Website design marketing and hosting in Telford Shropshire
I heard on the radio this morning that the UK is about 3 months away from recession. I can well believe it, house prices are falling so nobody can sell therefore nobody can buy, food and fuel prices are rising fast and wages aren’t increasing to cover the extra outlay. Some people would say the recession is already here.
So what can you do about it?
Well one solution is: work harder. Yeah that’s right, knuckle down at your job and we’ll all pull together… oh wait… people are losing their jobs too. And those people that do hang onto their jobs probably don’t feel that happy about working their socks off when any moment they can be out of work too.
So, really, what can you do about it?
Have a back up plan. Do something for yourself, work hard at your day job, then work harder for yourself. A back up plan can be anything, start learning another trade, go back to college, or start a little business of your own on the internet. All these suggestions are great - but an internet based business is very easy to set up, register a domain name, set up the hosting and away you go, and do it right and it can earn you money!
Is it really so simple to set up a website?
Well, yes it is. OK so there are some challenges, but on the whole it’s simple, it’s made even more simple because Design Conscious have now set up a hosting service that automatically does (almost) everything for you. Take a look here Design Conscious .com Hosting - all you have to do is choose a domain name, then choose your hosting package. When you check out everything will be registered and set up for you, all you have to do is wait 24hrs for the domain name to propagate, then you can start setting up your site.
But I don’t have any software to create my website with
Don’t worry, as part of the hosting package is a very neat automatic install mechanism called Fantastico. Fantastico comes pre-installed with all manner of Blogs, Forums, Support ticket scripts, CMS systems - everything you could want for setting up your site. It’s all done through the admin interface right from your browser - you can literally have a site set up in 15 minutes.
Here is a trade secret
Set up a blog. Blogs are incredibly good at getting into the search engines, I’ve seen posts get indexed within 40mins of going live on a blog. Here’s what you do, pick a topic that really interests you, your hobby, your pet hate even your day job. Then start writing articles about it, download an Adsense plugin from google and start hosting google adverts on your site, approach fellow bloggers or adverstisers and look at ways of monetising your blog
It won’t make you a millionaire over night, but do it right and it can make you money. Enough to get your through the credit crunch or a recession? Who knows till you try it, and for such little outlay and a few hours of your time - you’d be mad not to. And to help you get started as cost effectively as possible, we’ll send you a money off voucher when you sign up to the hosting newsletter, just follow the links in the pop up window on the Design Conscious .com Hosting website.
Best of luck in your new venture!
Design Conscious .com has been commission again by Elliott Bridgman to create a second website for them then to bring their corporate website into line with it.
Website URL: http://www.elliottbridgman.com
Website URL: http://www.shropshirenotarypublic.com Client: Elliott Bridgman Solicitors
The Elliott Bridgman website (as you can see from the archives) had been designed and developed before but Mark Bridgman is now a Notary Public and therefore needed a new website to promote this new service. Working with Mark and Bethany at EBS - a new format and colour scheme was developed for the Shropshire Notary Public website.
Being a Notary Public is an extension of a solicitors services but is something that is quite separate, therefore the Shropshire Notary Public website needed to be hosting and set up as a separate thing, but to give it some grounding and relate it to a bone fide business, the same colours and theme was used again.
Design Conscious .com has an ongoing relationship with Frank Harvey Hifi Excellence to maintain, market and develop the hifix.co.uk ecommerce website
Website URL: http://www.hifix.co.uk Client: Frank Harvey
Working closely with the Managing Director, Frank Harvey for many years has produced a tightly integrated website that has streamlined their mail order business. Because of the clever integration with the office systems we have been able to create an efficient order flow process that has cut their workload in half when compared to their previous methods.
The integration includes:
- replication of specific data to and from the web databases
- real time adjustments to database content
- real time updates of product photos and website imagery
This was project to over a year to develop and now is undergoing constant change and refinement.
Website Features:
- Comprehensive navigation or search by manufacturer
- Address auto fill - you only need to enter your postcode
- Credit Card processing is done in the shop and not online for safety
- Order by phone option
Backend Features:
- The ability to tag the the product records to activate options on the website
- The ability to add all the descriptive information about a product into one record - then assign other records to it in a Parent->Child relationship (this is for instances of a product being available in more than one colour etc)
- Datafeeds for Froogle, Kelkoo, Pricerunner, Pricegrabber, Reevoo and other price comparison sites
The development for this site will continue and there are some interesting new features in the pipeline.
