Graphic Design - Site Construction - Hosting
First impressions are an important part of web design. Studies have shown that visitors to your site will spend less than 5 seconds judging whether it is worth their time to explore the content. In the early days of web site construction there was a belief that you should always have an animated graphic or sparkling design on your home page. This led to a plethora of sites with cheesy waving flags, animated cartoons and textured backgrounds that detracted from the content.
Thankfully this trend died the death it deserved (apart from those that evolved into "Flash" sites). Now designers are starting to realize that a site should reflect the customers business and style. As the site opens up, your visitors should be in no doubt what they are looking at and what you are offering. Color schemes, graphic banners and menu designs should be the first indicators of what your site is offering to your visitors.
All of the screenshots shown throughout this site feature graphics designed by us, in full consultation with the client. From Buddhist sites utilizing "peaceful" color schemes and themes featuring the traditional art of their region, to sites promoting medical conferences in India utilizing the Indian Flag and photographs from the area, we always try and make sure that the first impression tells as much about the web site as possible, and does it tastefully.
Menu design is important too. Apart from the importance of "ease of navigation" through your site, the menu can be designed to reflect your business. Check out the menu bars on Sid's Rigging and Skydive Palatka for examples.
We briefly mentioned "Flash Sites" in the section above. Everyone has logged onto a site that starts with a "loading" bar and continues to load up section after section of intense graphics, mystery menus, obnoxious sound clips and gaudy design features. You know who likes those sites? The designers (and the clients that they have hoodwinked into thinking those sites are cool) that's who. People will only stay on those sites if they absolutely HAVE to investigate the content, like to find a manual, a price or an address, but they usually become frustrated and shut down the browser first. For some great advice on web design we recommend that you visit this site web pages that suck.
Sites should be simple, clear and advertise their purpose quickly. Navigation through the site should be simple, allowing for easy access to all the sections and more importantly allow the visitor to contact you once they decide they like what you have to offer.
Also, pictures and graphics should be "web friendly" sized to allow for quick loading by visitors with the slowest connections. Any downloadable documents such as schedules and owner's manuals should be presented as Adobe pdf files, with links to Acrobat reader, and brief instructions as to how to download the document. You can never assume that every visitor knows as much about the internet as you, or that everyone has fast connections or great graphics cards. If your visitor is just looking for your mailing address, they shouldn't have to sit through your business statement or a huge flash graphic loading up before they can access it. However you should provide them with the ability to download and view it if they want to.
It is our belief that for a site to be truly useful to the site owner and the site visitor, it should be attractive yet simple, and as accessible to those with the oldest computer and slowest connections as it is to those with super computers and fiber optic internet access.
Once your site is designed and constructed to present your business in a clear and concise way, it has to be hosted on a server. There are a lot of companies that offer hosting services and most are fairly reputable. You should never, though, choose a host purely on price. As with any purchase that affects the way that your business is seen by the enquiring public, do the research. Usually, paying a little extra pays dividends in quality of service and reliability as well as offering tools to manage email professionally, check the traffic that visits your site and upload scripts that make your site more useful to your visitors.
We offer limited hosting services to smaller sites by buying server space from a company that we have been using since 1999. This company is Advanced Network Hosts. They have great customer and technical service as well as an impressive uptime history. Their hosting plans are excellent value, and while you may be able to find some cheaper companies out there, the hidden costs can often be appalling customer service and unreliable server technology. However for a small site, no matter where you host, you may have to take a plan that is just too big for your site. We can offer a lower monthly or annual cost by charging you for the space you take out of our allotment.
