Strawberrysoup Blog

Chichester is a historic market town in West Sussex, located on the scenic South coast of England. It is best renowned for its cathedral and its stunning Gothic architecture, which is a common style throughout the city. Chichester is also an extremely industrial area full of thriving businesses and shops – many of which have their own website.

Marks and Spencer, Dorothy Perkins, Tesco and W.H.Smith are all other examples of businesses and shops in Chichester which have taken advantage of the internet to rocket charge their profits and public awareness. Chichester’s art community contains an array of expert web designers, in which Strawberrysoup is a ‘major player’ – located on the cities North wall and our office is a mere five minutes from the cities cultural centre.

Today it is an extremely good idea to advertise your business or shop online, in the form of a website – and because Chichester is such a popular city, and is home to such a diverse range of people, cultures and arts it is a great place to have a beautiful website designed and built. We not only design stunning websites, but build them in the latest standards compliant code – they can even add e-commerce and content management system modules to your website!

If you have read the statistics you will realise what a tantalisingly lucrative market Internet users are – in 2006 over half of UK households, at 57%, had access to the internet. Of these, 6 in every 10 of internet users logged in everyday. 7 in 10 businesses in the UK already have a web presence of one kind or another – if your business is one of the 30% which hasn’t joined the Internet revolution yet then contact us and arrange a meeting today. They are less than a five minute walk from the centre of Chichester.

Statistics from National Statistics online - www.statistics.gov.uk

As time moves forward, ideas and technologies progress – the internet is no stranger to progression and it demonstrates as well as any other modern technology what great things happen with time. Once a rudimentary network of computers, sharing information on only a handful of topics, the internet has evolved monumentally in the past ten years. This evolution has given fruit to such technological miracles as instant messaging, email, internet television and radio, dynamic internet applications and VOIP (voice over IP – phone calls through the internet).

Twenty years ago, if you told someone that in the not too distant future they would be able to do their weekly shop, chat to friends, bid on auctions and send virtual post from their desk, they would collapse in a fit of laughter (or accuse you of being a witch and burn you at the stake). Yet today these very things are everyday life for the majority of people.

As the internet changed, so did the options available to web designers. The mass uptake of the broadband internet connection was a major way mark for modern web design – the speeds available for the downloading of content was such as to allow the streaming of video, audio and other multimedia. Web pages no longer were required to consist of plain text and basic formatting – web layouts could be forged completely from images and could contain animation and audio.

But, to quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. Websites started appearing that had no discernible design or purpose – there just because they could be. Random animations were strewn haphazardly across the page and an annoying audio track looped on entry with no option to stop. I may be painting a portrait of a cliché of a bad website, but such novelties as animation and sound really turned many designers (please excuse another movie influence) to the dark side. Thankfully most website design businesses were not ‘wowed’ by the array of new techniques available enough to abandon good taste, and instead of pasting them in a montage of annoyance, used them to create rich user interfaces like nothing ever before experienced.

Today designers have the tools available to achieve everything that was ever possible in print and more, on screen. With applets like Adobe/Macromedia Flash and Java and programming languages like PHP, ASP and CGI, interactivity like never thought possible is accessible to the average consumer. Nowadays, designs need to cater for an immense range of potential content – from plain text and images, maps and message boards to browser based massively multiplayer online games and interactive tours. It is generally no longer acceptable to have a page of information presented in default formatting, and call it a website.

Instead of plain, boring statistics and data displayed in type, websites can today visually represent this data in graphs and charts. Users can toggle how that data is displayed, adding another level of interactivity and therefore involving the user even more with the content. Comments and suggestions for the site owners can be left, visitors can upload pictures…share them, rate them, even sell them. Message boards, chat rooms, games, libraries, shops and vast online worlds to explore. It’s all possible, and the marvellous thing about it is that it can all be disabled with a flick of a switch (or automatically if you’re feeling a bit flash-Harry) if the user is on hardware or software which doesn’t support it.

With the release of a couple of brand new web technologies for the programming of websites, designers today are able to invent designs which harmoniously blend graphic beauty, accessibility, aesthetics and accessibility. If web standards, and designers respect for them, continue to grow as rapidly as they have in the past five years, one day every website will be accessible universally. This is because every web designer will create their sites in the strictest and latest standards compliant code. But until that time arrives, we already do and will complete the job for you!

Soon after the very invention of the Internet, the true purpose of the world wide web had been lost in the midst of a swamp of tables and images. Many web designers were concentrating on design above content and websites started displaying differently in different browsers and resolutions. Tables broke, and content was strewn meaninglessly across pages of clashing colors and tacky images taking minutes to load on our beloved 56k modems.

