Mount Gambier Website Design

Subtitle – a website is for life not just for Christmas!

Okay that’s all a bit of an exaggeration but what I’m trying to say is that websites shouldn’t simply be created and then left alone.  Just like a dog, websites need to be fed regularly with juicy bits of news about the business. Don’t worry that’s where the comparisons with dogs ends!

Websites used to be difficult to update by small businesses so the website would sit there for months and possibly even years without any content being added. However with Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress and Joomla any business that can use applications like Microsoft Word can also add content to their own website content.

Updating your website content is important for a couple of reasons – you want people to come back and visit your website so you need something new for them to come back for and also search engines will think your website is stale if you don’t update it. If search engines think that the website info is old then your business website will drop in its rankings and eventually it’ll be hard to find.

Business owners often ask what to write on their website. It can be news about the business itself – new products or services, how to use your products / services, events that you’ll be attending or special offers. If you have a business or events diary go through and see what can be newsworthy.

If you are already updating a Facebook Page or Twitter account, that can be placed on your website easily with a CMS website.

How frequently you update your website depends on the news you have to offer but at least once a month would be good and once a week even better.  You need to decide how often to add content to your website depending on your business and your available time. Once you have decided that you want to keep it consistent. If you decide that you’ll write one article a week you can write more and then schedule that they can be published one a week but you don’t want to write four articles and then publish them on the same day. Search engines like consistency and so do your customers.

Now personally I haven’t my personal Facebook page over to the new Timeline look because frankly I find it confusing. I liked the one column which to me was nice and clear but Timeline with it’s two column presentation is now coming to Pages as well.

If you don’t make the changes yourself by March 30th 2012 then Facebook will simply change it across for you. However there are some major changes so if you don’t want your Facebook Page to look a mess then you should act before the March 30th deadline.

New

Cover page photo

There are strict rules that this cannot have any contact info, price info, FB features (for example telling people to like the page), or any calls to action. The photo can signify what the business does though and the help suggests that you get creative.

To change the cover photo once you have one, place your mouse over the cover photo and a change cover button will appear and you can either select or upload a new photo.

The fact that you have changed photo will appear in your timeline with the new photo. This can be hidden if like me you changed your photo several times before you decided on the right one.

In the help it states the width of the photo should be 399 pixels but that doesn’t look very good and 850 pixels wide looks better it my opinion.

Highlight  post

With your mouse hover over the right hand top corner of a post and a star and pencil will appear. If you want people to notice a post you click on the star to highlight it. This means the post is spread across both columns. To un-highlight the post you repeat the process.

Edit post – pin and change date

When your mouse is  hovering over the right hand top corner a pencil appears as well as the start. If you click on pencil you can pin the post in place (so the post will always appear at the top of the column).

Below pin to top there is an option to change the date of the post. So you can decide where a post appears in your timeline.

You can also hide the post from the page or delete the post completely.

How to navigate new page

When someone clicks on your photos or other apps then can either use the back button on the browser or click on the name of the page (see image below). Either one will return them back to the timeline.

Post visibility

Now you check a box to have a box on your page that allows people to see posts by others, otherwise people will see all posts.

You can select to only show posts by that page and by friends until the posts are reviewed by Admin.

Removed

Landing page

Before the new changes a page could have a landing tab where your could put a welcome or a call to action. This has been removed so people visiting your page will only arrive on the timeline page.

Old Facebook Page

New Facebook Page

Check out the new Mount Gambier Website Design Facebook Page

Time will tell which one works better to keep in touch with current customers and also to attract new ones.

Let me know what you think of the new Facebook page.

If you don’t know much about website design yourself then there a few questions you may want to ask before deciding who you want to develop your website. You can always ask several companies the same questions and then compare the services and prices – just make sure that you are comparing like with like.

How much will it cost?

Now this will depend on what you want your website to do for your business. Some designers will charge by the website, by the hour, or will supply a quote based on information that you give them.

How much will the ongoing costs be?

Clients don’t always ask this question but it’s important that you know the initial set up costs and any ongoing costs since some website systems have monthly charges.

Will you be able to change the website yourself?

Now we realise that you don’t want to become website designers since you’re busy running your business but there may be a time when you want to add some information.  Find out upfront whether you can do that yourself or whether you have to pay a developer to do it or if you have to buy special software. If you need special software how much will this cost?

What if you want to change the look and feel of the website?

