Online Web Design

Instead of heading over to the UK to find a good web designer to handle your design projects go online now and find an online web design Manchester, UK service. UK designers are equipped to create ecommerce web sites with shopping carts. The services can design your web pages and create simple or complex solutions to give you the best options in design. Designers in the online web design Manchester companies' focus on security when they are building your ecommerce web sites to ensure that when customers use your web sites that their information is safe. The secure sites are designed also to give you ways to accept credit cards.

When you have an ecommerce web site built by one of the online web design Manchester services, you are giving the option to choose your method of accepting payments from your web site. The designers will consider CCNOW, PayPal, Yahoo Direct Pay, Clickbank, and other options and work hard to ensure that you get the payment method you choose for your ecommerce web site. Payment systems are great tools that designers focus on in the online web design Manchester, UK services. The designers know the importance of giving your customers ways to place orders, and to pay for products online. In addition, the designers know how valuable it is for you to be able to sell your products on the Internet, thus the designers will look for options to help you out.

When the designers start building your ecommerce web site they will also focus on form pages. They know that customers need means to fill out forms to enquiry product information and so forth. While this is only the half of building ecommerce web sites, it is one of the most important parts of designing that the expert designers consider at the online web design Manchester services. 

Most people feel threatened by building their own web site because the codes and scripts in the programming aspects of design scare them away. Most of these people though do not have lots of money to spend on a single web site so they wait, wait, and wait until that day comes that they do have the money to hire someone to build their web site for them. You don't have to wait any longer, since the online web design Manchester services are making it easier for people to get their web site design the most cost effective way.

The online web design Manchester services are also designing with style in mind. Now you can get the web design you desire for half the cost. There is no better solution in design than having affordable and expert services combined to get you what you want. If you are ready to start building a web site now is the time to find an online web design Manchester service on the Internet. Even if you don't want an ecommerce web site, you have the choice of basic designs open to you with the UK web design services.

How to Choose the Right Web Design Company to Design Your Website?

Whether you want a new website designed for your company or are looking to re-design your website, finding the right web design company for your needs is the first and crucial step that will ultimately decide its success or failure. Unless your are an established business with an in-house Web design team the chances are that you will need to either hire a professional web designer or build the website or contract a web design company to do this for you.

Most businesses small or large do not have in-house expertise to design websites themselves and have to contract the work out to an external web design company. The importance of professionally designed website is essential. A poorly designed or an outdated website can have a negative impact on your company's brand and drive customers away to your competitors. A company's website is a window to its products and services and often the first point of contact with customers. It is vital for your website to present the right image and brand for your business.

Should you work with a Web design company or a Freelance Web designer?

Whether your website is designed by an independent contractor or a web design company you will need to consider certain issues before you make the decision. Both working with an independent web designer or a web design company have their advantages. Working with an independent web designer can be cost effective and flexible. Working with web design companies on the other hand may cost more but offers significant advantages. They are represented by a team of web designers who often possess wider skills and experience. Each member of the team will often specialise in a distinct area of website design and development, and will often be able to solve complex business issues with ease. Working with a web design company will provide your business with easy access to support as and when required or when something goes wrong.

Combining Web Design Business With Web Hosting Can Generate More Income For Web Designers

Web designers and developers are the foundation of the Internet. If you are skilled in web design or web development you can make a growing income on the Internet. The secret to making money with your web design and development skills is to include web hosting in your web design or web development quotes*or standard packages.

You can add $50 a month to your income, hosting your client sites with more ease. You don't need to get a dedicated server and you don't need to worry about trying to compete with web hosting companies. What most people think is just getting a website up. They contact the web designers first, without really knowing that there are web designers and web hosts. Terms with "web designer"get more searches per day than terms with "hosting". People are looking for web designers to get their sites on the Internet.

Web designers and developers can incorporate the sale of hosting into their web development and design projects. As a web designer you can bill your customers for the hosting fees within the design and then host the account for a year or on a month to month basis. You will be surprised at how much extra income you can generate from your web design customers.