CSS is a relatively modern web design technology, but even in its infancy it is clear that it is the key to creating an  Internet that is better for everyone. CSS holds many advantages for both the web developer and the end user that older, and much more primitive methods could either not support or, if they did, only extremely erratically. CSS is used to style a websites layout, fonts and coloring, and tells the browser how to render the elements in a page on screen.

Standing for ‘cascading style sheets’ and invented by Norwegian software developer Hakon Wium-Lie in the  October of 1994, CSS slashes loading times and can be accurately interpreted cross platform. Hakon Wium-Lie invented CSS for one main reason - that being to separate content from design. All CSS rules should be kept in an individual file, and these rules are called to each X/HTML page so that changes made in one file have affects across a whole website - thus making modification of designs an extremely simple task.

Working cross platform means that your website which looks great in Internet Explorer 6 on Windows will look just as good on Safari on OSX or Firefox on that obscure distribution of Linux that that potential client of yours uses. CSS isn’t only brilliant cross platform, but ‘cross resolution’, too. It can be used to make layouts automatically resize to fit on a viewers screen, regardless of the resolution they use - in fact, it can even be used to make images resize to fit on a viewers screen. That’s 100% Javascript free - just one line of code, under twenty characters. No messy code, and no broken website if a viewer has Javascript turned off or are on a browser which doesn’t support Javascript.

Cutting out all of that useless table, frame and Javascript markup from your site not only boosts loading times  monumentally, but reduces the load on your web host, saving bandwidth and, therefore, precious money.

You can already see why using CSS instead of tables, frames and Javascript is the best thing you can do to make your website load quickly (yup, even more so than that new web hosting package you were looking at the other day). But what about those of us who know a website should look great as well as function great (we are web designers, after all) - well, CSS doesn’t cease to impress when it comes to this matter. The fact is that CSS actually gives designers more control over a page than ever before - from the font family, to line spacing, the style of bullet points in a list to how the page should look when it is printed; CSS does it all.

CSS gives designers a level of control that has never been possible before, it loads faster than ever before and uses less server resources. If your website uses tables, frames or excessive JavaScript for tasks that have much smaller and faster solutions then your website just isn’t cut out for the Internet of the 21st Century.

If you are looking for a web design company that will design and build your new or existing website using CSS, why not contact Strawberrysoup - a dedicated website design business focused on standards compliance and accessible websites?

The World Wide Web is the fastest evolving media platform in modern society. The data found on it is updated at a tremendous pace and it takes mere seconds for an internet publisher to document real world affairs as they unravel. The range and diversity of information available on the web is monumental, and practically any topic desired can be researched – whether that is in an online encyclopedia, specialist website, discussion forum or a personal website or blog.

Unfortunately web designers and publisher often neglect the needs of internet users with disabilities, or those browsing with older or less widely used software. As a result many websites are not accessible to a large percentage of internet users, and hence their experience is hindered. This is discrimination, and even though the “Disability Discrimination Act (1999)” contains several references to accessible websites, the law is nearly impossible to enforce. Only a handful of very large companies have been pursued with legal action over their websites – this is under 0.00001% of the internet – an insignificantly small fraction.

When a designer builds a site to adhere to accessibility guidelines, he or she writes the most basic markup which will achieve the design already devised. The less markup used, the more likely the final website is to function correctly cross platform. The other advantage to using as little markup as possible is that as a result loading times will be decreased. Only essential images are used, and when they are used ‘text replacement’ is utilized so that text is inserted in place of an image if the image cannot be rendered for any reason. This means if a user has images disabled or cannot view an image, they can still read any text which was in the image.

A number of other, highly specialist methods are also employed to ensure that no matter what operating system, browser or disabilities a user may use/have their experience is not compromised and they have access to all of the data available on the website. These methods range from options to enlarge or decrease the pages font size, options for high contrast versions of the page and a version of a page especially designed to be easily interpreted by a screen reader (a screen reader is a piece of software which reads the text on a page and can output that text for a variety of different uses, such as a specialized keyboard which has a series of small holes through which the below surface is raised to form Braille).

Websites should be accessible by all people, regardless of any disabilities they may have or software they may use. This results in a consistent user experience cross platform and the elimination of discrimination. Therefore increasing the quality of your website, improving the experience of the end user, bettering you/your organizations reputation and, in the case of a company, diversifying the percentage of the public which can view your product/service online.