Websites need to be reviewed and updated every few years. This isn’t simply a way for web designers to earn more money but there are changes in the way that people use websites and these changes need to be incorporated into websites. Some years ago you wouldn’t have seen links to social media on website but now they are usually on every website.  Likewise people’s tastes change and a website can be changed to add a new logo, to change the colors or simply to move things around a little bit. How easy will that be to do? What costs are associated with it?

For clarification here are our answers to those questions.

How much will it cost? We’ll talk to you about you require for your business and maybe fill in some forms to make sure that we’ve understood exactly what you need. Based on that we’ll give you a quote and we charge by the hour. To give you an idea a basic WordPress website with about three pages and a basic custom template would be about $400.

How much will the ongoing costs be? You have to continue paying for the hosting and the domain name but there are no extra ongoing costs for the website design. The software we use are free Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Joomla. You only pay us for us skills when you use us.

Will you be able to change the website yourself? We supply technical documentation for the website and we can show you how to amend or add information yourself. If you use products like Microsoft Word then you’ll be able to add and change information in WordPress and Joomla.

What if you want to change the look and feel of the website? That’s not a problem. Both WordPress and Joomla have separate templates that can change the look and feel of the website. There are many free templates that you can use, low cost templates that you can buy or we can build you a custom made template. Changing from one template to another only takes a matter of minutes and the website comes with default templates. If you want us to build you a new custom made template then that can cost than $100 depending on how you want the template to look.

Let us know if you think we need to add any other questions to the list and answer them ourselves.

This partly depends on what you want to do with your website. If you know that you want affordable websites such as those created by WordPress and Joomla simply ask the hosting company if you can run a WordPress or Joomla website on their hosting.

For our customers in Australia, who prefer 24/7 support with hosting in Australia we recommend Webcity. We’ve used them for a lot of our clients and have been impressed with their service, support and pricing. They have a easy to use control panel (Cpanel) which puts you (or your developer) in control of your website.

If you require more than one domain then Hostgator may be an option for you. Usually when you host more than one domain then you have to pay for separate hosting for each domain. That’s not the case with Hostgator. You can have one main domain and lots of others and still pay for one hosting. This is very cost effective for online marketers who may have websites in several niche markets.

It really depends on what you want your website to do, but we’ve found these two hosting companies to be very good. We’re so impressed with them that the links above are affiliate links, which means that if you sign up through those links then we will receive a small commission. We only recommend services we use ourselves or our clients use.

You can either register a domain name for yourself or get us (or another website developer) to register a domain for you.

The main steps are:

What do you want your domain to be called?

This is not as obvious as it may seem. Your company may be called Smith and Jones but that doesn’t actually let anyone (including search engines) what you do. A name that describes what you do may work better for you so if Smith and Jones are actually widget makers then calling your domain ‘widget makers’ may make more sense.

Where are your clients based?

If your clients are all based in one country then you may only want one domain name such as .com.au. However if your clients are based in other areas then you may only want a .com domain or you may want more than one domain.

Once you’ve decided what the domain name will be then you can buy that domain from a register. In Australia there are only a certain number of registrars and you can find them at the Australian Domain Name Administrator (AUDA).  Prices and services will vary so make sure that you are comparing like with like.

If you don’t need to buy an Australian domain name then you have a lot more choice on where you buy your domains and on the whole the price is lower. There are websites such as Go Daddy who sell domains for a reasonable price.

This is one of the most common questions that we get asked.

Basically there are two parts

- a domain name (which is your address on the internet)

- a hosting account (which is where the information for the website is stored)

You can buy the domain name and hosting separately or together.

At the time of writing you can buy an Australian domain (.com.au) for about $22 for two years. Hosting varies from company to company and also depends on what you want from your website.

The Smart E-skills training is coming to Mount Gambier in March and I’ve already signed up. Why would a Mount Gambier Website Designer sign up for an e-skills workshop? Mainly so that the knowledge can be passed on to local businesses like you.

Local businesses need to be online so that customers can find them.  One of my clients picked up business from Queensland in Mount Gambier. Why? He was the only gardener that the person in Queensland could find online in Mount Gambier.

Back to the Smart E-skills training… If you are interested in attending this training please contact the number on this Smart E-skills flyer (355kb). This workshop has nothing to do with me since a government initiative which is why it’s FREE. I do think that it’s a bloody good idea though.

If you don’t want to attend the training but do want some down to earth, no technical jargon on updating or setting up a website simply get in touch.