for all manner of relevant search terms. Help us to keep it up to date and let us know of any businesses or organisations in the area with a website that is not included.

We do not expect to get rich any time soon . . .

LINK

Oban and Lorn Online

Projects

Writing content for your website

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Content is king

Writing good quality copy that reads well, keeps the search engines happy and attracts clients to your site is vitally important. Good text means good copywriting. The words on your website need to fulfil two very different and potentially conflicting functions. They need to capture, inform and entertain your target market, ensuring that page views translate into business, and they also need to ensure that Google and other search engines rank your pages highly.

Input a few relevant search terms for your industry into Google and have a look at the sites that come top. You will find clear, concise text with a reasonable but not excessive percentage of keywords and key phrases.

So what should you include? In addition to clear and full descriptions of the businesses and services you provide you should consider including sections or pages containing information that is not of immediate relevance to your business but is of interest to your potential clients. Well-written articles may well bring in potential customers. For example, if you are selling fishing tackle it makes sense to include articles on where to fish and how to fish.

How do I know if what I have written is good?

Read it through – out loud. Does it flow? Is there a logical progression of ideas? Are phrases and words all too obviously repeated as ‘Google bait’? (If so use a thesaurus and a dictionary to improve the text). Does it have anything original to say? Does it emphasise your USP (Unique Selling Point)? Are your top three keywords or key phrases in there sufficiently often without being obtrusive?

Good copy writing is as important as good design, if not more so. A site that cannot be found or that has sparse or poorly presented information or that reads badly or doesn’t make sense is a liability, not an asset. A good web design company can suggest research and write copy from scratch or alternatively co-edit and optimise any copy you provide yourself. If they are for any reason not able to offer this service then you might want to consider the services of a specialised copywriter.

Copywriting & SEO For Existing Sites

If you already have a site you are happy with the look and feel of but which is under-performing in Google and other search engines then you might want to start by taking a look at your copy. Web copywriting does not just involve writing informative keyword-rich paragraphs of text, you need to think of the layout as well. You need to look at your page titles, use of header tags, keyword density and overall readability then rewrite the critical areas of your site to do better for your chosen search terms. Rewriting the content and tweaking the layout on a fundamentally sound site which is underperforming may be all that is required.

Content

Business Gateway’s Web Building Courses

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I see that the local Business Gateway is once again advertising short one-day workshops to show businesses how to build their own website. The advertisement says ‘Learn from scratch how to build and manage an attractive website for your business’.

What they don’t tell you is that Business Gateway is promoting a proprietory website design system known as Spanglefish which is run by a company based outside Argyll, and that they are bringing in and paying tutors from outside Argyll to do the training.

There are several aspects of this that I have isues with. Firstly, there is plenty of web design and training expertise within Argyll, so why is Business Gateway not using this internal talent pool and supporting local businesses? I thought that was their function.

Secondly, why Spanglefish? It is a proprietary system that supports its costs by running advertisements on your site. If you point your own domain at the site it will probably kill your site’s visibility in the search engines, and if you don’t then you have a ‘fishy’ URL and everyone knows that you are a cheapskate using a free sitebuilder.

There is a superb free open-source content management system available in the form of WordPress which is ten times as capable as Spanglefish. In fact, WordPress now powers 15% of the world’s top one million websites. Why oh why are Business Gateway not promoting this superb business tool? With WordPress you are not tied to any specific company or internet service provider, and you know the software is under a programme of continuous development with a massive worldwide support community.

So – wrong trainers, wrong software, no support for local web designers and developers. Otherwise it’s all great is it?

Not really. A business website is for many small and start-up businesses their most important and cost-effective marketing tool by a long way. I have seen some nice Spanglefish sites, but I have also seen some horrors. Amateur sites that are never finished, that are poorly designed or even an eyesore, that can’t be found in Google – these are an abomination and can actually harm a business. Sometimes no website is better than a bad one or an incomplete one. In addition, transferring a Spanglefish site to another server or ISP should you wish to is far from straightforward.

As already mentioned, there are various small web design businesses in Argyll with decades of experience between them. By suggesting that small business owners or new starts can save a few pounds by creating their own websites Business Gateway is undermining these existing small businesses and devaluing public perception of their expertise.

I am sure that Business Gateway would not run vehicle mechanics courses to encourage businesses to maintain all their own vehicles as well. Ostensibly doing your own vehicle maintainance could save more money and possibly be easier to learn than web design, but somehow the idea seems daft. It is obviously more sensible to use a local garage, so what is the difference when it comes to a company’s main marketing vehicle, their website?