Design Conscious .com have recently finished the design and development for elite-marine.com
Website URL: http://www.elite-marine.com Client: ELITE Marine Services
The ELITE website is in two parts and was developed very quickly. The first part of the site is for information and services, the second part is the online extension of their in house chandlery. We were able to take the information site from design to live in approximately 10 days and that’s due largely to the organised professional approach of Monica Daniels - ELITE’s Commercial Director. Monica had all the pictures and words ready to go and was able to approve or amend pages on the spot, this made for a very productive working relationship.
Working at a distance wasn’t a problem either - Monica working from her office at Tewkesbury Marina and Ian Blackford working from Design Conscious office in Telford proved that using Skype instant messaging is a smooth and productive way of working. This method of data and ideas transfer allowed the creation of the second part of the site to follow very very quickly. The second part is an ecommerce solution extending the on marine boat and accessory shop run by ELITE.
Again the online shop came together very quickly as Monica was prepared and able to add the information and products herself which allowed Ian to concentrate on the design and function of solution.
ELITE has become a model client for Design Conscious, but equally ELITE are pleased with Ian and Design Conscious, as this is what Monica had to say:
Design Conscious is an excellent web development company and Ian is a delight to work with. The level of support provided exceeded my expectations and the advice and support provided was invaluable in helping me take the online presence of my business forward. I would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this company as a professional, good value solution.
Monica Daniel
Commercial Director
ELITE Marine Services
Design Conscious .com Telford today announces the immediate availability of competitively priced self managed hosting accounts. You can now buy a hosting account direct for as little as £5 per month or with discounts just £57 per year.
You can benefit from a choice of 3 accounts which cover hosting for the beginners website through to fully loaded feature rich hosting accounts that include: multiple email addresses / mail boxes, multiple FTP Accounts, addon domains, Search Engine Submit Tool and a whole lot more
All hosting packages come with
- Generous webspace
- Full bandwidth
- FTP Access
- Multiple email mail boxes
- cPanel
- Search engine submit tool
- Web stats
- and many time saving features such as SpamAssassin, Backup Wizard
Purchase your hosting through our checkout partner Google Checkout which is processed through our COMODO secured ordering system.
And it’s so easy, here is a quick “How to purchase hosting in 10 easy steps” guide:
- Choose your web hosting package here >> web hosting
- Click the buy now / order now button
- Specifiy your domain name choice and continue
- Choose if you want to purchase monthly, quarterly, half yearly or yearly and add to cart
- Enter a Promotional Code if you have one (join out mailing list here to get this months money off code)
- Hit the Check Out button
- Add your name and address details (this sets up your account with us)
- Click Complete Order button - don’t forget to click ‘I have read and agree to the Terms of Service’
- View your invoice and click the Pay link to use our payment partner Google Checkout
- Pay by credit card at Google, then get back to your brand new hosting account and start web serving!
If you know your domain name is available (or is previously registered) and you have already added your credit card to your Google account - then it should take you no more than 10 minutes from start to finish…. but if you are having some challenges along the way - we have thought of that too, our client management system has a fully functional support ticket system built in to allow you to contact the design conscious hosting support team to help you with your problems >> click here to raise a support ticket
Bag your self a cuppa
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To get your fresh, individually wrapped free tea bag please take 2 minutes to visit www.designconscious.com/tea/ and claim your beverage* (coffee available too).
And when it arrives savour your drink while you imagine how design conscious can help you to transform your website, making it into a virtual sales force that will make your online presence more profitable.
Then before your tea goes cold, bag this offer…
• A full website designed to your budget (yes, to your budget)
AND…
• Get your .co.uk domain name for the first 2 years for just £1.00 This is a website address fully registered in your name with email forwarding included. Use it perhaps as a second domain to your main website or for your own personal use - it’s your choice. (Normal price £35 renewable every 2 years)
• Get your Google website stats emailed to you for FREE PDF of your sites progress emailed to you every month - or week if you prefer.
• Get a feature packed mailing list script installed on your site for just £1.00 (worth £16.95)Never let a prospective client get away ever again! We’ll show you how.
ALSO… have you tried internet telephones yet? No?
• Well, you will also get a Skype headset for just £1.00 (worth £13.95)And we’ll even help you set up a Skype account so you can take advantage of the latest cutting edge technology. Making a free local, national or international call becomes easier than calling someone in the next office.
