Web Design Services
Western Skies will join your team to create a successful Web Site Design tailored to your needs. We offer professional custom web site for you whether you run a small home business or multi-million dollar corporation!
If you currently have a web site that is outdated and not efficiently working as part of your future goals, Let us assist you from start to finish with getting your project back on track. This can increase your professional image, increase profits, make for a more efficient marketing tool and be something you are proud to show off!
Understanding the Phases of Web Development
Our goal is to help our clients accomplish online success in all possible phases of the internet. To do this we will join your team to be more than just a web designer. We also work hard to go beyond the internet and insure full integration of your web needs into your business. This complete process is sometimes considered as the ‘web development lifecycle’, where web design is just a part of the process. Follow this link to learn more about web development, or feel free to contact us.
Website Design Process
Western Skies begins by understanding your business, your products, your clients and your industry including top competitors. After spending a sufficient amount of time understanding your needs we will work with you to develop a scalable web project that meets your goals, schedule and budget.
Some things to start gathering & thinking about would include:
- What is the look and feel you want?
- We ask that you choose a handful of web sites that you find appealing. These don’t have to be in your industry. List your likes and dislikes.
- List your main competitors and if they have a web site list the things you see that they are doing right and wrong. The more detail the better here!
- Make a similar list of areas you want to beat your competitors.
- Do you have a collection your digital and print imagery?
- Start gathering your business cards, letterhead, logos, newsletters, and other branded materials. This will give us a complete understanding of your existing marketing materials and allow you the ability to asses needed improvements.
- If you are planning to change or update your logo and branding, describe these changes including colors and design. A solid web layout will compliment all your print materials all the way down to company business cards.
- What is your message?
- Start putting together photos and content that you would like to include on the site. Don’t worry if there is editing that needs to be done at this stage.
- We also ask that you put together any marketing materials not already gathered such as brochures, flyers or other marketing materials you have to build content. Providing this information in digital format will reduce time and expense of the site.
Importance of the Web
Western Skies proudly provides internet solutions for everyday businesses. Today’s business is becoming more and more mobile. With an ever growing percentages of customers using GPS, mapping sites, PDA and the internet to find where they want to shop, dine, and recreate. With the dropping price on these units, 2010 is said to be the year which the internet becomes more powerful than ever.
More and more people are using the internet rather than phone books. Stay ahead of the trend and direct more customers your way with the power of the internet. Western Skies works to not only provide you an internet presence but also to insure you are tied into the new mobile trend so you get the most out of your web site. We work to link you with other local businesses, work with Google and other mapping companies to insure your listed in their directories and if requested we will even create a mobile version of your site for customers using devices like PDA phones.
Having a web presence may actually be more important for smaller business than larger organizations with established branding and customer flow. We strive to deliver value in our service, and to understand our clients’ needs to provide everything from developing a layout to management and marketing.
Static Versus Dynamic Web Design
Web sites can be divided into two main types of pages, Static and Dynamic. Unless you are selling a volume of product or integrated to a large database, a static site will satisfy the majority of business needs. Essentially, static pages are those on your site that send exactly the same response to every request based on the code of that page. Dynamic pages can customize the response on the server to offer personalization based on cookies and information it can get from the visitor. Dynamic pages are built from code both on and off the page that is then mixed with information entered by the user, pulled from cookies and collected from the sites database.
Turnkey web design is then a dynamic web site that allows the business owner freedom to do their own management and upkeep but comes with a large series of fees and hirer hosting fees. Most of these run off a series of templates that restricts your ability to design a page the way you want. There are benefits to a turnkey website system and a time to use one. Western Skies can work with you to generate a more affordable solution to redesigning these templates than what the turnkey company typically offers.
How has the Web Changed
Web design use to be as simple as finding someone who knew how to write htm code and place it on a server. Now days the coding is changing every few months and so are the standards. Most sites are using a base coding of html or Xhtml that is combined with css, java script, Dhtml, Xml, flash, ajax, php, asp, cold fusion and more.
Why is it so complex now? First thing we have to look at is that there are dozens of programs that we use today in order to view web sites. In the past it was mainly Internet Explorer though know a large number of people use Firefox, Safari, Chrome and many others. Unfortunately different web browser programs read the same code with different results. You also have different types of screens with laptops, desktop monitors, HD flat screens, liquid crystal and more that all see colors a little differently. Some code is used to try and help viewers of slower internet speeds but has conflicts with some browsers or virus protection programs. And finally you have the challenge of screen real estate. Every screen has a dimension of pixels and your design should be aimed to accommodate the majority users screen size though there are hundreds of different configurations. Larger businesses actually design a separate layout for pda, GPS, phone and auto GPS.
The first thing to know about web design is that because of all these parameters, laying out a web page is very different than creating a document on your computer to print. Unfortunately you can’t just place graphics where you want and add text to fill in the rest.
The benefit of all this code and conforming to different internet constraints is that we can now recreate most any layout. Whether you have an artistic eye or not Western Skies will work with you to create a “comp” (composite draft) of your site design. We then look to modify this comp to catch the eye of visitors while still representing you and your page content.
With a layout established, we can take your predetermined site map and start laying out the flow and structure of the site. We then will look at basic SEM (search engine marketing) to optimize your site when it is ready to be launched. This is a very important set in helping you become found by new as well as existing customers. Once content, images and other media have been added to the site it is ready for final approval and launch.