This site povides facilities for using my services and communicating with me, I use it as an archive of the resuorces I use online, This allows my customers/clients to share the great tools I find online. It also allows my clients to maintain an ongoing private conversation with me via the forums.
I offer a range of services due to both an interest and qualification in technology. Most of my work is general maintenance and marketing of websites, However; I am also involved in telecoms, energy management, and product development, for a number of different clients. My main objective is to become involved with solar or 'zero-point' energy resource development either at product design stage or business development. I personaly feel that in conjunction with better access to space, energy technology will see humanity into a new age this century.
Costing is always the first question on people minds and usually the answer in my case is based on market value, this means that price is determined by demand for my time. This varies regularly and the best way to find out is to call and ask me based on the project. Often I will chose a project due to a personal interest rather than just the profitablity.
Short answer is yes, however, designing a website is something that your marketing manager/director or business manager should really be doing. 'Website Design' involves understanding what your staff, customers and market need from you when they are online; something I cannot really know. Probably the best option would be to write down some ideas and then arrange a consultation with me for a couple of hours during which I will help your managers to determine a list of functions and associated technology that are needed as well as some ideas about the look of the site. From that point I would write up a report and guidelines for a graphic designer who would come-up with some designs for us to work with. Once that is all settled a site can be constructed. If you are having trouble deciding why you need a website, reconciling the cost or just need some advice about how to develop a site that will make your business more profitable then please arrange a consultation with me. I do charge for consultation but a meeting with your marketing department, accounting and a manager or director will usually produce very beneficial results within an hour or two. This can mean a saving of many frustrating and futile hours over 'going it alone'.
Designing and building a website can be simple or complex, It really depends on the industry and the type of enterprise concerned. Typically a website for a tradesman might take only a week, and then provide a simple contact form function which requires no ongoing maintenance. Most sites of growing national businesses will require ongoing work thorughout their life as security issues change, consumers expectations evolve and functionality demands increase for both browsers and staff. It is appropriate to think of your website as a piece of complex plant machinery that requires regular attention from an engineer.
I do not personally do much graphical work as it is a skillset that requires many hours of dedication, I use a number of professionals who are recommended on my forum. Please note however that graphics must be produced in close communication with the webmaster as modern site mechanisms require graphics that are precise to the pixel and in specific formats.
I believe this is one of the most over-looked aspects of internet trade. You may not think it but website marketing is very complex and often marketing departments spend many thousands of pounds on marketing that is not suited to their industry. This means their sites get 'hits' but no-one buys anything. Marketing is the single most important aspect of your site once it is functioning correctly. Driving the right kind of browser to your site is a skilled process and combined with rapidly changing internet trends, browser technology and competitors campaigns, getting people to buy from your site is very difficult. The one consulation is that if you do get them to buy - they are very likely to buy again in the future providing they have a good experience.
At the moment I am recommending that my clients earmark 7 % of net web sales for internet marketing. It may seem a lot but it is necessary given the competition most industries have in the market. In addition I am also recommending that 30 % of their current terrestrial marketing is devoted to marketing their website 'in the real world', so billboards, television, radio etc but dedicated to driving relevant traffic to the website, once browsers are on the site they can be manipulated further.
SEO has received a lot of hype over the years and it seems to be something that won't easliy go away, I get the feeling that this is because it is a big and profitable industry with a lot of professionals who are very adept at getting attention on the web (of course). However; my opinion of SEO is that a well built site with all the correct components, submitted to the search engines and updated regularly will be rather well optimised anyway. There are a lot of do's and dont's that apply to building websites and these are often the things that SEO's search out and correct; however if your webmaster is at all proficient, most or all of these will already be sorted. A proficient webmaster might also create an admin page where administrators can regularly run SEO type checks of their own at minimal cost compared to hiring an SEO.
I suppose in conclusion my advice would be that effective terrestrial marketing will be better than SEO so long as your website is in good condition and complies with the standards expected by the search engines.