We recognize the utmost importance of accessible web design and takes pride in building all of their client’s websites to only the strictest accessibility guidelines, as set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C are the definitive body in web design standards and their guidelines are those which a website is compared to if a publisher is ever taken to court over website accessibility (www.w3c.org).

We also acknowledge that accessible design needn’t mean boring design. Their expert web designers can create a bespoke solution tailored to your individual needs that is exciting, eye catching, bold and accessible.

This article describes how firms can use natural search engine rankings, sponsored advertising or a mixture of the two to yield effective results on the search engines.

INTRODUCTION TO SEARCH ENGINES

No-one can deny that search engines are one of the most important resources to drive traffic to your website. Google now processes more than 150 million searches every day (Google, 2001) and therefore it is essential that your business product or service can be found.

It is surprising that there are still many businesses that do not fully understand and appreciate how important and influential online marketing can be.

There are currently a number of methods that you can use to promote your website on search engines, however the main two that are used are natural rankings (by using search engine optimisation) and sponsored advertising.

NATURAL RANKINGS & SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

A natural ranking is a listing on a search engine that has not been directly paid for. These listings can be seen down the left hand side of your Internet browser. Natural rankings can only be achieved through hard work and meticulous thinking which is known as search engine optimisation and marketing.

The objective of search engine optimisation is to increase your businesses online visibility and traffic by ranking highly in search results for the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your website. If you search on your target keywords, you will see the leading website in the rankings. Your businesses aim should be to better that number one website.

Optimisation of your website is the starting block for achieving the results you are looking for. Once this is achieved it is vital to continue to market and promote your website online to ensure that it is noticed and viewed. When choosing the right search engine optimisation company to optimise and market your website, it is very difficult to justify spending money on an intangible service. The only way to select the right company is to see their previous search engine optimisation results. From the results you can begin to understand and appreciate the online visibility your own company could achieve.

The great thing about natural rankings is the fact that the consumer is searching to find your business rather than your business pushing to find the consumer. Natural rankings can only be achieved over a period of time rather than over night and therefore requires dedication and a high level of understanding within the market. For this reason it can potentially give the consumer a great deal of confidence in what your business has to offer. Ask yourself the question – “When I type in a search phrase, which listing am I likely to click on?” Most if not all of us would automatically click on the top 5 or 10 listings. We would seldom scroll through page 3 and onwards because we would have found what we were looking for within the first few listings.

ADVANTAGES

• Agreed fixed cost to optimise, market and achieve results
• Long term listing with natural placement
• Higher click through ratios due to improved trust
• Pull demand rather than push demand
• Improving your brand potential
• Improved overall cost effectiveness and ROI
  

DISADVANTAGES

• Higher initial investment
• Increased time taken to achieve effective results (between 6 and 12 months)
• No guarantees compared to paid placements
• Heavy competition for many popular keywords
• Finding the right search engine optimisation company

PAID PLACEMENTS – Pay Per Click (PPC)

Paid placements are listings on search engines that are paid for on a pay per click basis. These listings can be seen predominantly down the right hand side of your Internet browser. Each time someone enters one of your selected keywords or phrases and then clicks through to your website via your paid listing, you have to pay a click fee which is dependent upon the level of competition visible for that specific keyword. You have to bid your highest click fee for each of your chosen keywords and the higher your click fee with respect to others, the higher your advert will be in the sponsored listings section.

For example, if you owned a Web Design Company in Southampton, two possible keywords could be ‘website design’ and website design southampton’. As you can see in Table 1, the level of competition and effective click fees for these two keywords are very different.

Table 1

Although these figures are not exact, they give you a good indication to the level of competition and costs potentially involved when using paid placements.

With paid placements, there is no requirement for search engine optimisation or marketing and results can be seen instantly. Using paid placements does not require any initial investment and can be designed and controlled precisely to suit individual business needs.

Even though paid placements allow tangible results and will certainly cost less from the start, results are fully dependent on your business’ financial situation. If you have no money, you have no online visibility. Google and other PPC providers have the ability to remove your listing if bills are not paid, therefore leaving your business vulnerable by removing the large online channel that a PPC promotion creates.

Paid placements are much the opposite from natural rankings. Your company is pushing to find business rather than the business wanting to come to you. This can have a negative impact on the success of the overall PPC promotion but due to the pay as you go nature of paid placements, this negative impact certainly does not remove the need to try and test its possibilities.