Providing hosting for your web design clients will give you greater assurance that your customers will come back to you to make changes or update their site. This allows you to keep generating income from your work and customer base. Let's look at some numbers, and how billing for hosting on top of your web design work can make you some serious money. Let's assume you get paid $500 - $1000+ for a site design. If you charge your client for hosting as well you could generate up to $50 extra per site, per month in hosting fees. You could make up to $1100 to $1600 per site, per year instead of just $500 or $1000 per site. With 100 clients this could equate to $110,000 or $160,000 per year instead of $50,000 - $100,000 per year. On top of this, remember your client is more likely to come back to you to update and maintain your site which means more money for you, for easy work.

With a little effort and focus you could generate a very healthy income in your web design business. With tools like Joomla, WordPress and other highly customizable content management systems you can make the hard work incredibly efficient so you can focus solely on the design. Right now there are a myriad of powerful web applications, content management systems and shopping carts you can quickly install in your reseller web hosting account and produce a design for very quickly. There are also a myriad of ready to run, specialist applications written in ASP, ASP.Net and PHP that you can bolt on to your customers site, customize the design for and really impress your them. With these easily installable web applications you can very quickly impress your customers and raise the value of your web design fees - and the fact that they are specialist customized web applications you have put together, your web design customer will be happy to pay your hosting fees.

For your design business you don't need anything fancy, you don't need dedicated servers or specialists billing or server management systems. You can utilize the cost efficiencies of shared hosting to maximize your profit. One way to do it and a lot of designers do this, is get a new shared hosting account for each site they design and charge the customer more than they pay.

The better way to do it and really maximize your profit is to get a reseller hosting account where you can host all your customer sites in the one hosting account. This works out much cheaper than getting a separate account for each customer site. A good reseller account will give you far more room to move and even greater cost effectiveness which means even more profit and less effort.

Getting up and running with a good reseller hosting account is easy and incredibly affordable. For just a few hundred dollars per year you can host 50 or more sites. A quick search on reseller hosting will give you plenty to choose from. In our experience Windows hosting reseller packages are a good idea as a Windows reseller hosting account will give you the freedom and choice to run ASP, ASP.Net as well as PHP sites with MySQL or SQL Server databases. Linux hosting is incredibly efficient and gives you some of the cheap hosting options available but does not support ASP or ASP.Net applications. For an extra few dollars a month you can get Windows hosting and dramatically increase your options for your web design customers from a wider array of available web applications and freely available code in ASP and ASP.Net.

What a Professional Web Designer Should do for You

Once upon a time, a buriness could choose not to have a web site. They reasoned that they did not need a professional web site; they could do just fine without one. Then, one of their competitors decided to get a web site and a buzz was created. Not to be outdone, another competitor decided to follow suite. Then another and then another. Pretty soon customers were asking the business if they had a web site. Finally, they realized that they needed a website in order to keep up with their competitors. And so, the Internet exploded. These days, everyone has a web site. From large corporations to small businesses; families to individuals, everyone is on the Web. A friend of mine even created one for his infant child.

This article is created to speak to the few remaining businesses that have yet to tackle the Internet beast. You want to have a web presence, but it seems a daunting task. "Where do I start?" you say. "What issues will I need to address so that I make the most of my new web site?" you continue. This brief article will cover some of the areas of the webdesign process to pay particular attention to. We have designed many web sites for clients that had no idea where to start. We firmly believe that client education is a vital part of the overall success of the web project. Most professional web design companies have published some guidelines that will help potential clients answer some of their questions. It is with that in mind that we have written this article.

Why do you want a web site?

Will your web site be for personal use (just show some photographs to your family members, for example)? Will it be to advertise a business service? Will it be an informational web site, simply to pass on knowledge to the visitor? Will it be used to sell a product? Is it important that you show up #1 in Search Engines?