Encouraging businesses with limited IT skills and limited time to waste a lot of their valuable energy learning a new skill that others have taken years or decades to acquire is not necessarily doing them any favours. Steering them towards a limited and proprietory system that locks them into a specific provider strikes me as downright irresponsible.

So – is it worth anyone’s while attending these workshops? Well, if you are thinking of starting a business and know nothing about web design then why not? There are worse ways to spend a few hours and you will pick up some useful information. Don’t commit yourself to Spanglefish though, or to anything or anyone else, until you have done a bit more research and some hard thinking. ‘Free’ websites can carry a hidden price tag.

If in the end you are determined to do it all yourself then I suggest finding a cheap host that provides WordPress pre-installed or as a ‘one-click install’ and use the most successful, best-supported, free and flexible content management system available today.

DIY Websites

Hard times mean your website is vital

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Our local paper when we lived and worked in rural Aberdeenshire used to carry a strapline for its advertising department which read: “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time”. Today we can say that they were both right – and wrong.

With more competition and reduced markets most businesses realise that advertising is more important than ever – but savings have to be made somewhere. A dilemma? Not really. It is time to make a bigger commitment to the web and reduce or eliminate your spend on print advertising.

Why? Well, for a start print advertising is becoming less effective as many magazines experience falling circulation. Most consumers are going to stop buying magazines and newspapers long before they lose their internet connection. In fact, broadband connections in the UK are at an all-time high.

Secondly, a professionally designed website can be fantastic value for money, the best bang you can get for your advertising buck by a long way. In many sectors the net is the FIRST place people look for information and price comparison, and provided your web designer has made a good job of optimising your site for the search engines you can be right up there near the top of Google with much bigger competitors. And of course new social media sucha s Twitter and Facebook offer easy, free publicity and traffic via direct links to your website.

Thirdly, even if you intend to carry on with print advertising a good website can reduce your budget. All you need to do is attract attention with a catchy one-liner then follow it with your web address. If you distribute printed material – brochures, leaflets etc – then including these in PDF format on your website can create big savings. So – your website should be the last place you are thinking of cutting back.

A well-designed and promoted website will help you beat the ongoing ecnomic gloom by increasing your ROI for your marketing budget while increasing brand awareness and market share. You know it makes sense!

Marketing

Why WordPress?

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Using WordPress For Content Management

For many years we encouraged clients to steer clear of content managed websites. Too many content management systems were either cumbersome or required frequent complicated security updates or took up too many server resources and were very slow. Many clients did not need the complexity of a CMS when all they required were occasional updates to prices or details that we could do for them at no cost in any event as part of their hosting and support package.

Then it all changed when WordPress came along. WordPress was developed as a blogging platform, but it has since blossomed into a fully fledged content management system. We watched its development closely, and by the time WordPress 3.0 was released in June 2010 we decided we were happy to recommend it to almost any client wanting a website they can manage themselves.

So we acquired the software and the expertise to allow us to create custom templates and tweak the stylesheet to create unique, good-looking sites. We learned what plug-ins really enhance the functionality of WordPress and what ones to avoid. We learned that WordPress is so much more than a blogging platform and can even be used for e-commerce and download sites. Finally the CMS had come of age. Today, WordPress powers something like 15% of the top one million sites on the internet.

As with any CMS (Content Managment System) there are limitations and using the editor to get exactly the layout of text and images you want can be frustrating – remember the first time you used Word? However, with practice and/or support and with judicious use of suitable plug-ins (‘bolt on’ bits of software that enhance the functionality of WordPress) you will be amazed at what you can create.

Some clients prefer the complete design flexibility of a bespoke hand-coded website, so for them we can design a bespoke site then a matching WordPress template to create a client-controlled subsection of their website. The main content that requires infrequent updating remains managed by us, but dynamic parts of the site – special offers, news pages etc – can be kept updated by the client and integrated with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. The advantage of this approach is that we can create a matching WordPress site for clients with existing sites, linked in to the main site’s navigation menus.

For new starts on very limited budgets a customised and hosted WordPress site with a bit of tuition to get you going represents an ideal compromise between the inadequacies of proprietary systems like Spanglefish and the cost of a full bespoke website plus management. Both time and cash outlay can be kept low, and you are in control of a professional looking website from day one.

We will be writing many more articles on WordPress in the coming weeks and months – ‘How To’ articles, case studies and more. In the meantime, see our main website for more information.

Wordpress

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