Some clients have topical websites (such as schools and associations) that benefit from up to date content. Content management systems (CMSs) permit the site owner to edit and add web pages in much the same way as a blog. If the updating of a website is done less frequently than monthly, we recommend clients take advantage of our maintenance programme.

CMSs are not without their disadvantages and can restrict layout, be very slow to load and to edit, prone to errors and can compromise search engine rankings. There are over one thousand CMSs to choose from ranging from a couple of tags on a page to massive, monolithic systems in which the website is parked.

Joomla! is the most popular but suffers from the disadvantages listed above, particularly in the hands of someone who doesn't understand website design. We can create a Joomla! website but recommend ModX. ModX is also open source like Joomla! and therefore free but suffers from none of the disadvantages above.

The operation of most CMSs is done within a MS Word type interface that most users are familiar with. Pages can be created, edited, deleted, unpublished and such functionality as databases and shopping carts can be incorporated.

Contact us for a quotation for a CMS driven website.

If you have more than 20 products or services, consider storing their details on a database. This arrangement offers a number of advantages compared with 'hard coded' content.

Firstly, it is easy to update the details through an administration 'backend'. Secondly, visitors are able to sort and search through the results. The database can also be used for other administrative purposes.

There are several ways to sell your products online such as deposit of funds via EFT or supply followed by invoicing. These methods have various drawbacks such as a lengthy wait for payment and complex administration.

Selling via credit card assures you of prepayment, the documentation is automatic and timely and an increasing number of visitors are happy to purchase online. We use VCS as the payment gatyeway. They are efficient and are the gateway of choice for many large companies.

Clients often underestimate the power of email. We advise clients to send out periodic newsletters, even only twice a year because they inform your clients that you are still trading and encurage them to return to your website.

We use Campaign Monitor to send email lists. Results of the campaign are available within an hour or two.

Our practical website design tuition provides students with a solid foundation in major aspects of website design. Tuition is on an individual one-on-one part time basis with the pace of instruction and course content determined by the student. We have had students who are programmers, graphic designers, webmasters and those who know nothing but would like to take it up as a paying hobby.

All material supplied is used frequently by web designers - the course objective is to get students operational quickly whilst understanding website design fundamentals.

The Course Structure

Emphasis is placed on quality - well written content, understandable navigation and unintimidating layout.

Coding is moving away from HTML towards Cascading Style Sheets and the separation of structure and presentation. Style sheets offer speed, easy website maintenance and good search engine visbility. Therefore, students are taught to construct web pages wherever possible using only style sheets.

We do not use WYSIWYG editors with bloated code, simple HTML coding keeps the page fast and easily edited.

Tuition is structured carefully so that there is a linear learning curve. Typically, there is 40 hours of tuition, 2½ hours twice a week for eight weeks. Students are expected to show critical thought and be innovative as they design their own website on which they will be assessed.

The course is intensive and as the curriculum is adjusted to suit each student, more aspects of website design may be included.

Web Page Fundamentals: - What makes a good web page, readability, legibility, layout, hyperlinks, the role of graphics, browser issues.

Website Fundamentals: - Colour schemes, consistency, branding, navigation, usability issues, accessibility.

Basic HTML: - Tags and attributes, Formatting, Tables.

Cascading Style Sheets: - Classes, browser support, layout.

Web Graphics: - Graphics editors, graphics formats, vector graphics, effects, manipulation, optimizing, colours and schemes.

Page Layout: - Navigation, browser concerns, screen sizes, colours, legibility.

Site Promotion: - Optimizing pages, META tags, search engines, server logs, compression, encryption.

Resources: - Links to programmes, graphics, Java, Javascript, HTML and tips archives.

Web Content Editing - Content structure, the inverted pyramid, web writing style.

Publishing: - Uploading your website to the internet.

Use of Javascript - Navigation, sticky content, windows.

2GB (2,000 MB) Disc Space,
16GB of data transfer (bandwidth) per month,
Unlimited mail boxes (to set up yourself if required), Webmail (like Hotmail),
Virus scanning of incoming emails, Spam filtering,

Browser-based Control Panel including:

Email setup, Spam filtering controls,
Full site traffic statistics - number of visitors, where from, keywords used to find you etc.,
Details of bandwidth/disc space used,
Lots of utilities

Websites that are ignored do not generally do well. Those whose owners take an interest, thinking of new ways to improve the focus of the website, thinking of new content and ways to keep the website topical succeed. To encourage owners to keept their websites shiny, we offer a combined hosting/maintenance plan whereby we will regularly improve search terms to increase search engine ranking and update the website on instruction from the website owner.