What should be on your Website?

Marketing and advertising are proven tools for developing businesses. Consumers want to know about you and what you can do for them before they will become your customers. With a Website, you can share this information and give people the information they want on demand. A Website allows people who are looking for the type of service you sell to find you, rather than you having to seek them out. A 24 hour seven day a week service can be offered to current and prospective customers, and the entire World Wide Web community has access to your business.

Recent trends in Web usage have shown that more people find sites by directly typing in the web address than by using web search engines: People are starting to look to the web as an information source to follow up on teaser advertising and brand name promotions. International markets, specialized markets, and of course your local market can be targeted with comparatively inexpensive electronic and print advertising to bring them to your Website by putting your web address on all your advertising, and by highlighting it as a source of up to date information about special offers and promotions, you can constantly refresh your publicity and get the latest information about your products to your customers.

Once a customer has arrived at the Website you can present them with current and full details of your products - in a way that no leaflet or catalogue could match. Not only are you guaranteed that the customer reaching the site is interested in the material (otherwise they would not be there) but you can acquire information about your customers to allow targeted marketing and promotion in the future.

There is also a saving in comparison to using conventional brochures, catalogues and order forms. Printing and mailing costs are nonexistent, and no time has to be spent in distribution.

It is also good for the planet. Over 90% of paper based advertising is wasted: it is unread and results in no sales. Even customers who request a catalogue are usually only interested in a few items, and the majority will not order more than one item from any catalogue. The figures are even poorer for follow up mailings of catalogues to previous customers.

At Sanphire Design we want to help you to reach the world, not cover it with waste paper.

What should be on your Website?

You know your business, and what you want to sell.

We ask you to supply us with the content - contact details, information about your company as text, photographs digital media (at high res) and other resources that we can then put together to form an effective Website.

We can help you with this. Sanphire Design offers a digital photography service, or we can scan conventional photographs. We can develop corporate identity materials (logos, corporate stationary and livery) and write advertising copy, research special resources (such as links to affiliated trade organisations, or information sites elsewhere on the Web that are relevant to your business) and of course develop the design of the web pages and associated print advertising.

Typically a site would include an opening page (Home Page) which should be attractive and quick to load up - if customers have to wait for the page to load huge picture files or massive amounts of text they may well become impatient and think that the site is not working. From the home page links are made to other pages that contain the detailed information you want to give to your customers. This might include:

Information about your Company - History, personnel, and plans for the future.

Products -Descriptions, photographs or graphics and prices of products.

Services - details of the other services you offer, including mail order, web ordering,

Latest News- New information, New products, New offers or promotions.

Ordering - How to order your product or obtain your services. This could include an electronic ordering form, with on line payment, or an order by e-mail form, without on line payment, a printable mail order form, with payment information, and of course contacts numbers for telephone or fax orders.

Special Features -

Hit counters - How many people have visited your site, day by day- Scrolling or animated banners, animated logos, currency convertors, music and sound effects can all be added to give your site added interest and functionality.

Note - If you choose to have a 'Latest News' type page you must consider how to keep it current: the possibility of new news will keep your customers coming back to see what is happening, but nothing looks worse than old news that is never updated. We can offer a regular updating service (or an irregular update on demand service) or you can put a time limit on a page - that it will only stay up for a month or a week or a year (useful if you have a dated promotion that is going to run out at a certain time)

Our designers will help you to develop titles for these pages, the layout and design of the pages themselves and discuss the special features that can be added.

Choosing a name for your site is crucial. Domain names are centrally registered and administered, and a fee is charged for this registration. You might just use your company name, or the name of a product, or perhaps a more generic name or something that ties in your advertising or company aims.

However not all names are available - someone else may already be using that name, and have it registered for their use. So a little creativity is often needed to develop a name that is unique and fits your business needs. We can help you choose a name, check that it is not already in use, and get it registered in your name. The registration of a name is for a limited time period - you may choose how long (minimum one year) you want to register the name for, and you may renew the registration before it runs out.

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Once your site is designed it has to be 'hosted' on a computer that is connected to the Web, so that other people can access it. These computers are known as 'servers'. It is important to choose a reliable and fast server to host your pages - a slow server will deliver your pages to the customer slowly, and while many people are accustomed to the 'world wide wait' few are happy to put up with it if it can be avoided.

Sanphire Hosting can take care of all apects of your site live. Businesses hoping to develop substantial traffic to their site should consider this commercial hosting.

Sanphire Design will upload your site directly to our servers using our broad band link.

Cost depends on size, complexity,and of course how much material Sanphire design has to generate. Obviously if you supply us will all the text and photographs for a small one or two page site, it will cost less than if we write the copy, design the logo, take the photographs and develop the entire design for a two hundred page interactive multimedia e-commerce enabled catalogue.

Please contact us to make enquiries.

We are happy to arrange your domain name registration for you, and hosting, and these are detailed in your quote.

Extra Pages - You may need more than pages to start with, or may wish to expand the site at a later date. Extra pages can be arranged as needed.

Website Maintenance - Seasonal and holiday enhancements, feature product and price changes can all be catered for, contact us with your needs and we will give you an estimate. If regular maintenance is envisaged a yearly rate can be arranged.

Digital photography- Photo or Graphic Scanning to CD-ROM, Zip Disk or 3.5 Diskette - We can scan images for your Website (or whatever else you may need a digital copy for). Scanned photographs can be enhanced and edited. The maximum size of the original must be no greater than A3. We can e-mail your images to you, or send you a copy on CD or Diskette. We can also take digital photographs on site or in studio suitable for web or digital distribution.

See also our page detailing our digital photographic services.

Custom Forms - Order forms, or specially designed forms to allow your customers to interact with you can be designed.

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