So when you need a design company that goes way beyond the rest for your business - or if you just want another cup of tea - sign up for our newsletter and bag yourself a cuppa
Design Conscious .com have recently finished the design and development for moanaboutmen.co.uk
Website URL: http://www.moanaboutmen.co.uk Client: Moan About Men
The Moan about Men website is a suite of website scripts, a blog, a forum, a chat room and most recently a profile (facebook/my space) facility that have been designed to fit seamlessly together. The website is a new community specifically aimed at women - and is not all like the name sounds. It’s not a site for ‘men bashing’, it is however a site that allows women the freedom of expression in a safe and control environment. Every step is moderated by the Moan About Men team and abuse is not tolerated.The brief for this project:
- create one website with multiple areas of interest
blog
chat room
forum
profile facility - give the admin team the ability to edit the site and moderate all the members
The development for this site is on going and there are many more features planned.
Design Conscious .com have recently finished the design and development for TFM Farm and Country Superstore.
Website URL: http://www.tfmsuperstore.co.uk Client: TFM Farm and Country Superstore
Working closely with the Managing Director, Mark Dayus, over a period of 12 months, we were able to craft a tightly integrated website which allows TFM to alter many aspects of their site in real time.
The integration includes:
- scheduled replication of specific data to and from the web databases
- real time adjustments to database content from within the TFM systems
- real time updates of product photos and website imagery
This was quite a demanding project to work on the client was very specific about how things should work and what facilities should be present on the site.
These include:
- an intelligent search mechanism that can search for non-plural words and return 3 levels of relevancy
- a wishlist that can allow you to call up previous ordered items and add them to your basket - whilst checking if they are still a stock item and that the price hasn’t changed.
- a clickable bread crumb trail
- one login facility to cover two types of customers - web account customers (people who have only ever ordered from the website) and instore account customers (people who have set up an account instore)
The development for this site will continue and there are some interesting new features in the pipeline.
This week I’ve had 2 phone calls from potential new customers, both of which totally confused me. Now I understand that people not in this industry don’t understand the technical terms, but there is no excuse for not knowing what you want.
The typical opener I get is: ‘Hello, how much does a website cost?’
OK, lets try asking that question at a garage: ‘How much are your tyres?’ Who can answer this question without getting some further information: what size wheels, type of car, how many are needed?
A website can cost anything - it could be a holding page at £75 or it could be a shopping site the size of Amazon and cost £30k upwards.
Here is a quick list of info that you need to have and the type of questions you need to ask:
Tell the designer:
- if you have a domain already registered
- if you have hosting
- what type of site you want and the type of content you have for it
- what other sites you have seen that you like
- if you have a budget to consider
- if you require photography, or if you have the photograph, or if you need stock photography purchasing
Ask the designer
- whether you can see their previous work
- what are their techniques regarding search engine optimisation
- if they have payment options
- whether they work from templates or design bespoke
Try and think of any useful information and offer it in the conversation, I quoted at least one of my potential clients an incorrect price because I didn’t fully understand what they wanted.
The incorrect price was in their favour by the way!
Website Consultation: Website & Marketing Advice
We all understand the internet. We all understand that more and more business is done through it. We also know that if we don’t use it effectively we are going to miss out.
But when you think about it:
• What are the systems you need to have in place?
• Why do you really need a website?
• Why, now that you have a website, does it not bring in the work you expected?
• Worst of all - how do you find the answers to these and a million other questions?
Ask design conscious .com
At Design Conscious .com we recognise that you sometimes don’t need a design company hassling you to re-design your website. It maybe that you quite like your existing website but it’s just not working for you.
You might desperately need to do some marketing or advertising but the costs scare you and where do you start?
Sometimes you just need find out what to do.
And the simplest thing is to ask someone.
Even simpler than that, book an hours consultancy with us and… ask away.
CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR CONSULTANCY
Here’s the deal
1 hour consultancy = £40 - Just £40 to get all your questions answered - there is just one price, so book as many hours as you need - you are in total control of the costs. (Payment is required before consultation begins)
The consultancy is to be conducted over Skype* in multiples of 1 hour (If an hour isn’t enough you can just book more time). We use Skype because the call can be recorded and sent to you for later referral, and because of Skype’s instant messaging it makes it really easy to show you examples of websites or methods of working etc. Of course the biggest bonus about using Skype is: the call is free. If you don’t have skype - you can still call our support skype number and the call can still be recorded. (Instant messaging won’t be available though)
So to recap:
• 1 hour £40
• Call recorded and sent to you
• Free call via Skype
• Done at a time to suit you
Your consultation will be conducted by Ian Blackford: Owner/Manager of Design Conscious .com who can draw on marketing professionals from around the world to answer your questions should the need arise. (May require Ian to call you back)
CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR CONSULTANCY
*Skype is a free internet telephone system that allows you to use your computer to make free calls via your broadband. The software from Skype is free but you also need a headset (cheap from PC World) - or of course your computer might already have a microphone and speakers built in.