These are vital questions with which to begin. The answers you come up with will determine the direction in which the overall design should go.

Do you have a business logo?

If you have been in business, you may already have a logo or a trademark that your customers recognize. If that is the case, do you have the original graphic that can be emailed? It will be important to use that on your web site.

If you do not have a logo or anything by which your customers currently know you, do you have any ideas about what you might like, a sketch, a doodle or something similar? Whatever the case, usually a professional web design company can design a professional logo for you or reuse your current one.

Do you have particular colors that you want to use?

Not all colors work well on the Internet. Generally, selecting a few colors is the best path to take. Your web designer can help you select quality colors that will come together in a design that you will be proud to show off.

Have you seen web sites that you like?

Providing an example (or examples) of a site that you like is a good way to help your web designer understand the look you are after. A professional webdesign company will usually get this type of feedback from their clients. Then they will have a feel for their "taste" and can use that as a pattern for their site.

Do you have a web site domain name?

This is the actual address of the web site. It is what you will rattle off when someone asks you, "Do you have a web site?" If you do not have one registered already, your web designer can take care of that for you. Some web design companies may charge a yearly fee for this service, anywhere from $10 to $50. However, some web design companies offer this service at no charge. Make sure to ask your web design company about this upfront so that there is no confusion.

Do you know how many web pages you want for your site?

Almost all web sites have a Home page, a Contact Us page and a Links page. However, after that, you have to determine what you want features to emphasize about your business. Is it important that visitors know some history about your company? If so, you will need an "About Us" page. Do you have categories of product that you want to feature on your web site? If so, each category will have its own page. Do you want visitors to be able to fill out an order form when they are ready to buy something? If that is the case, you will need an "Order Form" page.

Your web designer will ask you about this facet of your web site, but it is good to think about this on your own before you take that step. As a rule, the more pages a web site has, the higher the cost. So choose a web design company that you are comfortable with and don't let them talk you into more pages than you really need.

Do you have graphics and photographs to use on your site?

If you have pictures to use on your site, are they in a high-quality digital format? As a rule, a scanned photograph will not look good on your website. The best pictures are ones taken with a digital camera. These can be used on the web site and formatted so that they have a professional look.

Many web design companies are able to take pictures for you. Usually, this service is an additional charge, so make sure you discuss this option.

Will you maintain the web site yourself?

If so, do you have an understanding of the Code Languages used to create your web site. Some of these languages may include:

• PHP
• HTML
• XML
• SWF

If you are comfortable with these languages, your web design company can probably setup the web site to allow you to maintain it yourself. However, most companies will not support sites in which the client has made changes to the original code. Make sure to discuss this during your initial consultation.

Some companies will create Content Management Systems (CMS). These allow their clients to update the website without having to touch the original code. With a custom CMS, if you can create a document in a Word Processing program, you can change your website content. This means you do not have to learn any programming languages and, at the same time, you do not have to call your web design company every time you want to update your site. Of course, the company you choose should always be available to assist if you get stuck. They should also be willing to e-mail you a link to show a demonstration of their custom CMS.

Hopefully, this article has given you some good guidance to follow on the path to your new web site. With some advanced preparation, you will tackle the Internet beast with no problem. The web design company you choose should be willing to supply you with a list of satisfied clients. Take the time to review the list. Contact the clients listed and ask them for their opinions of the company. This will give you some good information to help you make a good decision.

How to Find a Good Web Designer - Developer

Choosing a good web designer is not just about getting some guy to build you a good looking web site. There are many factors that can and will affect the success of your site. For you to know what qualifies as a good designer/developer you need to be educated. That is the intention of this article.

I believe that your web site development begins with a plan. A solid plan that incorporates search engine optimization,(SEO) and usability at its foundation. Building your web site in this manner will enable your SEO to be much easier with just minor tweaking and updating. At the time of this writing it is still not yet possible for search engine spiders, a.k.a: robots, to make sense of everything you have on your website.