Many companies can manage a PPC campaign for you. Most will charge either a standard monthly fee or will charge you based on a percentage of your monthly PPC budget. For larger scales campaigns it is always best to find a PPC management company who are certified and have credit facilities with the PPC providers. This will ensure the company understands all the different functionality available when setting up a PPC campaign which will give your business the best advice and recommendations specific to your needs.

ADVANTAGES

• Quick tangible results
• No initial required investment
• Set budget that can be meticulously monitored
• Reduced risk through pay as you go nature
• Minimal human resources required to implement
• Easy to setup with or without a PPC management company

DISADVANTAGES

• Continuous investment required on a monthly basis
• Overall cost can sky rocket
• Reduced consumer confidence in sponsored advertising
• Competitive keywords can be very expensive

CONCLUSION

After looking at these methods of online promotion, both have pro’s and con’s that will suit some but not all businesses. Selecting the right method for your business will be down to budget, time frames and internal resources available.

In a perfect world, choosing between the two should not necessary. Implementing both methods is the only way to achieve results from all angles. With natural rankings taking in between 4 to 8 months to achieve effective results, paid placements can balance this out until the natural rankings begin to make a difference. As this happens, the PPC budget can be reduced incrementally until eventually it is removed leaving the long term natural listings with a higher percentage of click through ratios to take over.

Online promotion is an extremely powerful tool but only for businesses that are willing to invest their time as well as their money to achieve results. Finding the right SEO Company to either optimise and marketing your website and/or setup a PPC campaign is a decision that will determine the success or failure of your overall campaign. The most effective way to ensure this is through previous portfolio examples and a proof of methodology. These will give you a good level of understanding and confidence in what that company can offer your business and the level of results you will be driving to achieve.

Each website is built for a different purpose, which could be to sell a business’ products online, or simply as a brochure to show potential customers what a business does, and then to attract them to contacting the business for more information.

This article aims to describe the differences between a static website and a content managed website using a content management system by describing the benefits and disadvantages to SME’s (small and medium sized enterprises.)

We hope that this article helps both business users, and other website design firms to understand more the difference between these two types of website.

A STATIC WEBSITE

A static website is a website that is designed, created and then hosted by a website designer and is usually programmed using a static language like HTML or XHTML. Once the website is online, any changes that are needed require a website designer, or someone that knows how to edit, create or delete web pages.

Typically, static websites are much simpler to create a content managed website, due to the fact that no database needs to be created.

ADVANTAGES OF A STATIC WEBSITE

There are a number of advantages of static websites over a dynamic, content managed website for SME’s, dependent on their business:

• Less cost involved
• Simpler to create and host
• Quick to download on lower bandwidths

DISADVANTAGES OF A STATIC WEBSITE

• Could cost you more in the long run depending on the frequency of the updates
• Long change process as you have to wait for a website designer to have the time to make your changes
• Not as much functionality, so you website could be lacking against your competitors

A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR A WEBSITE

If a business decides that they want to sell their products online, update their website content when they need to and capture customer details, then a content management system is more than likely to be the best solution.

A content management system is a system that allows users to add, edit, update and delete their website content quickly and easily through the use of an administration section on their website and a database (usually MySQL, MSSQL or Access.) Content management systems use server side scripting languages such as PHP, ASP or ASP.net.

The database is used to store information that the user enters via the administration section, and data is retrieved from it each time a user accesses the content managed website.

A content management system is suitable for all types and sizes of businesses, and it can be used to drive all types of content, including text, documents, sound, video and much more.

ADVANTAGES OF A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• Content can be changed on the website as frequently as is needed, without having to use a website designer or know HTML code.
• Changes can be made immediately due to a much shorter change process
• Can be cheaper than a static website in the longer term
• Easier to budget for ongoing costs than a static website

DISADVANTAGES OF A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• Initial cost is normally higher than a static website
• May be slightly slower for users on low bandwidths than a static website
• Training may be needed depending on the complexity of a content management system

CONCLUSION

This article has aimed to describe the advantages and disadvantages of both a content managed website using a content management system (CMS) and a static website.

Both of these types of website offer various benefits over each other, however it is becoming increasingly evident to Strawberrysoup, that SME’s want to be able to look after their own website, without having to ask a website designer to make changes to their website.

New technologies are being implemented on an almost weekly basis which is allowing web designers and web agencies to create and install content management systems quickly and therefore with less of a cost implication to their clients.

Strawberrysoup has their own proprietary content management system called StrawberrySystem which is a modular based content management system allowing SME’s to choose which aspects of the system they need, such as bulk email, e-commerce, news stories or job postings.