Spiders love text. They don't read javascript and they do not have the ability to read complex flash text or images. Making sure that your entire web site including all its pages are indexed by the spiders is essential. If they can't see your pages, it may as well not be there.

So what does all this mean to you in your search for a web designer or web developer. In case you're wondering why I refer to designer and developer as if they're two different things, the fact is, is that they are.(if you want to be technical). Web designer seems to be the general term thrown about as one who makes or builds web pages. However this is usually the person who designs the physical appearance of the web site. He usually just works with images. Since there's more to building a functional web site than just pretty pictures and fancy moving graphics, it may surprise you that a web page can in fact also be a computer program, or more appropriately, a web application. This is the behind the scenes code that gives the site its intelligence, so to speak. Some web designers are only responsible for completing a physical design for your site. If they don't code in HTML or CSS, the design usually photoshop or fireworks, then goes to the coder, who actually puts it all together using html, CSS and in some instances a scripting languages like PHP, asp.net or ruby for back end programming. The end result is a web page that renders in the users browser and depending on whether some scripting was included, also allows the user to interact with the page and make choices and decisions. This is the very short version of a somewhat complex subject.

If you can keep this in mind when you go over the contract it will help you understand why the programming aspect (developing) of your site is usually pricier. Any serious web design company will have an in depth contract and should not hesitate to explain details of the contract to you.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines standards and best practices for web design and development and you should make it a point to ask your web guy whether they will be designing your website with standards compliant code. This just means adhering to the W3C standard.

If they say that they intend designing the layout of your web page using tables, insist that they don't. For two reasons:

1. Using tables for layout is not standards compliant and could adversely impact page loading times. (not good) The more code in your page the larger the file and the larger the file the longer it takes to download.
2. Updating and maintaining web pages will be much harder, and could take longer, which may translates more being more expensive.

10 Things To Think About When Selecting A Web Designer

1. Look at the detail of the web design company's own website. This is almost always a good indication of the level of detail your new website will have. See if you can find any areas that have added level of detail, such as images with added effects. This could be rounded corners, gradient effects, colour fading etc. No matter if you do not want those design elements on your own website, it gives you information about the designers and their eye for detail and quality.

2. Know what you want. Even if you don't know the technical aspects or terms of web design, you should have a fairly good idea of what you want the end result to look like. If you leave vital parts of your website design and functionality to the web designer, you are likely to pay more than you have to. If you don't know what kind of features you could ask for, look around online at some larger websites. If you are selling products, you could try and look at ebay.com or amazon.com for some design ideas. If it works for them, it most likely will work for you.

3. Ask if a detailed quote is available. Just as with other areas of business where you have little or no idea how things are done or how long they take, it is important to get a breakdown of services that you are paying for. Are they only giving you a total price for the web services you have been discussing over the phone or email? If so, they are not giving you information that you can use to compare other web design companies with. You should ask what their hourly rate is which can help you figure out from the total cost how long it is going to take to design the website!

4. What level of support is available during and after building your website? It is very important to know how many changes you can make to your website while it is being built that are not going to cost you extra. Is the web design company giving you an option to view work in progress? How about if you change your mind on a design aspect after the website has been designed? These things need to be part of your contract before you agree to have work done. You don't want a surprise invoice for "additional requested web design work" to land in your inbox. Always be clear on what is going to be charged for and what is part of the web design package.

5. What do other clients think about the web designer? If you want to get an honest and unbiased opinion about this, there is no better way than going straight to the source! Find a previous client's contact information and send a quick email asking if it is possible to have them share some of this information with you.

6. Will your site be search engine friendly? Becoming part of major search engines such as Google and Yahoo is the inevitable next step after standard web design work has been completed. When you have a brand new website filled with information about services and products you offer, you want people to find it! Search engine optimization, or SEO as it is usually called, is an art form that takes years to master. It is a constant challenge for the web designer to keep up with ever-changing rules that the search engine companies make for who is more "important" in the search engine rankings.